Shagbark hickory (Carya ovata) trees are a familiar sight along rural roads and field edges over much of the Northeast. They are recognizable year-round by their telltale bark, with pieces peeling off in vertical strips more than a foot long and pulling away from the trunk up to several inches at each end. Shagbark hickory’s compound leaves have five leaflets: the two inner ones noticeably smaller than the outer three. Mature trees are typically 50 feet tall, with trunks often a foot or more in diameter.
In addition to the tree’s distinctive peeling bark (under which bats are known to roost), Carya ovata has attractive, deep yellow fall foliage, and its wood is useful for tool handles, as firewood, and for smoking food. The most appealing trait of shagbark hickory from a foraging perspective is its delicious nuts, which taste like store-bought walnuts lightly sprayed with maple syrup. Some people, myself included, believe that no tastier nut is produced by a native species of this, or perhaps any, region. They are good eaten raw right out of the shell, but even better when lightly toasted or incorporated into baked goods. Indeed, their fine flavor makes them a superior substitute for walnuts or pecans in virtually any recipe.
Shagbark hickory nuts typically ripen in the Northeast from mid-September into late October. The quantity and quality of nuts can vary considerably from tree to tree and from year to year. Look for shagbark hickory trees in sunny spots in or along the edges of fields or country roads, as these will tend to bear more and bigger nuts than those shaded by other trees. One of my favorite ways to find hickory nuts is by bicycling through the countryside, as the fallen nuts pile up along the edge of the road and in adjacent fields. In a good year, under a good tree, you should be able to find and gather several hundred nuts at a time, then return to the same spot a week or so later to gather nuts that have ripened in the interim.
Shagbark hickory nutmeats are enclosed in a smooth, light tan shell about ¾ to 1 inch long that is itself covered by a spherical, shiny green, four-parted husk about 2 inches in diameter. The nuts usually fall off the tree when they’re ripe, so there’s no need to pick them directly from the tree. The four-parted husk typically splits away from the shell (or is easily pulled off by hand) after the nuts have hit the ground. Once the husks are removed, shagbark hickory nuts keep very well in their shells; if kept dry and relatively cool, they should last a year or more in storage. (Once you’ve shelled the nuts, however, you should refrigerate or freeze those you don’t use or eat within a few days.)
Extracting shagbark hickory nutmeats from their shells is a bit of a challenge. One effective way to do this is to place a nut on a hard surface, such as a flat rock, tip it up on its narrow, non-pointy edge, holding it in place with one hand, then tap with a hammer just hard enough to send cracks through the shell. After some practice, you should be able to extract the nutmeats in large pieces with a minimum of picking. A dental scraper (available for sale online) can help extract any nutmeat pieces remaining embedded in shell fragments.
Shagbark and other hickory nuts have a long heritage as a foraged foodstuff throughout the species’ range. European botanists of the 17th and 18th centuries observed Native Americans crushing the shells with stones, then putting everything (nutmeats, shells, and all) into mortars, where they were mixed and pounded with water and then boiled to produce a milky soup or gruel-like substance called “pawcohiccora” (Algonquian) – hence the derivation of the word “hickory.”
Farm families and other rural folk gathered ripe nuts by the bushel for their own use and for sale in produce markets, where they were a common sight as recently as the 1940s. Since that time, however, our increasingly fast-paced lifestyle seems to have drawn most people toward the convenience of store-bought, pre-shelled, cultivated nuts such as pecans and walnuts. Still, it is hard to imagine a better antidote to the stresses of modern life than spending a splendid fall afternoon in the countryside on a nutting expedition with family or friends. It is but a short leap (literally and figuratively) from a “pick-your-own’’ apple orchard to gathering nuts at a nearby tree.
Several other species of smoother-barked hickories are worth foraging in this region, including the pignut hickory (Carya glabra) and bitternut (also called yellowbud) hickory (C. cordiformis). While pignut nutmeats are edible and decent-tasting, their smaller size makes them less desirable than shagbark nuts. And while bitternut nutmeats are much too bitter to be considered palatable raw, it is possible to express a high-quality, not bitter oil from them.