JUGLANS REGIA
WE CALL THEM ENGLISH walnuts and the English call them Persian walnuts.
These are cold-tender walnuts—although there is a similar type called Carpathian walnuts that can weather winter temperatures down to 35°F below zero—and so most walnuts grown in the United States are grown in California, especially the Central Valley. There once was a large walnut production in Napa and Sonoma counties during Prohibition, but with the return of legal wine, these regions eventually replaced their walnut acres with wine grapes.
THE ORGANIC FACTOR
Until recently, organic walnut production was held back by the walnut husk fly, which could destroy up to 100 percent of a walnut crop with no organic controls available to stop it. Agricultural researchers have come up with a method of spraying walnut trees with a thin layer of kaolin—a natural clay—that turns trees white. Not only does the clay prevent the husk fly from penetrating the nuts, it prevents intense sun from scalding the skin of the nuts—the white color causes more light to scatter among the leaves—which hastens ripening. This has
allowed the development of an organic walnut supply, giving farmers the chance to increase their income by 50 percent over conventional walnuts (Organic nuts bring a 50 percent premium over cheaper conventional nuts.)
NUTRITION
English walnuts are one of the few plant sources of health-promoting Omega-3 essential fatty acids—about 3 grams in a 1-ounce handful of walnuts. That compares to less than 1⁄2 gram in other tree nuts. Besides Omega-3, walnuts contain good amounts of vitamin E, thiamine, vitamin B6, folate, magnesium, copper, and zinc.
WHAT TO LOOK FOR
English walnuts are best if bought still in their easily cracked shells. If you find the nutmeats shelled out, it’s a good bet they will have lost some quality. Black walnuts (see Keep an Eye Out for Black Walnuts) are most often sold in stores as shelled-out nutmeats sealed in plastic bags. If you see them sold in their hard shells in the fall, they’ll most surely be fresh.
When buying walnuts sold out of the shell, make sure they aren’t rancid. Because of its large amount of polyunsaturated oil, it goes rancid fairly quickly. If you can find the nutmeats refrigerated or frozen, that’s a good sign and an indication of how you should store them at home.
STORAGE AND PREPARATION
Like any oil-rich seed or nut, walnuts can spoil if not stored properly. If you detect a paint-like odor from your walnuts, they have turned rancid and should be discarded. In fact, walnuts have more oil than most nuts. About 70 percent of their weight is oil. So store the shelled nuts in the fridge or freezer so that the oil is protected, and place them in an airtight bag, especially in the fridge, as they can absorb odors from fish, citrus, and other foods. Unshelled walnuts will stay fresh from their fall harvest until late winter or early spring if kept in a cool, dry place.
When chopping walnuts in a blender or food processor, don’t overdo it, because the oil in the walnuts will soon reduce the pieces to a paste.
USES
Thin-shelled English walnuts are indispensable in salads, crushed as part of crusty coatings for anything from meats to cheesecake, crushed over ice cream, and used in all sorts of sweet and savory dishes.
One reason English walnuts are so versatile is that they have a mild flavor that seldom interferes with other flavors in a dish. Toasted, theyincrease in flavor, but not greatly. Candied, they become wonderful additions to salads and desserts. And walnut oil is a superior oil for salads—and for oil painters: Michelangelo used it to thin his paints when working on the Sistine Chapel.
Serve toasted or raw whole walnuts on top of breakfast cereals, tossed into salads or on pastas, in risottos, sprinkled into stir-fries, as a healthy between-meal snack. ....read more
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