And I think an optimist is a man who looks at a thousand acorns in the grass beneath an oak tree and thinks of coffee, and bread and cookies and scones. I think I certainly qualify.
I have always liked to explore wild foods and I started to look into the possibility of eating acorns last year. This year, I ramped up my testing and am pleased to report that I've learned a lot. And I have a couple of bags of high quality acorn meal or 'flour,' to prove it.
There were lots of articles on the web about using acorns. I found first of all that I had English white oak acorns at my disposal. They are huge, which means that my yield ratio should be good. But they, like all acorns, have tannins within that make the taste of a raw acorn bitter and may even cause stomach upsets, in humans, if eaten in quantity.
The big question then was how to get rid of that tannin? Fortunately, it is water soluble. Last year, I laboriously sliced open scores of acorns, removed the nut, and carefully scraped the skins off each one. I read that the skins have a higher percentage of the tannin than the flesh. I then chopped each one up into pea-sized pieces and began the process of soaking them. I changed the water morning and night. It was time consuming. It took weeks before they tasted free of tannins. As a last step I ground them in a blender to a finer texture and called it good enough. I had enough 'flour' for a batch of 12 scones. Interesting, but too much work and time. I knew I could do better.
One of the trees that provide the bounty.
Beauties, huh?
This year, when they started to fall, I started again to plan, read and think about my project.
I did a small batch with the old fashioned 'slice and peel and scrape the skins method. I had refined my technique and got pretty good at it. But it was still so slow...and after that, the business of soaking chunks of acorn in water is a Very slow way of leaching out the tannins. There had to be a better way. I discovered that Jeanne's Magic Bullet smoothie mixer ground raw nuts efficiently to a very fine consistency. I then soaked this fine meal in water and each morning and evening would strain the meal and water mixture through a fine cloth. I discovered that the meal tasted free of tannins with only 5 changes of water. Eureka! Now, to streamline production.
I had a brain storm at that point. What if I were to freeze the acorns before I did anything else to them? Would it allow me to open them more easily and remove the nutmeats? And would it allow me to separate the skins more efficiently?
I tried it and found that it did. I hit upon a method that I think is as good as I am going to get, given the fact that I want to invest no money whatsoever in equipment. I experimented with both a knife and a hammer to open the shell. The hammer won. This is the first part of my method.
- Freeze acorns. Thaw them.
- Lay out equipment: large cutting board, hammer, bowls for shells and nutmeats
- Smack each acorn so it splits.
- Cover the split nuts with water for a couple of hours. It further softens them.
- Pry the nutmeats out of the shells. A little more pounding on the large pieces of acorn to crush them will allow the Magic Bullet to grind them as quickly as possible.
- Rinse the pieces with a couple changes of water and 'scrub' handfuls of the pieces between your palms to loosen more of the skins. Each time I do that, more of the skins are poured off with the water.
Next, I grind the nuts and some water in small batches in the smoothie maker. I get a very fine grind. It looks almost like light-coloured mud while it's still wet. I have some very nice cloth squares that do a good job of straining the water out. And I found by experimentation that I do not have to wait for hours between each soaking and straining. I now do five changes of water, one after another and all the tannins disappear. The color of the water removed changes from yellowish brown to almost clear during the process.
I have now done several batches and disagree with some of the articles I read on-line that cautioned that great care must be taken to remove all the nutmeat skins. When I grind the nuts, the skins are also reduced to a very small size. Then, when I soak the meal, I notice the tiny flecs of skins floating to the surface of the water covering the meal. Each time I pour off the excess water containing the tannins, I pour away more of the skins as well. I'm sure that I have not removed all the skins after 5 rinsings of the meal, but I've removed a large percentage, and I think, that, ground as finely as they are, the remaining skins give up whatever tannins they hold, every bit as easily as does the nutty portion. Jeanne acts as my assistant taster and together we insure no bitterness remains in the finished product.
Finally, I use a glass cake pan to dry the meal. I have found that the oven works best to dry it. I can do it in the sun, but when I leave it unprotected on the deck, birds start to move in, hoping to steal it from me. I store undried batches of the meal in baggies in the refrigerator until Jeanne uses the oven. The residual heat from the day's roast, cake, or bread is usually enough to dry a batch like the one you see in the picture below. I stir it several times. The meal becomes browner as it dries.
My goal this year was to produce enough flour to let me experiment with lots of recipes that I've found on line. I have frozen a large bag of my flour so that it'll stay fresh and so that I don't have to get into a binge of cooking and eating acorn products. And I've tried a few things already. Here's the run-down.
My first experiment was making acorn coffee. I used a frying pan and very carefully stirred it while watching it slowly change colour to almost black. It was not burnt but did closely resemble coffee in colour.
