My cuticles were mildly itchy and sore for an hour but they feel fine now. The staining can't be washed away, you just have to wait a few weeks for the skin and nails to renew.
TIL to wear more adequate hand protection while opening black walnuts
The smell of black walnut is so particular, and for me pleasant. They were common where I lived during my childhood, and rare where I later moved to for the latter part of my life. A few years back I had been visiting my old homeland, and followed my nose to a black walnut tree. I picked up a walnut to more closely take a smell of their nostalgic aroma. "How wonderful these are!", I said to a friend while putting the nut down and scratching my face. "I just love the way these smell! But for some reason I cannot remember, my mom always used to tell me not to touch them!" And that's how I dyed my hands and part of my face just like you OP.
If you want to avoid the black stains, open the walnuts under water. 💫
Before I knew this trick, I experienced the stained hands myself and yes it could not be washed off and lasted for several weeks. Happened when I was shelling walnuts at my in law's place in Turkey and the next day at the market, everyone saw our black hands and said, "Ahhhh walnuts!"
Where I live now, I learned that traditionally they used walnut skins, the greenish thing that covers the actual nut and its shell, to dye wool! It's where grey wool used to come from. Its doesn't go quite black on the wool, but like a grey colour. So for them it is common nowledge that walnuts will dye your fingers of you handle them. Now you know, from experience.
Yes, it's quite different. I've only tried them rather fresh, and they're very earthy, musky, astringent. To me they taste rancid. I've been meaning to try them in a nocino or loaf, because apparently they can mellow to something very rich and pleasant.
When I worked in a candy shop we made black walnut fudge occasionally and I couldn’t stand it. I was assured that the flavor was what it was supposed to be but it tasted rancid to me, too.
I appreciate the validation! Yeah, "rancid" isn't quite right, but it's the best descriptor I have for my own subjective experience. I found it lingered a long time on the soft palate in the way that old peanuts do.
Honestly I haven’t had it in a while so I can’t answer that (I think it might be sweeter?) but the black fruit juice with vodka and sugar is used as folk medicine for stomach pain which mom made me drink often… I’ve learned since that it’s actually mildly toxic
Stronger flavor, earthy, sweet, with a touch of walnut bitterness to round it out. They are better in baked goods than english walnuts. They go rancid pretty fast too. Once they are shelled keep them cold and dark like the freezer. If you don’t like the bitterness you can blanch them in water to mellow that out.
Been there. I grew up in Black Walnut country and every season a handful of us would turn mostly black from shoveling them into the huller. It's just a part of your life until about Christmas time.
Haha! Glad you posted the correction, I was about to google black chesnuts and I was dreading the search results. My grandpa and I used to collect black walnuts around town every fall. We'd fill up about 5 to 6 5-gallon buckets and store them in the basement for a few months. Once the hulls dry out you can peel them with minimal staining on your fingers.
My mom has a black walnut tree outside of her house and always harvests the green ones that fall to make nocino (Italian walnut liqueur) for Christmas gifts. She has a specific pair of gloves that are used exclusively for this purpose because the damn things stain like crazy. Now you know!
Well I’d be curious, check the sensation capillary refill and motor function and find them all intact, reason that it’s some kind of tattooing effect and ask if there were any exposures recently because you can see similar things with jeans henna and certain fruits.
Legit had a lady bring in her kid for something similar on their feet and was baffled what the exposure was until mom was like “oh yeah he had some permanent marker over it and I washed most of it off”
Edit but if you wanna make me shit my pants then develop uncontrolled diabetes, repeatedly inject dirt into your taint until it festers and rots, and come in with a fever and a blood pressure of 60/40 complaining about the smell
A friend of mine is a doctor and she had a panicked mom bring in a 5 or 6 year old with dark brown rings around his eyes. He apparently looked like he was in the first stages of kidney failure.
Apparently, he took a brown marker and drew circles around his eyes, then just smudged them around trying to wipe them off. His mom was freaking out so much that he wasn't able to tell her that it was just marker ink, lol.
Definitely. My kids hands look the same right now from playing with them at the playground. They get a thick lemony pepper scented husk around the outside of the walnut shell. This goes from green to yellow to brown in the fall and the colors indicate the nut ripeness (giggity). The oxidation turns the over ripened husks dark brown or black by making a product called juglone. Juglone can be toxic and cause skin irritation to some. It can cause serious problems with laminitis in horses.
It was pretty decent when compared to the book. Its on my list of lesser known Ron Perlman shows i watch, along other oddities like The City of Lost Children.
As a kid I one time filled a chest full of water in the back yard and filled it with these, played around in it for hours and stained my hands so bad my teachers pulled me out of class to ask me if I knew how/if I ever washed my hands. Embarrassing as hell but explained the situation to them lol
When you shower does you finger wrinkles? A few months back i made cashew nuts and because i had contact with the oil my fingers wrinkled for about 3 weeks and the skin came off(no pain involved)
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u/choppytehbear1337 20h ago
Well, you have a sick frostbite costume now.