acorn flour???

[superduperchickenman]

anyone ever tried it, made it? Lots of good acorns this year, "live oak". open for suggestions.

[LWB]

I have never made it but I know you will want to use White Oak acorns because the tannin content of the Red Oak acorns is so high. Makes them bitter. That is why the deer much prefer the White Oak. There is a way to leech out the tannin but I don't know the process. If you make any, please let me know how you come out.

[Laura Workman]

An interesting article on processing and using acorns:

http://www.jackmtn.com/acornbread.html

[pyper7]

Great link. I'm determined to try the acorn bread this year. We have 3 large white oaks out back and in 13years I've never seen so many acorns. We don't have any deer, turkey or grouse around here, but the squirrels have butts as big as softballs! :1pig: Still wondering if that means bad winter, so I've been stocking the pantry. I'll share after I do this and let you all know how it came out!

[Explorer]

Several times I have watched the Zuni women of western New Mexico make acorn flour. They crush the acorn by pounding, then place them in a woven basket. The basket is placed in hot water, don't remember it actually boiling, for awhile then moved to the next pot of hot water. Several pots of hot water were used, maybe six or seven, until it tasted right to the group of ladies. I remember much discussion over when they were ready to be dried, but it was in their native language.

[thegirlnextdoor]

When I was little, I remember going to an Indian festival in Mississippi, where they had made numerous things out of acorns and acorn flours. Everything was really great--and ever since then I always wondered about how they'd made the acorn flour, as I'd never heard of it before or since.

In NM, we had some fry bread with chokecherry preserves, which was v good. I'm not sure what type of flour they used, but it was all homemade.

[TexasArtist]

What do the proper acorns look like once you open them? Are they kinda whitish like a brazil nut or....? I've cracked a few open just to see but alot of them seem spongey so I'm thinking they are the bad ones.?

[thegirlnextdoor]

yeah, Texasartist,

I've opened up some too, and they just look spongey and white---couldn't figure out how they got flour out of that. Thought maybe they dried the acorns first.

V interesting what others have said here...We've got hazelnut trees, and I'm not sure what to do with them, but maybe I can make flour out of them. I don't really like hazel nuts, but since we have them...should use them for something

[heather]

Here's some info. I posted on another thread:


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!!


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.

[Explorer]

Originally Posted by thegirlnextdoor

In NM, we had some fry bread with chokecherry preserves, which was v good. I'm not sure what type of flour they used, but it was all homemade.

Fry bread is completely different from Indian acorn cakes. Fry bread as made on the res is usually made with wheat flour and cooked like a doughnut in lard (nowadays I guess they probably use cooking oil commercially). Nevertheless, it is excellent eating.