Natural Area News - Acorns

http://www.sanaturalareas.org/acorns.html

S AN A N T O N IO N AT UR AL A RE A P A RK S N EW S & AR TI C L ES

ACORNS
F RO M M U S H T O C A N D Y
Peggy Spring Education Coordinator

out-of-the-way dry, sunny place. This lets them sun dry and prevents any possible molding before I get them shelled. It will also kill any insect eggs or larvae, which might beinside. If you cannot lay the acorns out in the sun, spread them in a single layer on cookie sheets in a very slow oven for an hour." (Clay, 2004)

acorn meal is a natural sweetener, I only use a bit of honey to feed the yeast while softening it, relying on the acorn meal to give sweetness to the bread." (Clay, 2004) As acorn meal is very dense, you will have to add yeast or such to get your bread to rise when adding it.

B I B L IO GR AP H Y
Shell the acorns as you would any nut. A nutcracker works fine on larger nuts, but you many need to slip open the shell of smaller acorns with a knife. Remove their kernels. If a thin brown corky layer clings to the light-colored flesh, peel off the layer. Crowhurst, Adrienne. 1972. The Weed Cookbook. New York: Lancer Books. Acorns played an important role in American history as one of the main foods in the diet of Native Americans from coast to coast. The Apaches and Comanches of West Texas, the Tonkawas of Central Texas, and the Caddoan tribes of East Texas all harvested acorns (Newcomb 1961). Most Native Americans and early settlers used acorn meal as flour, as an ingredient in mush or pounded with meat, fat, and berries to make pemmican. Clay, Jackie Harvesting the wild: acorns. Article in online Backwoods Home Magazine www.backwoodshome.com/articles2/clay/79

To prepare acorns for eating, you need to remove as much tannic acid as possible by leaching with water. Besides being unpalatable, raw acorns consumed in large quantities over time can cause kidney damage. The Indians set the acorns in a basket in a clean fast-flowing stream. (Patty Leslie Pasztor shares that they may have used cactus pouches to hold acorns for leaching.) The water rushing through the basket would leach out the tannins in a day or two. Since most of us do not have a clean

Fleming, Gary. 1975. A Guide to Plants of Central Texas With Edible, Medicinal, and Ecological Value. Unpublished manuscript.

Peterson, Lee Allen. 1977. A Field Guide to Edible Wild Plants of Eastern and Central North America. Houghton Mifflin Company Boston.

Stevenot, Kimberly Nupa Acorn Soup Article in online Native American Technology and Art www.nativetech.org/food/acornsoup.html

Nutrition: Acorns have protein (about 8 percent) and fats (37 percent) and are high in calcium and other minerals (Crowhurst 1972; Fleming 1975). "Acorns leave a sweetish aftertaste, making them very good in stews, as well as in breads of all types. They are rich in complex carbohydrates, minerals, and vitamins while they are lower in fat than most other nuts. They are also a good source of fiber" (Clay, 2004).

fast-flowing stream nearby, we need to boil out the tannins. Toss the nuts into a large pot, and cover them with plenty of water. Bring to a boil and continue boiling for about 15 minutes. The water will turn brown as the tannic acid is extracted from the kernels. Throw out the water and replace it with fresh water. Re-boil the acorns, throwing out the brown water several times until the water is clear. The boiling process takes about two or three hours, though the time varies with the amount of tannic acid in

Tull, Delena. 1987. Edible and Useful Plants of Texas and the Southwest: A Pratical Guide. University of Texas Press, Austin.

Newcomb, W.W., Jr. 1961. The Indians of Texas. Austin: University of Texas Press

AC O R N M E AL R EC IP ES :

Steamed Acorn Black Bread Mix together: 1 1/2 cups Acorn Meal 1/2 cup Acorn Grits 1 cup white flour

Species: Raw acorns, depending on the species, have a mildly to strongly bitter taste from tannic acid. The Texas oaks reported to have

the acorns. When you are finished, the acorns will no longer taste bitter and will have turned a darker brown. The nuts have a flavor similar to boiled chestnuts.

