Green Walnuts is a term that means unripe walnuts. They are sometimes also called “Wet Walnuts.” They look vaguely like limes.
They are regular walnuts, but just picked before the nut shell starts to form and harden — when they are about 1 inch (2 1 /2 cm) wide.
In France and Italy, the traditional time to pick Green Walnuts is the the 24th of June, but in other areas, such as California, the ideal picking time may arrive about 2 or 3 weeks earlier.
In Italy, you can place your order for Green Walnuts in advance with your greengrocer.
These unripe nuts have a sour and slightly spicy taste that doesn’t come through in the mature nut.
Green Walnuts can be used for several things:
-
- they can be pickled in vinegar, or used for sweet preserves, preserved whole in syrup;
- they can be used to make alcoholic beverages such as “nocino”;
- marmalade.
When you are preserving Green Walnuts in vinegar or syrup, you use the whole thing unpeeled — both the green skin and the inside.
You can also peel them, and eat the kernel as is out of hand.
