Computer-generated sign at Shorty Bongalis' walnut cracking station in the basement of the home he shares with his mother, Mae

Black walnut season is marked by the appearance on many porches of coal buckets (as five gallon plastic buckets are called) filled with aromatic green nuts ready to be cured, hulled, and then cracked. The processing of black walnuts lasted well into the winter the year Lyntha and I visited Mae Bongalis at the end of January and found her canning black walnuts in her kitchen. Her son, Shorty, had set up a "walnut cracking station" in the basement, where he spent hours at the laborious work of removing the flavorful nut meats from the notoriously hard shells. Nut cracking and wise cracking went together in that space, which sported a sign: "Wal-nut: Not affiliated with Walmart." Sound recordings in this collection detail a variety of ways to process and consume black walnuts.
Event: Preservation of black walnuts with Mae Bongalis.