Black walnuts should be gathered while very young and tender, so that you may pierce them through with a needle.

Make walnut catsup, sauce, or pickle from the beginning to the middle of July, when walnuts are in perfection for these purposes.

INFORMATION BELOW FROM 1800s COOKBOOKS

BLACK WALNUT CATSUP
Gather them green, prick them with a large needle, and let them lie three days in an earthen pan, sprinkled with a handful of salt, and very little water. Mash them well each day with a rolling pin. On the fourth day, pour some scalding hot salt and water over them, mash again, and let them stand the whole day. Then with a spoon or cup, lift out what liquor there is, pound the walnuts well, and pour a little good vinegar and water over them, which will extract all their juice. Pour this off, and put to it what you already have. Boil it slowly, and skim well. 

When there is no longer any scum, put to every quart one ounce each bruised ginger, allspice, and black pepper, and one-fourth ounce each of cloves, mace, and nutmeg. Simmer it three quarters of an hour, and when cold, bottle it.

BLACK WALNUT CATSUP No. 2
To one gallon of vinegar, add 100 walnuts when still green, pounded, two tablespoons salt, a handful of horseradish, one cup mustard-seed, bruised, one pint shallots, cut fine, one-half pint garlic, one-fourth pound allspice, one-fourth pound black pepper, and one tablespoon ginger. If you like, you can add cloves, mace, sliced ginger, and sliced nutmeg.

Put all these in a jug, cork tightly, shake well, and set it out in the sun for five or six days, remembering to shake it well each day. Then boil it for fifteen minutes, and when nearly cool, strain, bottle, and seal the bottles.

ANOTHER WAY, FOR FISH SAUCE
Take walnuts when they are green, bruise them well in a marble mortar, and strain off the liquor through a cloth. Let it stand to settle, pour off the clear, and to every pint of it add one pound of anchovies, and one-eighth ounce each of mace, cloves, and Jamaica pepper, bruised fine. Boil them together till the anchovies are dissolved, then strain it off. To the strained liquor, add half a pint of the best vinegar and eight shallots. Just boil it up again, pour it into a stone pan or china bowl, and let it stand till cold. Then it is fit to put up in bottles for use. It will keep for years, and is excellent with fish.

BAY SAUCE
Get young walnut leaves while tender. Make a mixture of the following ingredients: one quart salt, one handful of horseradish, one-half dozen onions chopped up, two teaspoons allspice, and one tablespoon black ground pepper. It will improve it to add a tablespoon of ground ginger.

Put in a layer of the leaves and then one of the mixture, and so on till the jar is nearly filled. Cover with good cold vinegar, put it in the sun for a fortnight,* then bottle. It will not be good for use until it is six months old. This is an excellent sauce for fish. 

*fortnight – a period of two weeks

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PICKLED BLACK WALNUTS
Gather the walnuts while you can run a pin through them. Boil them in an iron pot three hours to soften the shell. Put them in a tub of cold water, hull and wash them, and put them in your jars. Pour salt and water over them and change it every day for a week. At the end of that time, scald them in weak vinegar.

Let them stand in this three days, then pour it off, and for half a bushel of hulled walnuts, have one-fourth pound of cloves, a teacup* of mustard seed, two spoons black pepper, a pint of scraped horse-radish, two pods of red pepper, and some sliced onions and garlic. Put these in the jars with the walnuts and fill them up with strong cold vinegar. Pickled walnuts will keep for six or seven years, and are as good at the last as the first.

*teacup – same as a jill or gill; four ounces in the U.S. and five ounces in the U.K.

PICKLED BLACK WALNUTS No. 2
Gather them while the shells are very soft, and rub them all with a flannel. Then wrap them singly in vine leaves. Lay a few vine leaves in the bottom of a large stone jar, put in the walnuts, (seeing that each of them is well wrapped up so as not to touch one another,) and cover them with a thick layer of leaves.

Fill up the jar with strong vinegar, cover it closely, and let it stand three weeks. Then pour off the vinegar, take out the walnuts, and renew all the vine leaves. Fill up with fresh vinegar and let them stand three weeks longer. Then again, pour off the vinegar and renew the vine leaves.

This time, take the best white wine vinegar, put salt in it till it will bear an egg,* and add to it mace, sliced nutmeg, and scraped horseradish, in the proportion of an ounce of each. Then add a gallon of vinegar to a hundred walnuts. Boil the spice and vinegar about eight minutes, then pour it hot on the walnuts.

Cover the jar closely with a cork and leather and set it away, leaving the vine leaves with the walnuts. When you take any out for use, disturb the others as little as possible, and do not put back again any that may be left. You may pickle butternuts green in the same manner.

*bear an egg – to make a brine with enough salt so that an egg will float.

WALNUTS PICKLED WHITE
Take large young walnuts while their shells are quite soft so that you can stick the head of a pin into them. Pare them very thin till the white appears. As you do them, throw them into spring or pump water in which some salt has been dissolved. Let them stand in that water six hours, with a thin board upon them to keep them down under the water.

Fill a porcelain kettle with fresh spring water and set it over a clear fire. Put the walnuts into the kettle, cover it, and let them simmer (but not boil) for five or six minutes. Then have ready a vessel with cold spring water and salt, and put your nuts into it, taking them out of the kettle with a wooden ladle.

Let them stand in the cold salt and water for a quarter of an hour, with the board keeping them down as before. If they rise above the liquor or are exposed to the air, they will be discolored. Then take, them out, and lay them on a cloth covered with another till they are quite dry.

Afterwards rub them carefully with a soft flannel, and put them into a stone jar, laying among them blades of mace and sliced nutmeg, but no dark-colored spice. Pour over them the best distilled vinegar, and put on the top a tablespoon of sweet oil.*

*sweet oil – olive oil

Photo credit

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I love going to farmers markets or shops that sell locally grown or homemade items.  I’ve never seen walnut catsup, sauce, or pickle for sale, though.  

Black Walnuts are expensive to buy, but have a unique flavor, much different from the taste of English walnuts. They are extremely hard to crack if you live where black walnut trees grow. That’s why I prefer to buy them already hulled.

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Hammons Black Walnuts, 8 oz,