When I was young, my grandfather’s driveway was overshadowed by a massive butternut tree (Juglans cinerea) that grew in his neighbor’s yard. Grandpa complained loudly about the mess of sticky husks that littered his garden and fell onto vehicles parked below. It was the largest butternut tree that I have ever seen. Unfortunately, it was cut down before I took an interest in foraging, so I never tasted any of the nuts that my grandfather grumbled about.
The truth is that most of my neighbors will never taste butternuts, not because they are difficult to gather, but because they are hard to find. Although never abundant, butternuts – also known as white walnuts – once ranged from southern Canada to the Carolina Appalachians and west to the Mississippi. Now, they are listed as endangered on the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List. This is in large part due to an intimidatingly named fungus, Ophiognomonia clavigignenti-juglandacearum, which attacks the stems of the trees and leaves black cankers on the trunk and branches. The fungus was first reported in the United States in the 1960s and spread rapidly; fungal spores are carried to healthy trees via rain-splash, wind, and insects. Nut-bearing trees, however, may still be found by those who are patient enough to look. Sunny openings in forests or old fields are great habitats for them.
Butternuts have the characteristic alternating, feather-compound leaves of the walnut genus, each comprising 11 to 17 leaflets with only the tiniest teeth on the margins. The terminal leaflets of butternut leaves are conspicuous, which differentiates them from black walnuts (J. nigra), where the terminal leaflets are much reduced. The mature bark is a messy braid of intersecting ridges, like that of the white ash, but wider. The nuts of butternuts are distinctive, with sticky, green, football-shaped husks. Black walnuts, which are also edible, are round. (See “Black Walnut: Harvest and Fellowship,” Autumn 2014.) If you are fortunate enough to find a butternut that is producing nuts in abundance, count your blessings. Then check your calendar. You want to keep a sharp eye on the developing nuts through September because the squirrels will surely be doing the same.
With black walnuts, I usually let the thick husks rot away, but with butternuts, I break them off with a hammer. The nuts keep a long time in the shell, but I usually eat my modest harvest before the end of a week. The hardest part, of course, is cracking the nut. There is no easy way to do this. The shell is hard and thick. I’ve tried all manner of nutcrackers. The only method that has worked for me has been an assertive strike with a hammer or a rock. I wear safety glasses and leather gloves for this and inevitably smash my fingers at least once. But the effort is worth it. With a pick, I tease out the little, paddle-shaped nutmeats. They smell, I kid you not, like baked banana bread. They are, in my estimation, the world’s tastiest nut.
Foragers who live near more abundant butternut harvests may add butternuts to porridges or soups. Indigenous foragers from many communities value butternuts for medicinal purposes and sustenance; historic references include the extraction of a thick oil from the nut (which may hint at the origin of the tree’s common name). Perhaps, if I had gathered from my grandfather’s yard while his neighbor’s majestic tree still stood, I could have tried such delicacies. Instead, I consider each nut I find to be a treasure and eat it, as John Muir would say, “with love and adoration in my soul.”
Being a forager has, more than anything else in my life, made me viscerally and acutely aware of the impacts that humans have had on the forests around us. In the case of the butternut, that is a heavy weight to bear. The privilege of eating from the land brings with it a responsibility for stewardship of the food plants that we enjoy. It is a kind of contract. If the butternut feeds you, it behooves you to become its ambassador and protector in return. If you are fortunate enough to find butternuts, consider it a blessing; then consider turning your attention to their conservation.