Post by macmex on Dec 5, 2022 12:35:04 GMT -6
As a kid I can remember gathering a bucket of big, beautiful acorns and wishing they were good for something. When I tasted them, they were bitter as all get out, so I abandoned them.
Sometime, later on, I learned that primative people on several continents ate a whole lot of acorns for centuries. At the same time I learned that some acorns are not bitter and can be eaten "as is." One time, while we were living in Central Mexico, I took one of my daughters on an overnight adventure in El Chico National Park, in the state of Hidalgo. There, our mission had a cabin. I think we went trout fishing and enjoyed a fire in a bona fide fireplace. Additionally, as we explored around the area of the cabin we found loads of acorns, freshly fallen from the trees. They were large, glossy and beautiful. Tentatively, I cracked and tried one. It was sweet (not bitter)! So we gathered up a pail of them and took them home the next day. There we shelled the acorns and ground them into meal, making some delicious acorn pancakes. This was in the late 90s. I didn't take photos.
When our family returned to the USA, spending 4 years in NJ, we dabbled a little with acorns, focusing on finding the non bitter ones. Basically, the white oak types are most likely to be non bitter. White oaks have the rounded leaf lobes, rather than pointed. The oaks which produce bitter acorns are in the red oak family. Their leaves have pointed lobes. We really struggled to find enough non bitter acorns to use for food. For one thing, it seemed that the squirrels and deer preferred them over bitter acorns. We had stiff competition. Additionally, we found a lot of wormy acorns, which were spoiled. So, we kind of let that project rest for some years.
After arriving in Oklahoma Jerreth and I kept an eye open for usable non bitter acorns. Here, we encountered the BUR OAK, which has huge sweet acorns. We've managed to plant one burr oak on our property and it should soon begin to produce acorns. I also purchased some oak seedlings from Oikos Tree Crops which would supposedly produce good quality, non bitter acorns, for human consumption. I lost a couple of those and then, when the last surviving Oikos Tree Crop tree was about 4' tall, I decided to help it with a side dressing of barn scrapings (old hay and manure). That was the year we had herbicide contamination. That nearly finished off that tree. It's taken 5 years to get it back to 4' height. Again, our experience in Oklahoma has been that sweet acorns (non bitter) are harder to come by and competition to get them is fierce.
But I've read that Native Americans used to use the bitter acorns too. I read that they would shell them and leach the tannic acid out of them with water.
Last week I was clearing leaves off a flat roof at work and found myself practically skating on acorns. For some reason, the squirrels weren't around. As I shoveled leaves and acorns the thought occurred to me, that I might experiment with bitter acorns. So, I got a bag of them and took them home with me. I started experimenting with how to shell them, as these particular acorns were not only bitter, but also quite small.
I found the pliers on my Leatherman tool to work just right for cracking the acorns. I didn't want to smash them, just squeeze until the shell cracked enough to get my fingernails in there and pull it apart. Sometimes I could just peel the shell off this way. More often, the acorn could come apart in two halves, with the meat inside each half. By trial and error I found that the smallest blade on my pocket knife could easily slip in, between the meat and the acorn shell, and pop it out. I started out, sitting at the table and then changed to my rocking chair, in the family room. My wife, daughter and I have been so busy these last months that we haven't taken much time to relax. So, lately, when we're not working the next day, we've taken to watching a video before bedtime. We watched one of Tolkien's Return of the King videos and, while watching... I shelled acorns.
After a short while I found that I was making some real progress. I was getting a feel for the process and it was getting easier and faster. By the end of the video, I had enough shelled to try leaching a batch. I had read that one could simply soak and rinse the acorns over the course of about 15 hours, and that this would leach out the tannic acid. I even read that Native Americans would place the shelled acorns in a mesh bag and leave it in a running stream for a day or two, to leach out the tannic acid. Since we had a wood stove going I opted to put the acorns in a large pot and add about 1 1/2 gallon of water to them, placing them on top of the wood stove. Then we went to bed.
About 8 hours later I was amazed to look in the pot and see what looked almost like a pot of tar.
