Suggestions Adjust quantity and proportions to your needs and taste. Black walnuts have an amazing, intense flavor. Not everyone loves them, but we adore them for their rich flavor, tinged with blueberry. They’re leagues above the English walnuts you can buy at the store—and they’re all around us. You can often find small caches the squirrels haven’t entirely devoured at the end of the winter, just as we come into maple syrup season. We hull our wild walnuts by rolling them around on a hard, flat surface under our boots. Then we wash them to get as much gunky stuff off the shells as possible, before letting them dry in a squirrel-safe spot for at least a couple of weeks. We have found the best and speediest method for getting the nuts out is just to whack them a handful of times with a claw hammer, not worrying too much about trying to get whole halves and quarters—just make sure no tiny bits of shell get in there. Twenty or thirty minutes of cracking should give you enough for a recipe—or you can order them, already processed, online, from local sources.