Reply #9: As a kid I spent many hours hammering the green outer shells off the hard casing of the walnut, and

[Sal Minella]

then picking the walnut meats out of the hammered shells. It's a time-consuming process because the nutmeats are trapped in such a convoluted pattern inside the shells, you have to nearly pulverize them to get all the good stuff out.

And your hands will be stained brown for weeks. Craft dyers use walnuts for one of their most common brown dyes. I've seen black walnut ice cream and wonder how the nuts are shelled commercially.