I remember first reading about hazelnut trees in a book, ‘food plants of the northwest coast’, when I was maybe 18. I had flipped through and seen that hazelnuts grow where I live before, but at this time I realized how significant this was. I’d never noticed a hazelnut tree, or heard people talking about them, so their presence seemed unreal to me. I looked at the photo in the guide, remembered the shape of the leaf, and kept my eyes peeled as I went about my days. I started seeing them everywhere. Things got really crazy when, in mid summer, I noticed little nuts starting to form. Totally outrageous I thought – nuts, from trees?!

I wondered why people didn’t eat hazelnuts, my mom told me that in the fall blue jays and squirrels probably gather them all, and I also remembered Thoreau mentioned harvesting hazelnuts while they were still green, off the tree, to beat the squirrels in the forests of New England. So I started getting anxious – at the beginning of September I figured all of these hazelnuts I’d been watching would soon vanish, so me and a friend harvested a few 5 gallon bucketfuls from good spots. The nuts were still green on the tree, in green husks, which we spent hours sitting around talking and peeling off. At this point we spread the nuts out on floors and beds and sheets – wherever we could – to dry/cure.

A month later I noticed that many hazelnut trees had dropped their seed on the ground, and that most of them were just sitting there, with no husk on them, for us to pick up. This made harvesting them WAAAYY easier. Sometimes they even were cured while the sun shone down on them beneath the tree. It turned out there aren’t many creatures that feast heavily on hazelnuts where I live – sometimes a family of Coons will gorge at a few trees, but in general we don’t have the kind of squirrels that come in droves and eat lots of nuts.

That fall I sat for hours in awe, looking at hazelnuts in shell in my hand, cracking them and eating them, that such a substantial food could fall off of trees like leaves.

Nowadays I harvest large amounts of hazelnuts every fall, they’re them one of the most important local, feral foods in my diet. In a bad year we’ll have to scrounge to find a couple onion sacks full, but good years balance that out.

Logistics (harvest, preservation etc.)

Hazelnuts of course grow far and wide across north america, europe and other temperate climates. They are often called Filberts – that’s fine, but Hazel sounds so much more beautiful.

If you are living somewhere with large populations of eastern gray squirrel or other nut crazy creatures, you could ensure your own harvest by gathering still-green nuts off the tree and letting them ripen someplace they won’t get scooped up. Otherwise let them fall on the ground and get down on all fours. If the ground is somewhat barren (short grass etc.) you can sometimes rake them into piles, which is incredibly satisfying.

Once you’ve got them they need to be dried (cured). The fresh nuts taste like coconut or water chestnut, really good, but for preservation they need to get dry or else rot. To dry them one can spread out a layer of nuts on whatever unused, sheltered, creature proof surface they have and let them sit for a month (more or less depending on temperature), put them on screens above the woodstove or someplace warm to dry faster, or, the very best, is to put them in mesh sacks (free from any grocery store, just ask for them for some old onion sacks), about a third full, hung in a warm place (not too close to the woodstove or the nuts will roast).

Once dry, the nuts can be stored indefinitely in sacks. Hazelnuts in shell will stay good for a surprisingly long time – we’ve stored them for 3 years and they still weren’t rancid! That is really long! It makes them one of the most storeable, nutritious foods. They will go rancid faster if they get too hot (roast) while being cured. They will also get much tastier though.

They taste better, and are much more nutritious, if they are soaked or roasted before eating (these processes diminish phytic acid, which interferes w/ mineral metabolism).

Hazels are found in the wild, cultivated, and feral. All are amazing, and if you can manage to find a spot to harvest them, you are lucky.

PLANT THEM EVERYWHERE!