Eat Like An Elf: Making Acorn Flour

~Tá dearcain an-úsáideach

Red Oak in glade

WARNING: In an effort to not kill my readers, I should emphasize ACORNS ARE A NUT. If you have tree nut allergies, do not experiment with acorns before consulting with your health care professional.

Acorns can be used for many things: fodder, ink and dye, and you can eat them.

Acorns are one of the oldest pre-agricultural human foods. They are abundant, easy to gather (if you don't mind being cursed out by squirrels) and once oaks are established, they produce for longer that a human lives. And Acorns are free for the taking!

But today there are only two human cultures who use acorns with even semi-regularity: American First Nations and Koreans. By the time of recorded history in Europe, acorns were considered famine food, what people ate when they were desperate. One wonders how good starving Europeans could have been at processing; it's unlikely the skills to make acorns palatable survived with such infrequent use. Despite the abundance of acorns and, currently, free cost, there are some drawbacks for commercial use:

- An oak tree takes about 20-40 years before producing acorns. If you're an long lived species, like elves, no problem. But since this the average time humans take to mature to adulthood, it's not ideal for starting a staple crop.

- Oaks do not produce reliably every year. Many trees alternate mast years, that is, one year they dump acorns so thickly you're still walking on them in the winter, and the next, there's hardly any. Though in my personal experience it's not that extreme: just a lot less acorns in the off year, but still enough. While one tree is under producing, another, across the stream is dropping acorns like bombs. So mast years appear to be dependent on water, weather and other environmental factors.

- Acorns require leaching to remove tannins which, in large quantities, are toxic to humans. And believe me, acorns have a lot of tannins. Bite into one and it will dry your mouth out and you won't be able to swallow it. Traditionally leaching was done in baskets in streams, or buried in soil. Some Peoples ground and then leached them, pouring water through the meal. Grinding first and leaching can be faster, as can using hot water. But nutrients are lost, and, in the case of hot water, leaching it can go horribly wrong and fix the tannins in the acorns permanently, making them inedible.

- Oak trees were valued more for building and firewood by colonial cultures, reducing the amount of oaks producing acorns for peoples still eating them. I could see how this turned into a downward spiral and people turned to quicker growing crops.

I've been gathering and processing acorns for almost 4 years, after first researching the material of people rediscovering this staple. For those who want to try their hand at making and using acorns for food, this is how I do it:

1. Gather acorns. That's obvious, but you need to identify oaks. If there are no oaks on your property, best bets are public parks or right of way. Legally you can gather from pavements besides people's houses and property, but please ask for permission before going onto private property. Be polite and respectful.

Identifying oaks: The two main types of oaks are white and red. White oaks have the round lobbed leaves. Red oaks are pointed. There are many more sub species and oaks hybridized so easily even experts can have trouble telling them apart. But, as far as I know, all acorns are edible.

Much is made of White Oaks, which are the Holy Grail of foragers. Allegedly their acorns need no leaching. But the best I've found are some that I could eat raw, if I had to, but were far from pleasant. Research that suggests humans vary in their ability to taste tannins in acorns. Unfortunately, this does not mean these acorns are less toxic to the individuals. According to this document, ALL ACORNS MUST BE LEACHED. In addition to removing tannins, which not only taste bad but interfere with nutrition, acorns need their phytic acid removed or neutralized(more in notes at bottom of page).

2020 Harvest

I'm so glad I always leach any acorns I gather.

2. Shelling/Hulling:

Once I gather the acorns, I shell them. Some people use a rock or hammer. Resourceful folks have made special mills to hull in mass. Good on them! I use a nutcracker and a bowl, usually while I'm watching a program.

3. Leaching:

All acorns need to be leached. Once I shell the acorns, I put them into a sturdy plastic container, fill it with water and close the lid. If the container is to be outside, a lid is ideal because squirrels WILL steal them. Sometimes when I have too many, I put them in buckets and fill them with a lot of water which is a deterrent. But as they acorns leach, that is get sweeter, the squirrels get bolder. One has to watch them carefully.

Every day I pour the water off, and fill it again. It's not the most efficient leaching method, but without a stream or river, it gets the job done. The leaching process on average takes anywhere from a couple weeks to a month.I will know it's finished when the acorns are completely saturated AND when I break one apart and nibble on it it isn't dry and bitter. Personally I like a little nutty bite to the flavor. And I worry if I leach them bland, I'm losing nutrients. But they should not dry the mouth out.

4. Drying:

I dry before grinding because I find the acorns develop a lovely nutty smell that way. But either will work. For ease of grinding, I only half dry them. Ideally this takes a week. If it's taking longer, check the humidity and watch for mold.

5. Grinding:

Once they're half dry--dry on the outside, firm, but still have moister if squeezed-- I roughly chop them in about 1/4 inch pieces, then lay them out on a mesh to dry some more. A couple days to a week later they should be ready to be ground down to meal.

Note: I dry in stages for two reasons: to preserve flavor and to avoid grinding a rock hard acorn nut which takes...for...ever.

6. Final grinding: The dry meal should be ground as fine as the appliance can get on the first pass.

Once a batch is all ground, I sift it and grind it again, as fine as possible.

Now the flour is finished. It is best stored in the refrigerator in an airtight container.

Yield: A paper grocery bag filled with acorns usually yields about 8 cups of flour after about a month of work.

Flour properties:

The best flour I've made is a light buff or tan color and has a rich nutty flavor. Darker flour means its lower in fat or has dried out a bit more than ideal at some point in processing, but is still usable. Some insist white or nearly white flour is possible...and fair play to them! Keep chasing those unicorns!

I use acorn flour like corn meal, 1-to-1 replacement in cornbread.

Acorn flour has no gluten, so it must be mixed with other flours if yeast is the leavening. It is reasonably responsive to soda leavening, though personally I find I must use eggs for the best results. And mixing in other flour will make a finer texture. For pancakes, I use a ratio of 2/3 acorn flour to 1/3 of spelt or barley or oat flour.

After baking, it is much darker than one expects. Pancakes are lighter. Left over acorn bread can be used for stuffing or breadcrumbs.

Final note: I have had no problems digesting acorns. But I have noticed a tendency for "firmness" in the bowels. It makes me drink water regularly, like I should be doing anyway. But this makes me think people who might have kidney trouble should do some research and go cautiously forward.

New foods can be exciting but health comes first.

Final notes:

Making acorn flour is a lot of work. But much of that work is passive: leaching acorns sitting in water while I do something else. And if a community was involved, at least the gathering would go much faster. I would far prefer to tend an oak orchard than plough a field for my staples, and then cut, church, thresh, etc, etc. Smart people looking at feeding themselves on a small scale stay away from depending on wheat and corn. Growing grains efficiently requires community effort even on the small scale. A family or small groups should be relying on beans, peas and other pulses, and possibly potatoes. And maybe look to the trees...

Humans could resolve two serious issues at once by supporting more tree crops for food production: our growing food insecurity and environmental degradation. Chestnut, Oak, Beech, and of course the standard nut trees have fed cultures for aeons. There is the problem of nut allergies. But for those who can eat nuts it would help quite a bit to relieve the burden. And they're tasty too!

Trees support the soil, clean the air and give us food. The trees could save us all... if we let them.

Friday, March 5, 2021

Making Acorn Flour

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