How to Gather, Crack and Eat Hard Walnuts

Black walnut trees are a source of wild food. Their leaves drop hard walnuts, which you crack open before eating.

Finding Black Walnut Trees

Black walnuts grow in aspen forests. Your best bet is the Old Growth Aspen Forest, a dense woodland of mature aspen and black walnut trees. The regular Aspen Forest is mostly tall aspens, so you may find fewer walnut trees there.

1. Look for a woodland of tall aspens. Aspen forests often show bright yellow foliage that is easy to spot across a hillside.

2. Walk through the forest and look for trees that are clearly not aspens. These are your black walnuts.

3. Mark the spot with a torch or note your coordinates so you can return later.

Getting and Cracking the Nuts

1. Break the black walnut leaves. Hard walnuts drop from the leaves when they break. Your bare hand or any tool works. Avoid shears, because in vanilla they collect the leaf block itself.

2. Clear several leaf blocks. Not every block is guaranteed to drop a nut.

3. Crack the shell. Hold the hard walnut and hit it against a hard block to break its outer shell.

4. Collect the cracked nut that results.

5. Eat it like any other food: hold it and hold the use button.

Cracked walnuts are a snack. Carry a stack as backup food on long walks through the new forests.