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We had two large black walnut trees not far from the house when we moved in and the squirrels helped spread little ones far and wide across the big yard. The advice Emmy gives for collecting the nuts is fine if you have exactly one tree in your nice suburban-sized yard. If you have a big yard, *several acres,* like we had, suggesting leaving the nuts on the ground for awhile is kind of rushing things. You don't bother with persimmons till after the first hard freeze, and you don't bother the walnuts till it's cold all day. All the nasty goop between the husk and the shell of the nut, shrivels away and you can pick up and husk the nuts with mostly clean hands. My mother would have loved the nut cracker Emmy uses. We used the good old fashioned hammer and rock method.
The husks do have a strong smell, I wouldn't call in unpleasant, but it's not exactly French perfume either. Evergreen mixed with good dark dirt, maybe. Removing the husks you will get some of that smell on you... The nuts in the shell have practically no smell.
Even in a good year you will find nuts meats that have gone dark and shriveled. You can't tell till you've opened them. But I've never heard of so many bad ones as Emmy described.
Black walnut meats have all their own taste. Though I personally didn't know anyone I grew up near who didn't like them, I can understand they might take getting used to if no one in your family was familiar with them. As hard as they are to get open, people I knew appreciated them. They taste only vaguely like English walnuts. They are much more pungent and more oily.
It does take some attention to detail to prepare the meats for cooking or use in ice cream. Even with Emmy's wonderful nut cracker, you have to be careful to get rid of all the bits of shell. The inside parts that are paper thin in an English walnut shell are thicker and just as hard as the outside in a black walnut. My first college roommate's mother liked to bake. Her chocolate chip cookies with black walnuts were delicious. But... she was not good at getting the bits of shell out. You had to eat her cookies very carefully!
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