More (than you probably wanted to know) about acorns...

Welcome to the second part of my discussion on what I have learned about the acorn. A wild food that could be domesticated. I can't tell you how much I've enjoyed becoming more aware of what an amazing food source this could be if we needed it to be. Adam Leith Gollner, in Chapter 3, How Fruits Have Shaped us, of his book, The Fruit Hunters, states that humans are estimated to have eaten more acorns than wheat or any other fruit. I'm not surprised at all by that. It tickles me that I am rediscovering something that early mankind knew without thinking. Wouldn't it be something to see acorns re-emerge as a food source? I think that producing meal from the acorn on an industrial scale would be very easy. We're a long way from that right now however. I did find one source of acorn flour that charges $34.00/lb. for it. It's at  http://buyacornflour.com/product.php if you're interested. 

I have been adding to this post, now and then, ever since I published my first post about acorns. I hope this isn't too disjointed. 

I rather doubt that you currently share my enthusiasm over this nut. Up until I realised that we had such quantities of acorns available here, I hadn't given them much thought either. And it has only been since experimenting with them, that I gained a real appreciation for them. 

You may not have acorns available to you, so you wouldn't be able to do your own testing, even if you were so inclined. And, if you are also still busy earning a living, you have a lot more important concerns on your minds than I do. Acorns occupy a low level of importance and interest in your lives. Even for me, this interest is just a passing fancy. I have no interest in becoming to the acorn, what Dr. George Washington Carver was to the peanut. Still, as this growing season comes to it's end, and I have access to lots of nuts, I intend to enjoy their goodness and have some fun experimenting.  

Look what I found regarding their nutritional index.

According to the USDA National Nutritional Database, the following numbers apply:
(per 100 grams of raw, full-fat acorn flour or meal)

Protein                                                     7.49 grams
Fat                                                         30.17 grams
Carbohydrates                                       54.65 grams

Looking at numbers like these, is it any wonder that so many Native American tribes relied as they did on acorns? 

I learned that the most common way that acorns were eaten, by both of the tribes that I read about, was as acorn mush. The acorns would be opened, crushed to a fine meal, treated with water to remove the tannins, and stored. To make the mush, meal would be boiled in water. It would be eaten by dipping two fingers into the pot or bowl of it. 

That sounds exactly like my acorn porridge, of which I was not fond. 

To make a stew, the tribes would boil pieces of venison or fish with the acorn meal. I doubt that I would enjoy a bowl of any of those early dishes. I am too used to our modern food culture. But back then I think, eating was more about survival and less about palatability. When I think about it though, I can imagine that if a person grew up eating acorn mush, it could qualify as a 'comfort food,' and be to them the equivalent of our bread, mashed potatoes or noodles.

These are the words two tribes used to describe their staple food, acorn mush.

'Wiiwish'    Californian Indians
'Shawii'      Southwestern Indians 

So, now you know a little more about the foods of early Americans. How about the foods that I've tried, in which I've used acorn meal to some degree?

Bowl of oatmeal and 1 1/2 TBS acorn meal           Definitely good.                                  
'Black sand beach'   (explained below)                  Okay
Apple crisp with acorn topping                               Definitely good
Candied acorn                                                       Sweet and cinnamony, good
Acorn porridge (mush)                                           Very plain food, but traditional
Acorn flat bread                                                     Definitely good (our favourite way to use it)
Acorn cookies                                                        Great (when I follow the recipe)
Acorn grits                                                             A drier version of mush, again, very boring

I mentioned that stew was another important dish using acorn meal. I thought that since I found acorn mush so bland, I'd try my hand at inventing a dish that used acorn meal as a major ingredient, but that might be more palatable than plain mush is. 'Black Sand Beach' was that attempt. I used a Mrs. Grass Chicken Soup flavouring packet, but not the noodles. One packet flavors 4 cups of water. I added some chopped carrots and celery, and a cup of acorn meal to two cups of the prepared soup. I simmered this all for about 20 minutes. In a frying pan, I sauteed some chicken livers in butter and when done, chopped them up. Also in a separate bowl, I sliced sheets of dried seaweed into strips and poured boiling water over them to soften them.

