Fruit
Edible fruit is produced in husks that are yellow-green when ripe; collection is either by picking fallen fruits from the ground, or otherwise harvesting from the canopy when the husks show signs of being ripe. The sap of the fruit husk is a strong dye and can stain hands and clothing. The nut inside is within a much harder and more difficult to crack shell than Persian walnuts, but the meat inside is comparable in flavour, perhaps a bit sweeter. "Tocte", the fruit of the Andean walnut, are often sold in the farmer's markets of Ecuador. The process of husk removal often stains the shells of the nuts black.
Like all walnuts, unripe fruit husks produce a strong yellow dye that does not require mordant; ripe fruits produce a strong red to brown dye that does not require a mordant, and if cooked in an iron pot, a strong deep black dye.
Fruits must be soaked in water for 24–48 hours, but not allowed to ferment, after which the loosened pulp can be manually removed to reveal the walnut inside. There may be as few as 20 or as many as 200 nuts in a kilogram. Optimum storage temperature is 4 to 6°C.
Read more about this topic: Juglans Neotropica
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