I used a metal tea-infuser to hold a portion of my 'coffee.' I let it steep in almost boiling water for about 5 minutes. The taste, not surprisingly, wasn't coffee-like at all. I thought it drinkable, but barely; Jeanne thought that a tea made from burnt toast crumbs would have been more palatable. I don't think we'll be making any more...
My next experiment was acorn flatbread. It was made with a 2 to 1 ratio of white flour to acorn flour although the color might lead you to believe it was closer to 1:1. I fried this batch on the griddle portion of my gas grill and they turned out a little too dry. My next batch I did in a frying pan so that I could control the heat more accurately. They were actually Good. I also used a seasoned salt in the recipe rather than plain table salt.
In my third batch of flatbread, I used table salt and Jeanne said that she preferred this over the seasoned salt type. I like them both.
Acorn cookies came next. Unfortunately, I misread the recipe and put in way too much butter. My cookies tasted just fine, but were almost as flat as the flat bread, and too greasy. I still count them as a success.
Next, I tried candied acorns, a recipe I found on Youtube. I used my ground meal instead of the acorn pieces the recipe called for and it worked just fine. My version looked like beef jerky but was nutty, and tasted of cinnamon and brown sugar.
Then came acorn porridge. One half cup acorn meal, one cup of water, a pinch of salt and 15 minutes on a slow boil, stirring constantly. It did thicken up like porridge should. The result though, was pretty much what I had been expecting. Probably ranked as one of the most boring foods on earth. I put some apple syrup on it, which helped a little. Now it tasted like one of the most boring foods on earth with apple syrup on it.
I learned two things from this one. I was pleased to find that I tasted no bitterness whatsoever, in my porridge, which proves how effectively I had removed the tannins. And I suffered no unpleasant effects from eating it all. It may have been boring, but it was filling and satisfying in a weird way. If I had been eating this stuff since childhood, I can even imagine it being a comfort food. Maybe. It certainly proves that this very simple food could sustain a person. (I'll have more to say about this in my follow-up post about acorns.)
I intend to continue my experimentation but have taken a break from the kitchen lately.
I have about 350 acorns still stored in a cloth sack. I want to see how long I can store them and how they will age. I cut 5 of them open about every two weeks and inspect the nut. So far, they show no signs of deterioration.
Look at this next picture. This is an area, not too much larger than a square foot, that lies beneath one of the trees I pick from. I had picked this area clean a few weeks ago. There are thousands of square feet beneath this tree. What a huge volume of flour I could make if I harvested all the acorns I could. And I know the locations of many more trees. Universal Drive has 10 trees I know about and may have more beyond my knowledge. Summerland school has several. There is a big one behind the fish market we regularly shop at.
I picked up these two from beneath the tree just today. They are the largest I've found.
There are also many pin oaks in the area. They produce a nut as well, but it's tiny compared to the English White Oak.
I peeled one of these little ones today and ate it. It has a texture that is very like a hazel nut, which I liked, but the taste told me it had a higher concentration of tannin than the English White. I'm sure I could leach away the bitterness but the labor involved for the return wouldn't be worth it. At least, not as long as I had the giants of the acorn world available.
I've really enjoyed learning what I have about the lowly acorn. Our society has moved beyond needing it for nourishment, but I am pleased to know that it could be a great source, if we wanted it badly enough. It's just one of so many edible treasures out there. Actually, I think it is one of the best. I've tried many wild foods, but many have such a high fibre content, that eating them in any quantity would cause digestive troubles. Not so with the acorn.
I'll certanly try some more recipes and do a follow up some time, both on how we like what I cook and also on how my big sacks of stored acorns ages. I have separated 50 of them and am experimenting with drying them in the shell. I hope that I'll be able to process most of both batches in a few months and replenish my store of meal. Stay tuned. -djf
A display of the floats and ropes that provide an anchor for the growing shellfish. 
All hands explored the family-friendly outdoor dining areas. Not surprisingly, a nautical theme predominated. 
Allie chose some very fresh oysters on the half shell.
A little hot sauce was added.
This is a paua (abalone) fritter.
To the left of the fries is the the flounder-on-a-spear that I wanted to sample. The boys tried some, and enjoyed the fries of course, but passed on the 'weird stuff.'
We've left the coast now and are crossing through the
Here we are. That's our holiday home, a short block from Buffalo Beach on Mercury Street. 
Amiri approaches the deck and sees the name, Paradise, displayed on the wall. It really did turn out to be everything we hoped for and more. 
'A job well done.' Allie is pleased. Not only is the house she found and rented Way better than two hotel rooms would have been, it is much cheaper besides. Three bedrooms, two baths, full kitchen, dining room, lounge, washing machine, outdoor shower (for de-salting), clothes line, and two decks make up this dream spot. 