You see a picture of my creation below. The mush makes us the largest portion of the stew, but I added enough broth so that the liquid is level with the top of the mush. I wanted my dish to approximate the consistency of saturated beach sand. The dark colour of the dish celebrates all the black sand beaches we have on our western coastline. The carrots and celery, while admittedly not found on beaches, represent all manner of growing things that are found on the beach. The seaweed is a no-brainer I think. Our beaches are covered with it. 

But, what about the chicken livers?  Well, I first considered using mussels for this dish, but I thought the combination of the seaweed and mussels might make it too 'fishy.' And, then I realised that a very common sight along some of our beaches are wild chickens. Why not incorporate them into my dish? As it happened, I went to the  Aussie Butcher the day I was thinking about making this and noticed that they were having a sale on chicken livers. I happen to love them (once in a while) and the livers offered that day looked really prime. So chicken livers it was.  I also thought that the rather strong flavor of the livers might help to kick the mush up a notch. 


I thought it was okay. I did eat this entire bowl and digested it successfully, if you follow my meaning. Acorns are a new food for me and I wondered if my body would accept them without a qualm. (or a cramp) No problem whatsoever. 

I did use a spoon to eat this, not two fingers. 

(update) One of the things I did not like about my porridge or mush that I have produced so far was the consistency. It was too grainy. Therefore, I experimented with grinding the meal much finer. I did this in a mortar and pestle. That was the solution. It made a big difference in my acceptance of my latest batch of mush. I also added the correct amount of salt this time. (ever forget to salt the water in which you boil your potatoes?) While it is still a very bland, fairly boring dish, it is much more palatable with this fine grind. I would have enjoyed my black sand beach more had it been ground finer. 

(A further update) And just today, I have hit upon a delicious way to eat acorn mush! 

Because of the storm recently that downed a tree in our backyard, tore loose one of our roof tiles, and wrecked the boys' trampoline, Jeanne found the ground beneath our feijoa tree to be littered with dozens of unripe fruit. She cut the centers out of each of them, mixed the result with several stalks of rhubarb, added sugar, boiled, and produced an excellent mixed fruit sauce. It's pink from the rhubarb, but definitely carries a measure of the feijoa tang as well. Wonderful stuff. 

Well, today I realised that acorn mush and fruit sauce might compliment one another, and do they ever!  Together, each is better than it is alone.

The blandness of the mush brings down the level of tartness that the fruit provides and what I called the 'graininess' of the plain mush has now been transformed into a sort of 'crunchiness' in the mixture of the two. I also think the acidity in the fruit affected the mush in a good way. 

Think back to the USDA nutrition report for acorn meal. Add that to that the goodness of the fruit sauce and I'd say that I just had one heck of a nutritious lunch. I'm sure that Native Americans would have also eaten acorn fruit stew. It's just plain delicious. I could easily imagine enjoying a meal of acorn fruit stew and fried or grilled acorn flatbread. 

I have had a great deal of fun over the past couple of months with my acorn analysis. I knew nothing at all about them to start and now I feel that I have attained a reasonably good understanding of them as a food source. 

I used to think of them as an animal food only. Imagining them as a worthwhile human means of nutrition was extremely far-fetched. How wrong I was. 

I've learned that they could represent a very real source of nutrition. I'm sure I could collect hundreds of pounds of acorns yearly from this area. 

One may argue that the labor involved in producing meal from the raw nut is too great, but it's not really so tough. Think of the amount of labor involved in producing flour from wheat after all. 

I have two kinds of acorns drying. I said in my first post that I thought it would be too much work to open the pin oak acorns, but I see that many of them are spitting open naturally as they dry. I'll continue to watch these little gems and see if most open up.

Bags of acorns. Those in the black were harvested green. Those in the red were harvested when they were fully brown. I plan to watch both for several months at least and process them at intervals. 

Just to amuse myself, I compiled a list of the wild foods I have tried. (I've probably forgotten some)

Bear, white-tailed deer, mule deer, caribou, elk, turkey, ruffed grouse, woodcock, rabbit, squirrel, woodchuck, raccoon
Small-mouthed bass, brown trout, rainbow trout/steelhead, sunfish, crappies, perch, northern pike, catfish, whitefish, smelt, suckers
Snapping turtle, fresh-water clams, crayfish, alligator
Morels, shaggy manes, hen-of-the-woods, giant puffballs, purple puffballs, chaga conk
Wild rice, giant thistles, burdock, wild onions (leeks), fiddle head ferns, lambs quarters, water cress, sumac, milkweed pods, dandelions, Labrador tea, hazelnuts, chestnuts, black walnuts, acorns. 
Blueberries, thimble berries, strawberries, chokecherries, wintergreen berries, partridge berries.
Maple syrup, Koko Samoa. 



