Wild Harvest - Hickory Nuts and Apples

I've been out foraging on Heartbreak Road. I found hickory nuts just down the road among the leaves.

The little white egg-like things in the picture are hickory nuts, which are a native species and they grow wild all over here. Right now, when I take Sheba for a walk we trample nuts in every direction on the roads around our house. From the internet I've learned that pecans are a form of hickory nut, but some people think they are inferior in flavor to the kind I found. Therefore, I'm going to try to make a hickory nut pie, similar to pecan pie. The only problem so far is that their shells are fairly thin, so it's hard to get the nutmeats out without crushing them.


Here's a picture of my harvest. The apples are also from Heartbreak Road, from an old tree hidden in the hedgerow - it doesn't seem to be in a place where it would have been planted. I've already made apple butter with them. They looked pretty ugly, but they made a mighty fine apple butter.