In my area there are quite a few walnut trees, we have a small one in our garden. I suppose southern England is close to the northerly limit of walnuts. We have had walnuts dropping for the last 10 days.
Nevertheless our tree yields a few kilos (unshelled) of nuts each year if we mange to pick them up before the grey squirrels and crows. Our walnut kernels are not a large as those bought in the supermarket but in my view taste better. Some people we know have said that local walnuts taste awful, however on asking we found that they tried eating them immediately after shelling them. Our late neighbour advised us to dry out the nuts in an oven at 50°C although leaving them to dry on our hot water tank seems to work just as well. Perhaps because we are on the northern limits of the walnut tree extra measures are needed to dry them out. When we forgot to dry the nuts one year they went mouldy!
I was surprised to see the result of Spanish research on the healthy properties of walnuts this Tuesday (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/health/6036409.stm). Are walnuts rather than olive oil the key to the health of the Mediterranean diet?
2006-10-13 @ 18:55