Walnuts are a very precious commodity in Hungary. They are used a lot in winter cooking and especially in cakes at Christmas, the most famous being kalacs which is a delicious yeast roll filled with a walnut filling.

Purchasing them in a shop can be a very hit or miss affair. You never know if they are left over from last year and are bitter and unusable or if they are the current year’s crop and of course they are expensive.
If you have a walnut tree in your garden then you are very lucky but in places trees grow along the roads and in the woods.

The location of a walnut tree, especially in the woods, is a secret rarely revealed. We have seen people carrying buckets of them out of the woods but we were unable to find the location of the trees.
Apparently, in the 14th century a King of Hungary decided that fruit and nut trees should be planted along the highways for travellers to eat on their journeys. The custom was kept up over the centuries but, sadly, over the last 50 years nobody replaced the old and diseased trees as they died. So, now, there are not so many of them.
We did, however, when the apricots were in season, see a guy with a ladder up a tree, along the main highway, loading several crates with the fruit – I somehow don't think that is what was meant by snacks for travellers.