The Revival of the Acorn
Thought acorns were just for squirrels? Think again.
A few nights ago my friend and his mother came over for dinner. They brought some acorn bread that they made from freshly gathered acorns in the forest. Surprisingly, the bread tasted excellent. I was surprised because, as you may have also experienced, acorns are pretty bitter and nasty when eaten without being rinsed or soaked in water.
I’ll never forget the day when I popped one in my mouth and thought I was in a for a treat, but all I received that day was a bitter mouth after spitting out the acorns I found laying on the ground from a tree in my yard.
I didn’t want to give up on acorns, but I knew that I had to figure out what was going on with the bitter taste. My friend taught me that the tannins covering the outside of the acorn were the culprit and they needed to be rinsed off with water before consuming. Continue to rinse the chopped acorns in water until the water is no longer brown. Once the brown is gone the tannins are gone. Then you’re good to go.
Native Americans such as the Cherokee, Apache, Pima, and Ojibwa harvested acorns regularly and used them as an insurance food, incase food supply became scarce in the future. They made acorn flour for bread. But be careful, acorns are rich in fat so the flour will spoil easily if not carefully stored.
If you’re interested in acorn permaculture, this is a cool video for you to watch. Acorns have been said to be more nutritional than wheat and corn. An acorn, derived from the oak tree, is more like a grain than a nut. As you can see, it’s really easy to make acorns into food. It’s as easy as going to pick some and grinding them up — it’s that simple and fun.
You hungry? You low on food or money? Go get yourself some free acorns from the woods, any oak trees that you can find in your area. There is so much free food in abundance and acorns is one of them. With the production on wheat and corn, acorns were forgotten and it’s time to revive ‘em!
Image credit: Zsaj
by David Askaripour
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October 25th, 2008 at 10:37 am
Great article - was wondering if people who have nut allergies would be allergic to acorns as well? Found that sunflowers make a good substitute for those with this awful allergy. Keep up the great blog! ==Andrew