Picking up Pee-cans or Puh-cahns?

Lately, I feel like I’ve discovered picking up pecans. It’s a peaceful time for me, and I pick up some almost every day.

Last week while we were in Manteo, I picked up pecans under an ancient tree in the yard of a house on the National Register of Historic Places. Kevin called a realtor because it was listed for sale.  I couldn’t leave those pecans and picked up ten while he chatted. Big fat ones, just lying in the grass.

I’m not some urban-type person who now lives in the country and is enamored by manual labor either. My husband comes to mind here when he used to say how much he loved digging potatoes, for example.

The right tools…

I’ve picked up pecans before. In fact, I grew up picking up pecans. For sure, I didn’t think the job was fun back then. It can be hard work, but we  have these handy dandy picker-uppers now. I fill it up with nuts and drop them into a bucket. Easy peasy.

How to pick up pecans.

This is how the process works:

1. Hold the tool vertical to the ground.
2. Stab the red wires over the pecan. The pecan pops into the square holder.
3. When the holder is full, hook the raised notches of the square holder onto the side of a bucket.
4. Push the tool down, and a spring on another side of the holder pulls it open.
5. Presto! Out fall the pecans into the bucket.

Gold! Just lying on the ground.

Pecans are expensive. A pound of in-the-shell pecans were selling for $7.99 this week at our grocery store.  In the shell. You throw the shells away, folks. Would the bag even yield a cup of nuts? The recipe for pecan pie calls for a cup.  (Here’s a recipe for a brown sugar pecan pie.) I usually use more. For another point of reference, a pound of hazelnuts cost $3.99.

Now I know how much money is lying on the ground under a pecan tree.

I’ve forgotten how delicious fresh pecans are. Lately, I’ve been using frozen ones my parents shelled a few years ago. I use them for baking and also substitute them for pine nuts in pesto. Snacking on them right out of the shell is hard to beat, though.

If you read this post with puh-cahn in your mind every time you saw the word, you read it wrong. It’s pee-can…just like President Jimmy Carter and Paula Dean pronounce it. Go back and pronounce pecan the right way and then tell me in the comments your favorite way to use pecans!