On Sun, 29 Jan 2006 12:35:27 -0500, Dave Smith
> wrote:

>Jen wrote:
>
>> I was just wondering, do macadamia nuts need to be cooked before
you eat
>> them? I was going to make macadamia shortbread, but I could only
find raw
>> ones, or salted cooked ones in our local shops. What's the
difference? any
>> ideas?
>
>Many years ago some friends had been in Hawaii and brought me back of
Macadamia
>nuts in the shell. I never did discover the secret of cracking those
things
>open. Nutcrackers didn't work on it. A hammer smashed them into
little pieces.
>

We grow macadamias. According to the literature, a macadamia nut
shell is the hardest nut to crack, but wild pigs can do it! We have
trouble with growing them as the herd of wild pigs who live just above
us in the rain forest, come down nightly and crunch those nuts. The
*crack* is so loud like a concussion, it wakes me up. The pigs are
also ruining our farm by snuffling the ground up every where so we are
giving up most of our macadamias in the hopes those nasty pigs will go
elsewhere. Luckily my brother in law can grow them, on another part of
the island, with out too much trouble.

BTW there are Macadamia nut crackers sold locally that open those nuts
up quickly, but you'd have to come to Kona to get one.

aloha,
Thunder
smithfarms.com
Farmers of 100% Kona Coffee
& other Great Stuff