They are definitely a different taste. It’s a bit of a bitter, earthy taste to them. You can try to balance them out with a bit of sugar or salt to see if it swings the taste profile.

Biggest thing I can think of when harvesting: wear gloves, and know that it’s okay to get ones with blackened hulls as long as they aren’t moldy/rotten. Also, don’t let them sit in a bucket too long, as they will start molding.

They do take a bit of work to get to them. Here’s largely the process I followed from Feral Forager: youtube.com. In a nutshell:

• Find a good set of trees that are dropping the nuts
• Pick up as much as you have patience for. I don’t knock them off trees, because I trust the tree to know when the nut is finished
• Dehull them. I use Feral Foraging’s method. Make sure to wear medical gloves, or you will look like you’ve been rooting around in a fire pit! Also, do this fairly quickly, as the nuts will mold in their hulls.
• Wash them with a high-pressure hose or pressure washer
• Dry them on a rack of some kind
• Store them something that gets plenty of airflow
• Let them mellow for anywhere from 6 weeks to 6 months. I usually harvest this year and then start cracking from last year’s harvest. This time is important, as it lets the flavor develop
• Crack them, use them soon, or store them in the fridge for about a month.

I edited the post to have a picture of mine. It’s the Grandpa’s Goody Getter. I know there are other kinds, but I liked the approach of this one, and it requires no electricity, unlike some others.

Thanks for the link! I’ve added it to my list of things to read.

The stew is a great idea! We’ve usually modified normal recipes, but maybe some more experimentation is in order.

We’ve been working on growing or foraging more to know how it works BEFORE we need it. it’s been quite a bit of work. We have 5 mouths to feed, so we pull from a lot of things so that we don’t over-harvest any one thing.

It’s the grandpa’s goody getter. I was skeptical at first, cause I saw it in an endorsement from the youtuber Feral Foraging.

It’s pretty amazing, mechanically speaking. It has an upper and lower jaw that hold the nut. I haven’t figured out there details, but the system is able to size for the individual nut, so the power gets delivered when it meets resistance. It cracks the nut along the central pillar, and then somehow doesn’t release all the pressure by smashing the cracked nut.

It was expensive, but I plan on sharing it with several other foragers so more people can get use out of it.