By RHONDA M. FAZIO.
All hail the mighty oak, the tree of the gods of which man himself was born, sacred to Zeus and worshiped by the Druids, “knower of the oak tree.” The oak is one of humankind’s most ancient food: the acorn. The history of the oak reaches deep into the ground of human civilization, branching throughout the world for millennia, leaving us with a lore and legend as strong and durable as the tree itself.
The leaves would adorn the ancient crowns of kings, while Elizabeth Tudor learned she would be proclaimed Queen of England while sitting under the long-reaching branches of an oak tree. Ironically, years later, Elizabeth’s distant relative Charles II would hide in an oak thick with leaves and acorns to escape Oliver Cromwell’s soldiers. This tactic would be used again in Berkley, MA, in 1675 during King Philip’s War, when a man named Edward Babbitt would climb an oak tree to escape a group of Indigenous people from the area. Unfortunately for him, his dog gave him away.
But with more than four hundred species of oak trees found throughout the world, a hundred in the United States alone, and acorns a historical source of food of Indigenous peoples, why are we not utilizing acorns more fully? It’s an original super food.
What type of acorns should I forage for the best flour?
Quercus alba, White Oak, grows all around us and bears the least bitter of the acorn nuts. It takes about 30 to 40 years for one tree to produce fruit that drops about thirty pounds of acorns from a healthy tree every few years. Yet acorns are one of the most under-utilized foods on the planet. But we can remedy that.
In his book Stalking the Wild Asparagus, Euell Gibbons demonstrates how to make acorn flour. You may know Mr. Gibbons from his commercials about cereal back in the seventies, or as an advocate for foraging wild foods. Born over a hundred years ago, coming of age in the Dust Bowl era, Gibbons learned from his mother how to forage when food was scarce. He would go on to hone this skill, become a “survivalist,” and write a series of books to support himself and his family.
These books were a significant part of my journey as a self-taught botanist and forager, opening my eyes to the world of natural plant dyes along the way. I was always in pursuit of how to be self-sufficient. It was not until university that I learned how to feed my creative and self-sufficiency goals. The question of how to sustain my creative lifestyle moving forward into an uncertain future became important to me. The early days of my own creative process led me to the self-sustaining practices I use today.
I recall a crisp autumn day gathering acorns with some dear friends, peeling back the leathery skin of the shells, chopping up the acorn meat with a blender. Remembering the sheepish laughter because we took the easy way out by using a blender, and then soaking and squeezing the ground acorns through a bandana repeatedly, until the water ran clear, and the bitterness washed away.
What is acorn flour good for? After the full process we had a freezer full of acorn flour to be used with any of our favorite cookie, pie, and bread recipes.
As long as the process is, it is time well spent with family or friends on a gorgeous autumn day in New England. That memory was the beginning of an ongoing process that grounded me deeply and steered me toward the creative lifestyle that I work to sustain.
This recipe is straight out of Euell’s book, with a slight rewrite of words to update the vernacular. I leave you with this quote as food for thought into the 21st century: “It seems a pity that the food which nourished the childhood of our humanity is today nearly everywhere neglected and despised.” –Euell Gibbons, 1962
Happy foraging!
Disfruta!
Acorn Flour — Cold Leaching Method Inspired by Euell Gibbons
Step 1: Collect acorns from a White Oak Tree. They are the least bitter. (All acorns are good to use but need to be leached of the tannic acid to become edible.) Remove any with cracks or holes. Put in a bowl and fill with water. Remove any that float.
Step 2: Dry first then hammer to open. Try a nutcracker. Discard shells. Transfer acorn meat to a bowl.
Step 3: Put 2 cups of the acorns in a blender or food processor to coarsely grind. Add a little water as needed until it is finely chopped. Rinse through a colander lined with a fine cloth. Squeeze and repeat several times. Taste for bitterness. If it is still bitter, keep rinsing. Several rinses should do it.
Step 4: On a parchment-lined cookie sheet, dry the leached acorns in a slow oven set at 250° until dry. Drying time varies depending on the gauge of the acorn bits. First time makers, check after 20 minutes. Then every 10 to 15 minutes afterward. Document your time, because every oven is different.
Step 5: Return dried acorn meal to the blender or food processor and mix until it is finely ground. measured amounts to accommodate recipe conversion. Acorn flour will keep as long as regular flour.
Step 6: Store in a glass jar in the refrigerator or freeze in measured amounts to accommodate recipe conversion. Acorn flour will keep as long as regular flour.
Step 7: Acorn flour is denser than traditional flour and gluten free. Ratio recommendation vary from 50:50 to 1:1 with regular white flour in your favorite baking recipes. Experiment to find what works best for your recipe.
NOTE
Instead of cold leaching, you can roughly chop the acorns and boil them to leach the tannins out (as explained in Step 3).
Repeat steps Boil and drain until water is clear and the bitterness is gone, then follow Steps 4 through Step 7.
Author’s Note: Use Peterson and Golden guides to cross-reference plant identification. When foraging always use three references. One should always be aware of potentially poisonous plants from your region.
Rhonda M. Fazio is an artist, writer, and traveler. She divides her time between the South Coast and the rest of the world (while on tour with Springsteen) researching and teaching her food and fabric curricula.
www.rhondamfazio.com