Here is yet another, later update on the acorn situation. 

It is quite easy now to shell these acorns. Especially the English Oak on the right. They have been drying for about four+ months as I write this and the shell can be crushed and torn apart with my fingers quite easily. The smaller pin-oak needs only a smack on the top of the nut with a hammer and the shell shatters into several pieces. The nuts inside both are as hard as rocks. 

I made a mistake in my first acorn post by thinking that the small pin oak nuts were too small to be worth the effort of opening. Consider having nothing to eat, or having  fifty thousand of that beautiful nut on the left in picture above. I know which situation I'd choose. And there are even more pin oak trees around than English oak.

This is a photo from early June. Not a spring time shot here, it's fall. the trees are almost bare and all sign of acorns below the trees are gone. 

(Update) We're well over four months now since I started harvesting the acorns. The fully dried, rock hard nuts can be softened again, I discovered, by soaking them in water for a day or so, and can then be ground up in Jeanne's smoothie maker, just like the fresh ones can be. There would
be no need to process all the nuts at harvest time into meal. I found just a few rotten ones among all the hundreds I had stored away.

I have been saving two baggies of meal in our refrigerator all this time, to see how they would store. Jeanne discovered (on 7-11-18) that my first batch appears to have mold in it. I think this is due to not being dry enough. I knew when I produced my second batch that I had dried it more thoroughly than my first batch. Now I know how important it is to have the meal completely dry for long-term storage. And I do not think the first batch picked up any moisture in the fridge. The meal I have stored in the freezer is perfect yet. (End of August) 

The seasons are changing once again. When I started this post, it was fall. We're entering spring now and this is a shot of new buds on a pin oak tree at Summerland school. And you've seen the header picture.

I doubt that I'll feel like gathering acorns again this fall. Been there, done that, as the saying goes. I think that I'll look at them with pleasure and a bit more understanding though.

You know, I still have some meal left in the freezer and have been planning to make myself one more batch of 'fruity acorn stew.' And some flatbread. Haven't had that in a while either. Time to celebrate spring. 

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If you've made it through this rather lengthy, nutty spiel, I congratulate you. You've graduated from my 'Acorn 101' class.  I don't currently plan for any follow-ups to this post, but you never know.

And consider this. If I didn't live half-way 'round the world from you, you would have already received gift-packs of acorn meal from me to try for yourselves! (did I hear a collective sigh of relief from out there?)    -djf

Martha's Backyard

We live roughly 6,518 miles from Los Angeles. The flight time to cover that distance averages, depending on the high-altitude winds, about 12 hours. We're a long way from home. Things are different here. We happily accept the differences but still sometimes find ourselves missing the way things are in the States. And we adults have a responsibility to the boys to teach them about America. They need to know as many of the things that American kids know as possible. We have done lots of teaching and will continue to. And we are fortunate to have a store in the city that helps us do that. 

Today's post is going to introduce you to a place that is a little bit of Americana. It's Martha's Backyard and it sells nothing but American brands. 

Now, it seems to me that nothing is more American than the peanut butter and jelly sandwich and the brand that I've been smearing between two slabs of bread for decades is Jiff. Each time that I've made the journey from the States to Auckland, I have brought serious quantities of both smooth and extra-crunchy. When Dianne, who has visited twice, asks if she can bring anything along that we especially miss, I immediately go on record as wanting as much Jiff as she's willing to haul through NZ Customs. 

Martha's carries Jiff. 

The only problem is that Auckland is a big, spread-out city and we don't get over to the south side in the car very often. In the past therefore, we have sometimes run out of Jiff and have had to subsist on local brands. Now, I do think that the Kiwis try really hard to make a good peanut butter, but they just don't quite do it the way Jiff does it. The color isn't quite right and it spreads...funny. So, these periods of Jiff deprivation have been hard on all of us. Just the other day I heard Arram ask Allie if he could have a pb&j. He paused for a second and then asked, "Wait a minute, do we have Jiff?" When she assured him that we did, he settled back again in his chair with a relieved and satisfied, "Okay then."  The kid knows his stuff. 

