Roaming Roots

PIGNUT HICKORY, HOGNUT HICKORY, SMOOTHBARK HICKORY, BROOM HICKORY, SWEET PIGNUT, COAST PIGNUT HICKORY, SWAMP HICKORY

We were almost home but Hurricane Ian was headed to Florida and our house was in the evacuation zone, so we anxiously waited it out in Georgia.

Several tall trees near our campsite were dropping these curious nuts identified as pignut hickory and since we needed a diversion . . .

BOTANICAL DESCRIPTION

Native to North America, this large deciduous tree can reach heights of 50 to 80 feet with a 25- to 35-foot spread. The bark is usually gray, is smooth when young, then develops scaly ridges it ages.

The compound odd-pinnate leaves typically have 5 or 7 leaflets. These leaflets are ovate-lanceolate, have finely serrated edges and a length of 3-6 inches with the lowest two leaflets one-third the size of the upper three leaflets. In autumn, the green foliage turns an attractive gold color.

In spring, inconspicuous yellow-green flowers appear. Pignut hickories are monoecious, meaning they have both male flowers and female flowers on the same tree. The male flowers are hanging catkins around 3 inches long, and the female flowers are short spikes.

On mature trees of at least 25 years of age, the female flowers will produce rounded nuts in a green husk. Once ripe, the husk that turns light brown, becomes ridged with four segments, and falls to the ground.

RECIPE

Candied Pignut Hickory

I spent a good hour or so pounding pignut hickory nuts with a hammer and picking the nutmeats out with a tweezer.

The pignut hickory is considered edible but not very palatable. It is said that early colonists found the nuts so acrimonious they fed them to their pigs, leading to the terms “pignut” and “hognut.”

Tasting the the raw nutmeats, I too found them to be extremely bitter (and a bit on the small side). However, I was hopeful that they could be transformed into something tasty as I had read online that they could be made more pleasant by candying them.

• 1 cup nuts
• 1/4 cup white sugar
• 1 Tbsp butter

Add all ingredients to a pan and heat over medium heat for 5 minutes. Stir frequently so your mixture doesn’t burn. Transfer immediately onto parchment paper and separate the nuts. After cooling a few minutes, the candy coating will harden. 

I have used this recipe a number of times with success using other nuts like pecans and walnuts. However, with pignut hickory, candying only slightly improved the flavor.

And on this (literally) bittersweet note, we headed home to see what damage Hurricane Ian left in its wake.

Once home we found trees ripped apart by wind, buildings ravaged, roads flooded, and debris everywhere.

But our home was thankfully still standing. With the roof on.

We continued to live in the camper for another week as there was no electricity in our town. I was reminded of how dependent we are on technology because, besides the obvious need for electricity, there also was minimal cellular reception in the area and the few businesses open were cash-only because there was no internet to run customers’ credit cards.

Our neighbors are amazing; checking on each other, running errands to get gas for generators and groceries, helping each other with clean-up and repairs.

Life is starting to return to normal, but I am in awe of the kindness and resiliency of the people in our new home state.

References

Carya glabra. (2022, October 8). In Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carya_glabra

Hutchins, B. (n.d.). Pignut hickory. Glen arboretum. https://wp.towson.edu/glenarboretum/home/pignut-hickory/

Pignut Hickory. (n.d.). http://www.bio.brandeis.edu/fieldbio/Edible_plants/PignutHickory/PignutHickory.html

University of Kentucky College of Agriculture, Food & Environment. (2022, October 21). Pignut hickory. https://www.uky.edu/hort/Pignut-Hickory