MIRACLES OF OAK & ELDERS

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By Christopher Nyerges

The Oak Tree

Beech or Oak Family (Quercus sps.) (Fagaceae)

OVERALL SHAPE AND SIZE: Quercus is a large genus of more than 200 species including deciduous and evergreen trees and shrubs. A few of our common oaks are scrub oak, canyon oak, California or coast live oak, engelman oak, California black oak, interior live oak, and valley oak.

LEAVES: Among the many varieties, the leaves which are always arranged alternately vary in shape from small, hard, oval and toothed, to large, flexible, almost like a maple leaf.

FLOWERS: Oaks are monoecious; that is, they have separate male and female flowers on the same plant. The inconspicuous female flowers are small and greenish-brown. They look like small acorns and appear solitary or in a spike in the leaf axils of the season's new growth. The female flower is formed in side a cup of bract-like sepals, which later develop into the acorn's cup or cap.

FRUIT: The oak trees are identified by their fruit, the acorns, which are nuts set in scaly caps. Acorns mature and fall from the trees during September and October.

Christopher's Acorn Bread

Here's the recipe for my favorite acorn bread.

1 cup acorn flour,
3/4 cup whole wheat flour
3/4 cup carob flour,
3 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. sea salt
3 Tbs. honey, 1 egg, 1 cup raw milk, 3 Tbs. oil.

Mix well and bake in greased pan for about 45 minutes (or longer) at 250°F

BENEFICIAL PROPERTIES

EDIBILITY: Acorns are not eaten raw because the presence of tannin makes them very bitter. A number of methods have been devised to rid the acorns of this bitterness. A common practice of the Southern California Indians was to bury the acorns in a swamp and return the following year. This removed the tannin and blackened the acorns. Sometimes shelled acorns were wrapped in a cloth container (like a burlap bag) and submerged in a river overnight. The flowing water would leach the water-soluble tannin from the acorns by morning.

Some would shell and grind the raw acorns into meal. Then this meal was put into a shallow depression tamped into a river's shady edge. Hot and cold water were poured over the meal for most of the day, washing the tannin out into the sand. The resultant acorn mush would then be carefully scooped from the sand and either dried or eaten as-is.