A Nutty Idea

Melissa and I had just read about Native Americans of the Pacific Northwest a week or so ago, noting that acorns were a staple of their diet, when I received an email from Stephen, relating what he had just read in a botany text about acorns and how to prepare them. Well, with a coincidence like that, we just had to try our hand at preparing acorns for eating.

We walked over to a park near our neighborhood and gathered two canvas bags of acorns.

Then at home, we used the girls' hammerstones - rocks that are perfect for cracking and crushing - to break the acorns open. They were surprisingly easy to crack and extracting the nuts wasn't difficult, either.

We decided to prepare one canvas bag's worth of acorns to start. It probably took us about 2 hours from start to finish to gather the nuts and remove them from their shells.

I had expected most of the nuts to be wormy, but surprisingly few had to be disgarded.

Before the nuts can be roasted, they first have to be boiled for 3-4 hours, with multiple water changes, to remove the tannins, which cause bitterness.

According to Mother Earth News, acorns aren't poisonous and are one of the oldest foods known to man. They are one of the original "health foods," providing a complete vegetable protein and energy-rich carbohydrates.

After boiling, we allowed the nuts to sit overnight before roasting them for about an hour at 300 degrees.

The roasted nuts.

I tried grinding the nuts into flour in my food processor, but the blade couldn't handle the hardness of the nuts. (I might have roasted them a little too long)

So, out came our trusty, 23 year-old coffee grinder (a wedding present!). The acorns made several cups of flour.

We're storing the flour in the freezer to prevent spoilage. I plan to make a Native American-inspired meal next week which will feature acorn-corn meal muffins.