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Natural Area News - Acorns

http://www.sanaturalareas.org/acorns.html

the sweetest taste include Emory oak (Q. emoryi), which is so mild it can be used without processing, white oak (Q. alba), plateau live oak (Q. fusiformis), bur oak (Q. macrocarpa), and chinkapin oak (Q. mulenbergii). The acorns of each of these oaks (mostly white oaks) mature in one year, which may account for their lower tannic acid content. Red oak acorns (like Texas Red Oak) take two years to mature. You can also coarsely grind the acorns before leaching. Place the ground acorns in a large crock or glass bowl. Then add boiling water to My family and I have been known to gather tons of acorn. In the past my Great Aunt Mary had a room in her house where we would deposit all of the acorn we gathered. This was a 10'x12' room, with a four foot board across the doorway. This room was always full of acorn. As children we used to fight for the right to jump into the acorn and stir them up. Anyone bigger than a child would crack the hulls. This had to be done twice a week so that moisture didn't build up and that the acorn dried properly. Traditionally our people stored acorn in 'Chukas', acorn graineries made of cedar and California laurel. These are cylinder in shape and raised above the ground on stakes about three feet. Stevenot, 2004 To prepare acorn flour, run the whole or coarsely ground nuts through a food grinder or blender. If the flour still is damp, dry it in the oven for 30 minutes. Then regrind the flour, if needed, to the fineness you want. Use it in breads, either by itself or with other flours. The traditional method was to use a stone (mano in Collect the ripe acorns from the ground or spread a sheet under the tree and shake the limbs. Collect three times as many as you think you'll need - expect at least half of them to be molded or infested with insects. "I spread them out as a layer thick on an old sheet which I have laid on a roof, corner of the yard, or some other the southwest) hand grinder to crush the meal on a large, flat stone (metate). Use: "I think processed acorns taste like a cross between hazelnuts and sunflower seeds, and I often include acorn meal in my multi-grain bread recipes. Adding half a cup of acorn meal to a two-loaf bread recipe and reducing the flour, as needed, works quite well. Because the cover and let stand an hour. Drain and throw away the brownish, unappetizing water. Repeat. Then taste the meal. It should have a bit of a bitter tang and then taste sweet as you chew a piece. Continue leaching out the tannin until the meal is mild tasting. Press and squeeze the meal getting out as much of the water (and tannin) as possible. Spread the damp meal out in a shallow layer on a cookie sheet or on trays of your dehydrator. In the oven, you only need the pilot light or the very lowest oven setting. As it begins to dry, take your hands and very carefully crumble any chunks that hold moisture. Unless you want to use them wet, you need to dry out the nuts. Spread them out on cookie sheets and roast them in an oven at about 200 degrees F for an hour. You can eat the roasted nuts or chop them up to use as you would any chopped nuts. They can be dipped in sugar and eaten as candy. (Peterson, 1977)

1/2 cup sugar 1 teaspoon salt 1 teaspoon baking soda Add: 1/2 cup dark molasses 1 1/2 cups sour milk 2 tablespoons salad oil

Wring out a pudding cloth in boiling water, spread it in a round bottom bowl and turn the batter into it. Tie the corners and suspend the bag over boiling water in a closed kettle for 4 hours. This should be served hot from the bag, and a steaming slab of this rich, dark, moist bread is just right with a plate of baked beans.

Apache Acorn Cakes 1 cup acorn meal, ground fine 1 cup cornmeal 1/4 cup honey pinch of salt

Mix the ingredients with enough warm water to make a moist, not sticky dough. Divide into 12 balls. Let rest, covered, for 10 minutes or so. With slightly moist hands, pat the balls down into thick tortilla-shaped breads. Bake on an ungreased cast iron griddle over campfire coals or on clean large rocks, propped up slightly before the coals. If using the stones, have them hot when you place the cakes on them. You'll have to lightly peel an edge to peek and see if they are done. They will be slightly brown. Turn them over and bake on the other side, if necessary.

Peggy Spring is Natural Area's Director of Education and Volunteers.

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