As each rock cooled down, it was removed, and another hot clean rock took its place in the cooking basket. Then special cooking rocks were heated in a fire, rinsed off, and using special stirring sticks, the rocks were stirred in the basket to heat the acorn solution thoroughly. Not enough water and the acorn will burn. Too much water will require cooking longer to get the consistency you want. Water is added - the correct amount for the amount of acorn meal you are going to use, which is something that takes a while to adjust to. When tasting it showed the tannin had been removed, the meal was carefully removed from its sand “colander” and put into a cooking basket. The tannin would leach out of the acorn meal and harmlessly down into the sand. The meal you wished to leach was placed in the center of this mound and water poured over a clean cedar bough which was placed or held above the acorn meal. This was traditionally accomplished (before we had woven cloth to work with) by building a mound of fine sand, near a spring or the river, and then scooping out the center. When you have determined that you have ground the acorns to “primo” consistency, you must then leach it. There is first and foremost, the original recipe: AFTER THE ACORNS ARE **COMPLETELY DRY** & REMOVED FROM THEIR SHELLS, the Acorns are ground until the meal is so fine that “it will stick to the basket sifter” when it is turned upside down.
It was published by the same group that produces News from Native California, headed by Malcolm Margolin. For the ultimate in information on processing acorn, refer to a new book about Yosemite’s Julia Parker, written by Park Naturalist Bev Ortiz which came out in 1992 or 1993. Other groups shell them first, and then dry them out by placing them someplace safe, yet warm, to dry. They are sometimes stored first, to dry them out, and then shelled. If you see any holes in them, throw them away.
ASK CAKES WITH ACORN FLOUR FREE
(If the acorn is so heavy that it pulls itself from its cap, it is usually because there is a worm flipping itself about inside the acorn, and all this activity is what breaks the nut free from its cap and the tree.) When the acorns are actually ripe, they fall from the tree, cap intact. My favorite is the Black Oak … with a little Tan Oak added for character.Īcorns are gathered in the fall after they are ripe, Early in the season you will occasionally find acorns without their “little hats” lying on the ground. Many of us don’t like the California live oak because “its too much work for the amount of meal you get compared to the amount of leaching you have to do,” “its got no charachter,” “too wormy,” or “its too easy to get - nothing that plentiful can be very good.” The list goes on and on. Many of the MiWuks prefer the Black Oak because it takes less leaching to get rid of the tannin. Many of the Pomos prefer the Tan Oak because they feel it has more flavor. Many of these have been seriously endangered through the process of turning pasture land into housing developments, with the Live Oak being the least threatened - since this oak is not deciduous, it offers “building development appeal” by remaining “green and healthy looking” all year. The most common oaks found in the San Francisco Bay area are the Tan Oak, Black Oak, California Live Oak, and Valley Oak. Some claim that white acorns were the most preferred because they were sweet and often eaten without leaching. Some groups buried baskets of nuts until they were needed. Acorns were everywhere, are easy to gather and store fairly well … as long as your storage places are squirrel tight. Even so, acorns are said to have been the main food of as many as 3/4 of our native Californians. There was a ready supply of deer, fish, rabbits, foul, native plants for vegetables, native fruits, and even sea weed. ACORNS: A Major North American Indian FoodĬalifornia Indians did not have to be farmers, and for the most part were hunters and gatherers.
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