Cracking good time
Trip Start
Nov 27, 2009
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94
146
Trip End
Ongoing
Ruffepeyre, Midi-Pyrénées, France
Tuesday, February 14, 2012
Unsurprisingly, the people of the area in times gone by would have done exactly the same. The walnuts were saved until the weather forced everyone indoors and other work was impractical. Yvon, the man from over the road (he is 87 years old and still dancing), came over to give us instruction on how to shell nuts. His wife, Renne, is recovering from a broken hip in a rehabilitation centre until she can manage the 15 steps up to their front door. Yvon likes some company and ensured that we understand how to hit a nut with a hammer and pick up the pieces. The expert way, if you're interested, is to have a flat rock with a small depression, hold the walnut in it, pointy end up, and tap it. Then a pocket knife is useful to free stubborn pieces of kernal from the shell and to remove the paper bit in the middle.
We spent about 5 days smashing up over 80kg of walnuts, multiple sackfuls of them. This gave us 31kg of edible bits (actually more but some were, ahem, organically disposed of...). At the press they were prcoessed through several machines and were minced, warmed, cooked and squished to produce 19 litres of oil and some dry stuff that looks like mdf but is technically edible. Nic, our friend and host, was adamant that it could be used in soup but I think the chickens ought to learn to like it!
We've each taken an arty farty shot, they're in the album - whose is best?
