This time of year many folks are busy baking cookies, pies and breads and making candies for the upcoming holiday season.
Kitchens throughout the area are filled with tempting smells. Many of these baked goods are enhanced by the rich taste and crunchy texture of nuts. The flavorful oils nuts release in baking produce delicious and moist desserts.
Nuts are the seeds or dried fruits of plants. Unlike most fruits, nuts have a hard outer shell, or husk, that encloses an inner kernel. It is this kernel, or nutmeat, that is eaten. Nuts are the storehouses of a plant’s nutrients so they’re high in food value. They are a good source of protein and high in fiber, essential fatty acids, B vitamins and minerals.
Early explorers found pecan trees growing wild along the Mississippi River and its tributaries. Indians living in the area called them “pakans,” the Algonquin word for a tough nut to crack. The only native American nut, pecans are harvested today from cultivated trees in several southeastern and southwestern states.
Eastern black walnut trees have also grownwild in mid-America for generations. Foraging for these nuts has been a traditional autumn ritual. Many area youngsters have fond memories of picking up walnuts with their families, selling them and using the money for something special. The holidays were always a treat when Grandma made her special black walnut cake.
These tasty nuts, sometimes called the “black gold of the Ozarks,” played a big role in our town when the Gravette Shelling Company was in operation. This business was started in November of 1936, when Mandel Raffe, a Boston native, stopped in Gravette to visit a friend. He was on his way to Texas looking for pecans but discovered the black walnuts here and decided to stay and start a business to increase the supply.
Allen and Clifton McAllister were involved in the original operation. The work force included Lloyd Harris, his sister Bertha and uncle Earl Pierce. They, along with Bob Dugan, became partners with Raffe. The nuts were originally cracked with hand-operated crackers but machines were designed to crack and dry the nuts and separate the shells from the kernels. The plant expanded until,in the 1950s and 1960s, it employed about 150 people during the cracking season.
Walnut shells were used to cover Gravette’s dirt streets in the early years but other uses soon developed. Crushed and mixed with other products, they made abrasives for cleaning aircraft engines, stripping paint and a “quick seal” for the core of oil wells. They were even used to refurbish the Statue of Liberty during the bicentennial year.
Gravette Shelling Company became a subsidiary of Hammons Products Co., of Stockton, Mo., in 1968.This business, started by Ralph Hammons in 1946, is now the largest sheller and supplier of black walnuts in the world, marketing their products through a mail order catalog and on the Web at www.hammonspantry.com.
This was not a good year for the walnut crop. Barbara Bates, who has operated a huller with her son Jodie on Highway 72 west the last several years, reported they bought only 12,500 pounds during the 2010 season. It was not unusual to hull that many in a day in past seasons.
“We sent only about a fourth of a truckload to Stockton this year,” she said. “Most years we sendsix to eight loads.”
We’re hoping for a better crop next year.
Susan Holland, who works for the Westside Eagle Observer, is a lifelong Benton County resident.
Opinion, Pages 7 on 11/17/2010