How do you crack the shell of a Hickory nut?

Answer 1

With a hammer.

The shells are as hard as, well, hickory wood. Extremely tough. Getting the tender nutmeats out is tricky, especially trying to get one out in one piece.

Through trial and error, the way I found to be most effective was sitting on my driveway, hitting the nut about 2/3 of the way down in the thickest part of the shell (away from the pointy top) with the nut laying on the concrete. Hit it too soft and it won't crack. Too hard and it'll go flying in pieces. So you have to find just the right amount of force. Ideally, you just barely crack the shell, then start hammering (carefully) in different places around the shell to break the shell into as many pieces as possible without tearing apart the nutmeat. The more fragments you can get the shell in, the more likely and easily it will be to pull the nutmeat out in one piece. Then you carefully remove the pieces of the shell. The inside of the shell is cavernous and hard, and the nutmeat is soft, so pulling the shell off without pulling the nutmeat apart is tricky, but with a little practice I was able to do it.

The nutmeats taste good (similar to a walnut), but if you had to rely on hickory nuts to survive, you'd probably die of starvation first. You get very little nutmeat for the amount of work it takes to get it out of the shell, not to mention collecting them in the first place. It could be worthwhile, though, if you really enjoy the taste of the nuts.