SC - walnut oil

[Philip & Susan Troy]

Gretchen M Beck wrote:
> 
> My current favorite book, The Fruits, Herbes, and Vegetables of Italy
> (1614) has this to say about Walnuts and Walnut Oil:
> 
> We also have walnust, which are common everywhere.  The green ones start
> to be good about the feast of St Lawrence [10 August], and are highly
> esteemed and eaten by the gentry, who consider the dried ones to be
> rather coarse and unrefined.
> 
> Dried walnuts are used in a garlic sauce called agliata, and this is how
> you make it: first take the best and whitest walnut kernels, in the
> quantity you need, and pound them in a really clean stone mortar (not a
> metal one) in which you have first crushed two or three cloves of
> garlic.  When they are all well mixed, take three slices of stale white
> bread, well soaked in a good meat broth which is not too fatty, and
> pound them with the nuts.  When everything is well mixed, thin the sauce
> out with some of the same warm meat broth, until you have a liquid like
> the pap they give to little babies.  Serve it tepid, with a little
> crushed pepper.

Ha! A little like pesto without the basil, and a lot like the Greek
skordalia (which is spiked with vinegar or lemon, but otherwise
identical). Sounds like good stuff.
> 
> Prudent folk eat this sauce with fresh pork as an antidote to its
> harmful qualities, or with boiled goose, an equally indigestible food.
> Serious pasta eaters even enjoy agliata with macaroni and lasagne.  It
> is also good with boletus mushrooms, which I shall describe in due
> course.

Boleti are, of course, porcinis. Not surprising when you say the stuff
is eaten with pork. Now there's a thought... 
> 
> In Lombardy they make oil from the poorer quality nuts, which they use
> to light the stables.  Poor people and evern worthy artisans use it in
> lamps about the house or on the table.  The peasants in the countryside
> use nothing else in their lamps.  This oil is good for various ailments.
>  it also makes furniture made out of walnut wood--bedstads, tables,
> benches, and so forth -- shine like a mirror.

Interesting how they don't mention a culinary use for the oil. I wonder
if the tendency toward rancidity without refrigeration is an issue.
> 
> toodles, margaret

Many thanks, Margaret!

Adamantius