A Meal of Acorn Meal

By Dave McBee, Leslie Strom, Zippy O'Christchild

This started out as a discussion on making acorn pie from wild ingredients, and suddenly turned into a test of how far we'd go for science...

from Zippy O'Christchild of New Hampshire:

Acorns from red oak require lots of leaching. Need to put them in hot (or boiling water) and rinse several times to get all of the tannins out of them. White oak acorns don't require as much leaching because they have less tannins.

Keep changing the water until it's clear. Crack, crush, chop as needed.

I used a standard pecan pie recipe and substituted half acorns. It was a half acorn, half pecan pie. Not bad.

Dave: This might be right up your alley: collect acorns and some recipes and let's make some acorn gruel or something.

from Wikipedia:
Species of acorn that contain large amounts of tannins are very bitter, astringent, and potentially irritating if eaten raw. This is particularly true of the acorns of red oaks. The acorns of white oaks, being much lower in tannins, are nutty in flavor, which is enhanced if the acorns are given a light roast before grinding. Tannins can be removed by soaking chopped acorns in several changes of water, until water no longer turns brown. (Boiling unleached acorns may actually cause the tannins to be unleachable.) Being rich in fat, acorn flour can spoil or get moldy easily and must be carefully stored. Acorns are also sometimes prepared as a massage oil.

Editora: Already done that. Several years ago I tried that, having learned that acorns were the bread of the Indians of northern California. I recall it was John Muir who declared something along the lines of 'Let he who would taste the Sierras--eat of the acorn.' He probably also ate of the peyote, too.

The white, or Gary oak has the least amount of tannins. It is said that one can go through a grove and find individual trees whose nuts are less bitter (puhleez don't go there) so that one can even skip the leaching process, but as a rule, all acorns need to be ground to a flour and then have boiling water poured through the flour. That's what I learned in Native American anthropology classes. And what was reiterated in all the literature I found elsewhere. Simply soaking them in water is new stuff for me.

Sadly, there aren't any Gary oaks in Seattle, though there are a few scattered groves in the Sequim area (they are not native to the Pacific Northwest).

I gathered several pounds of local acorns from my neighborhood, shelled them, got permission to and ground them in the Cuisinards at the hospital, and leached them in the coffee filter holders there, also.

The gruel I made tasted somewhere between mud, boiled horses' hooves, and what I imagined billy goat semen might taste of. Seriously, it was, as the locals say, some nasty-ass shit. Count me out.

And did I mention that the acorn gruel was glutinous, too, like okra, library paste and snot. Or perhaps the ornamental varieties of oak that I harvested were simply not the best possible choices...

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