Acorns: The Grain That Grows on Trees

Image Gallery Since you can find oaks in almost every part of the United States,it's easy to locate a suitable acorn hunting ground. Foraging in the wilds (TOP)... or even among ornamental oaks in a city park (CENTER)... can provide you with a bountiful harvest of kernels (BOTTOM).

A food-producing nut tree may well be growing, unappreciated, in your own backyard.

By David Bainbridge

Before white settlers ventured onto this continent, acorns were one of the staple foods of many of its indigenous peoples. The oak crop provided a reliable and nutritious source of food for these Native Americans, and many families would harvest and eat as much as half a ton of acorns in a year's time. The nuts were also boiled or crushed to produce an oil, which was prized for cooking and as a salve for burns and wounds. In addition, acorns were the main diet of the deer, bear, and the many other animals and birds that were consumed by the Indians.

However, the use of acorns as a human food began declining in the early 1600's as oak forests were cleared for annual crop production-in particular, for corn. Nowadays, almost four billion bushels of corn are harvested in this country every year, while only a handful of Native Americans and wild-food enthusiasts take advantage of the free-for-the-gathering acorn bounty. It seems a shame that the food which once served as the staff of life to human cultures is now widely disregarded.

Acorns have even lost their place as a forage crop for livestock in this country ...although they're still widely used for this purpose ill other lands (particularly in southern Europe, where oaks supply fodder for hogs). Whereas our frontier forebears fed themselves on acorn-fattened pork, the U.S. now relies on corn as the basis for meat production.

THE TRADE-OFF

Unfortunately, when the costs and benefits of growing corn and acorns are compared, it becomes apparent that the changeover has not been much of a bargain. As a perennial tree crop, acorns can be grown year after year without cultivation, fertilization, irrigation, or-in most cases-spraying for pests. The oak also has the ability to yield well on marginal land, including steep, erosion-prone hillsides. Acorn production has other benefits, as well. The trees contribute to soil deposition, provide increased rainfall retention for replenishing the groundwater supply, act as windbreaks, supply summer shade, and furnish harvests of hardwood lumber and firewood and-in the case of one oak (Quercus suber)—cork. What's more, the tannin present in many acorn varieties is a sought-after commercial product.

Corn, in contrast, is an annual that usually requires much cultivation (which contributes to soil erosion), heavy applications of fertilizers and pest-control sprays (resulting in adverse environmental effects), and, often, irrigation (thus helping to deplete our ground-water stores).