The water was so black I couldn't see the acorn meats at the bottom. I poured this dark water out and added more, letting it simmer a couple hours before repeating the process one more time. The water from the second round was as dark as well brewed iced tea and the last batch came out like lightly brewed ice tea.
At this point, fifteen hours from placing the pot on the stove, I tasted one of the acorn meats. It wasn't bitter! So I rinsed them and spread them over the bottom of a pan to dry.
Notice, I placed some sticks under the pan. I didn't want to cook the acorn meats, just dry them before grinding. The sticks helped keep them from overheating. I honestly think I could do this whole process without the wood stove. It just speeds things up.
By the next morning (Started Friday evening, finished Sunday morning) the acorn meats were dry. They had darkened considerably, probably because of the heat of the wood stove.
The whole mess didn't look like much but then, I was experimenting and hadn't tried to do a large batch. I carried them out to the milking shed, where I have our hand mill. There I ground them, just like I do corn or wheat.
I got a little over 2 cups of meal from this.
Again, I tasted it. The flour tasted good. It was kind of like whole wheat, but with a little nutty flavor.
So, Sunday evening before bedtime I mixed up all of the acorn flour with a little less than a cup of white flour and started a batch of sourdough acorn pancake batter.
To this flour mix I added a teaspoon of sourdough culture (one could easily substitute a half packet of dried yeast) and enough water to get it to a thick pancake batter consistency. I covered it and left it on the counter overnight.
This morning I added a "glug" of olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda to the mix and mixed it up, handing it off to Jerreth while I went out to do chores. If one can eat eggs, an egg would have been good to add to this mix, but I wanted Jerreth to enjoy them too, so we left out the egg.
When I came in from chores Jerreth had breakfast waiting!
There were quite a few more pancakes still to finish cooking. Here's one.
The pancakes came out well enough to be described as fluffy, though sourdough is always a bit heavier than store bought pancakes. The flavor and texture was excellent! We commented on how we had better save every leftover pancake for later. After all, we had worked hard for them!
I'm positive now that I could use any acorn to make worthwhile food. This opens up all kinds of opportunity for the would be forager. Next time I come across a lot of larger acorns I'm going to grab them!
Sometime, later on, I learned that primative people on several continents ate a whole lot of acorns for centuries. At the same time I learned that some acorns are not bitter and can be eaten "as is." One time, while we were living in Central Mexico, I took one of my daughters on an overnight adventure in El Chico National Park, in the state of Hidalgo. There, our mission had a cabin. I think we went trout fishing and enjoyed a fire in a bona fide fireplace. Additionally, as we explored around the area of the cabin we found loads of acorns, freshly fallen from the trees. They were large, glossy and beautiful. Tentatively, I cracked and tried one. It was sweet (not bitter)! So we gathered up a pail of them and took them home the next day. There we shelled the acorns and ground them into meal, making some delicious acorn pancakes. This was in the late 90s. I didn't take photos.
When our family returned to the USA, spending 4 years in NJ, we dabbled a little with acorns, focusing on finding the non bitter ones. Basically, the white oak types are most likely to be non bitter. White oaks have the rounded leaf lobes, rather than pointed. The oaks which produce bitter acorns are in the red oak family. Their leaves have pointed lobes. We really struggled to find enough non bitter acorns to use for food. For one thing, it seemed that the squirrels and deer preferred them over bitter acorns. We had stiff competition. Additionally, we found a lot of wormy acorns, which were spoiled. So, we kind of let that project rest for some years.
After arriving in Oklahoma Jerreth and I kept an eye open for usable non bitter acorns. Here, we encountered the BUR OAK, which has huge sweet acorns. We've managed to plant one burr oak on our property and it should soon begin to produce acorns. I also purchased some oak seedlings from Oikos Tree Crops which would supposedly produce good quality, non bitter acorns, for human consumption. I lost a couple of those and then, when the last surviving Oikos Tree Crop tree was about 4' tall, I decided to help it with a side dressing of barn scrapings (old hay and manure). That was the year we had herbicide contamination. That nearly finished off that tree. It's taken 5 years to get it back to 4' height. Again, our experience in Oklahoma has been that sweet acorns (non bitter) are harder to come by and competition to get them is fierce.