Recently, I got to thinking about whether I could reach Martha's on public transport. I did the research and found that I can. The trip to Martha's takes about 90 minutes, but shoot, I've got the time and the traveling is free. 

I didn't take many pictures during my trip down there, but here are a few. 

 That's Mt. Wellington, one of Auckland's 48 volcanic cones. It's practically in the backyard of Martha's Backyard.

 "The American Store...it's just different." And I'm glad it is!

 Look, there it is, bottom shelf, left side, both kinds, smooth and extra-crunchy.

 This represents security. Looking at this stash is like opening my safe deposit box and seeing a stack of $100's. (well, sort of)

 Here is a little history of my appreciation of Bull's-Eye BBQ Sauce.

I was working for Robinison Furniture at the time and was in Dallas at a furniture show. We had gone out to dinner and I had eaten a rack of the best ribs I had ever tasted.*  I commented after dinner to the waiter how much I had enjoyed the chef's BBQ sauce. The waiter looked to both sides dramatically, as if to make sure he wouldn't be overheard, and then whispered to me, "It's really just Bulls-Eye."

One of the first things I did when I got home was to look for Bull's-Eye at Elmer's. 

*Note: I had not tasted Fred's ribs or sauce yet. 

 How long has it been since you're had a PAYDAY? 

The boys Love Flamin' Hot Cheetos. Actually, we all do.    -djf

Natural sand art

Allie took us out to Birthday Beach a few weeks ago. We call it that, although it's really just an northern extention of Muriwai, because we first went to this particular spot on Allie's birthday a few years ago. It's a rough sort of place. The beach is wide and flat and is used extensively by 4 wheel drive trucks and dirt bikes. The speed limit sign on the beach says 60 kph (36 mph), but I've observed that most vehicles pass by at better than 60 mph. I don't think there is much danger of getting hit. The beach is so wide and when we are there, we stay up near the dunes and away from the traffic. 

As I walked along the sand that day, I noticed the patterns in it, and I thought I might like to do a post of just sand art. So, here we go. 

This next series of pictures reminds me of comets. Think of the shell piece and the patterns in  the sand as being in the night sky.  Seen against a background of a billion stars at high magnification, the comet's long tails spread out behind them.

This last series of sand art was spotted by Jeanne on Oneroa Beach on our anniversary. I've used various filters to give each its color. I call these pieces Sand Forests. 

Not the artist, just an observer          -djf

The University of Auckland

It's Brain Day again. Once each year, The University of Auckland hosts this exposition.  It showcases the latest developments in brain science and research and is organised by the Centre for Brain Research and the Neurological Foundation of New Zealand. 

Allie has always helped to host the ABI (Acquired Brain Injury) display. This year, she is working the booth all day. 

I rode in with her this morning and helped carry in some of the materials she'll be using. After that, I limbered up my camera-clicking finger and wandered through part of the campus, collecting photos as I went. I then made my way over to Albert Park and from there, down to the waterfront area. I spent a little time on a bench, watching the ferries come and go. 

Remember, it's the middle of winter (July 21st) when I took these pictures. It looks a bit dreary. 

I don't think I will comment on many of them. This will simply give you a look at what the university looks like. 

This post is in honor of the starting of school all over the U.S. 

This is the building that hosts Brain Day. 

I was pleased to see this building because I have read some of Frank Sargeson's writings. 

(that's his pen name, by the way) 

That's the end of my University of Auckland photos. 

The fountain in Albert Park

Toddler-sized fountains you saw once before. 

I'm down on Quay Street. It runs along the waterfront. You're looking at Kelly Tarlton's 'Shark Bus.' It'll take you to the underground aquarium. Cool place.    

I decided not to take the train back to Henderson. Instead, I caught the 133 bus. This allowed me to hop off in Grey Lynn for 1/2 an hour and visit a butchery there. They make a delicious black pudding. (blood sausage) They are Portuguese and advertise themselves to be a traditional old-world butcher.

Good stuff. When I eat it, I'm reminded of Aunt Mary's blood sausage. She made us some when we butchered William. (one of the pigs we raised long ago) Her's was made from a Bohemian recipe. I find it interesting that both versions are so similar in taste and texture. 

 -djf