Acorns?

[cookiejar]

Amazingly, down here in palm tree land...I *found* a resource for acorns (via a local park ). Hooray for foraging foods.

I'm sure the subject of acorns has been beaten to death out here so if you could give me any good sites, Mrs. S post links etc. I'd appreciate it.If you've got any files of yours-could you help a foraging sistah out?

 

I'm squirrellier than ever

[Snowmom]

 

Just did a google search and came up with these sites.

 

Here is a one recipe from the following site.

 

http://plantanswers.tamu.edu/recipes/squirrel.html

 

HOW TO "HARVEST" THE ABUNDANT ACORN CROP

HARVEST AND EAT THE ACORNS:

 

QUESTION: Do you know of any recipes using acorns?

 

The reason I ask this: When I was a child, my grandfather had me pick up a small bucketful of acorns from under our pin oak tree. A day or two later, he asked me to come over to his house and he fed me acorns. The only problem I have is he never told anyone how in the world he prepared them.

 

 

Here is some information about eating acorns or rather acorn meal. The tannins have to be removed to avoid the bitterness. I don't know what your grandfather might have done to remove the tannins in whole acorns unless the type of acorn had less tannins to begin with and could have been removed by soaking the whole acorn.

 

 

ACORN PANCAKES from Sharon Hendricks

 

Break an egg into a bowl. Add:

1 teaspoon salad oil

1 teaspoon of honey or sugar

1/2 cup of ground and leached acorns

1/2 cup of corn meal

1/2 cup of whole wheat or white flour

2 teaspoons of double action baking powder

1/2 teaspoon of salt

1/2 cup of milk

 

Beak all together. If the batter is too thick to pour, thin it with milk. Pour pancakes into a hot, greased griddle and cook slowly until brown on both sides.

 

Serve with butter and syrup or wild blackberry jam. Delicious!!

 

Beak all together. If the batter is too thick to pour, thin it with milk. Pour pancakes into a hot, greased griddle and cook slowly until brown on both sides.

 

Serve with butter and syrup or wild blackberry jam. Delicious!!

 

 

PREPARATION OF GROUND ACORN MEAL

 

Pick up several cupfuls of acorns. All kinds of oaks have edible acorns. Some have more tannin than others, but leaching will remove the tannin from all of them.

Shell the acorns with a nutcracker, a hammer, or a rock.

Grind them. If you are in the woods, smash them, a few at a time on a hard boulder with a smaller stone, Indian style. Do this until all the acorns are ground into a crumbly paste. If you are at home, it's faster and easier to use your mom's blender. Put the shelled acorns in the blender, fill it up with water, and grind at high speed for a minute or two. You will get a thick, cream-colored goo. It looks yummy, but tastes terrible.

Leach (wash) them. Line a big sieve with a dish towel and pour in the ground acorns. Hold the sieve under a faucet and slowly pour water through, stirring with one hand, for about five minutes. A lot of creamy stuff will come out. This is the tannin. When the water runs clear, stop and taste a little. When the meal is not bitter, you have washed it enough.

Or, in camp, tie the meal up in a towel and swish it in several bucketfuls of clean drinking water, until it passes the taste test.

 

Squeeze out as much water as you can, with your hands.

Use the ground acorn mash right away, because it turns dark when it is left around. Or store in plastic for freezing if you want to make the pancakes later.

LET SOMETHING EAT THE ACORNS THEN EAT THE EATER!

Squirrels are cute little varmints which are not too particular whether they eat apples or pecans which you have spent a fortune trying to produce.

 

This site has the food facts about them.

 

 

http://www.foodreference.com/html/facorns.html

 

And another site.

 

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/5...rns.html?cat=22

 

 

[Mother]

There is a big difference between types of acorn as far as sweetness goes. White oak seems to be the least bitter, at least here.

 

All acorns are edible but some take more leaching than others to make them taste good. They are probably a good forage food but you have to make sure to get them before the critters do. If there are critters and you see a lot laying on the ground they may be full of worms. They take a bit of expenditure of calories to gather but the return is fairly high. I use them mostly as a nut substitute and especially like them roasted and then put into baked goods. I've used them as a meal too and added that to foods. The meat has to be really dry to store well or stored in the freezer as they will mold.

 

[Campy]

Here is a link on how to make them edible. I also posted the link in Preserving the Harvest.

 

http://www.aaoobfoods.com/acorns.htm