But I've read that Native Americans used to use the bitter acorns too. I read that they would shell them and leach the tannic acid out of them with water.
Last week I was clearing leaves off a flat roof at work and found myself practically skating on acorns. For some reason, the squirrels weren't around. As I shoveled leaves and acorns the thought occurred to me, that I might experiment with bitter acorns. So, I got a bag of them and took them home with me. I started experimenting with how to shell them, as these particular acorns were not only bitter, but also quite small.
I found the pliers on my Leatherman tool to work just right for cracking the acorns. I didn't want to smash them, just squeeze until the shell cracked enough to get my fingernails in there and pull it apart. Sometimes I could just peel the shell off this way. More often, the acorn could come apart in two halves, with the meat inside each half. By trial and error I found that the smallest blade on my pocket knife could easily slip in, between the meat and the acorn shell, and pop it out. I started out, sitting at the table and then changed to my rocking chair, in the family room. My wife, daughter and I have been so busy these last months that we haven't taken much time to relax. So, lately, when we're not working the next day, we've taken to watching a video before bedtime. We watched one of Tolkien's Return of the King videos and, while watching... I shelled acorns.
After a short while I found that I was making some real progress. I was getting a feel for the process and it was getting easier and faster. By the end of the video, I had enough shelled to try leaching a batch. I had read that one could simply soak and rinse the acorns over the course of about 15 hours, and that this would leach out the tannic acid. I even read that Native Americans would place the shelled acorns in a mesh bag and leave it in a running stream for a day or two, to leach out the tannic acid. Since we had a wood stove going I opted to put the acorns in a large pot and add about 1 1/2 gallon of water to them, placing them on top of the wood stove. Then we went to bed.
About 8 hours later I was amazed to look in the pot and see what looked almost like a pot of tar.
The water was so black I couldn't see the acorn meats at the bottom. I poured this dark water out and added more, letting it simmer a couple hours before repeating the process one more time. The water from the second round was as dark as well brewed iced tea and the last batch came out like lightly brewed ice tea.
At this point, fifteen hours from placing the pot on the stove, I tasted one of the acorn meats. It wasn't bitter! So I rinsed them and spread them over the bottom of a pan to dry.
Notice, I placed some sticks under the pan. I didn't want to cook the acorn meats, just dry them before grinding. The sticks helped keep them from overheating. I honestly think I could do this whole process without the wood stove. It just speeds things up.
By the next morning (Started Friday evening, finished Sunday morning) the acorn meats were dry. They had darkened considerably, probably because of the heat of the wood stove.
The whole mess didn't look like much but then, I was experimenting and hadn't tried to do a large batch. I carried them out to the milking shed, where I have our hand mill. There I ground them, just like I do corn or wheat.
I got a little over 2 cups of meal from this.
Again, I tasted it. The flour tasted good. It was kind of like whole wheat, but with a little nutty flavor.
So, Sunday evening before bedtime I mixed up all of the acorn flour with a little less than a cup of white flour and started a batch of sourdough acorn pancake batter.
To this flour mix I added a teaspoon of sourdough culture (one could easily substitute a half packet of dried yeast) and enough water to get it to a thick pancake batter consistency. I covered it and left it on the counter overnight.
This morning I added a "glug" of olive oil, 1/2 teaspoon of salt and 1/4 teaspoon baking soda to the mix and mixed it up, handing it off to Jerreth while I went out to do chores. If one can eat eggs, an egg would have been good to add to this mix, but I wanted Jerreth to enjoy them too, so we left out the egg.
When I came in from chores Jerreth had breakfast waiting!
There were quite a few more pancakes still to finish cooking. Here's one.
The pancakes came out well enough to be described as fluffy, though sourdough is always a bit heavier than store bought pancakes. The flavor and texture was excellent! We commented on how we had better save every leftover pancake for later. After all, we had worked hard for them!
I'm positive now that I could use any acorn to make worthwhile food. This opens up all kinds of opportunity for the would be forager. Next time I come across a lot of larger acorns I'm going to grab them!
