All my life, I've wondered how nut growers got the nutmeat out of a walnut in one piece. Last week, I learned how it's done.
I discovered the answer when I stole a bunch of walnuts from a pet sitting client's front yard (which was
covered with nuts from two ginormous trees).
Seems that fresh walnut meats are kind of rubbery. Cracking the outer shell in several places makes it easy to remove the nut in one piece. The hardest thing is removing the membrane from the center of the nut, but because they're rubbery, you can slightly pry apart the nutmeat to get the membrane out without breaking the nut in half.
Mystery solved!
