We recently harvested a bunch of bunya-bunya cones and set them aside for a while to wait for them to split open. Unfortunately, we forgot about them for a while and it rained in the meantime, so not only did they split open, but they started rotting.
However, the nuts themselves are double encased, first in a husk and then in a leathery shell. I've discarded the obviously spoiled ones, but are the nuts still OK to eat if the shell is a bit moldy? I tried opening a few, and the nuts showed no obvious signs of spoilage, but they were also a bit squishier than usual.
For what it's worth, Aborigines are said to have buried the nuts in creeks and eaten them after fermentation, but I'd prefer my bunya nuts unfermented ;)
