MIRACLES OF OAK & ELDERS

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Another method for removing the bitterness involved the use of a primitive "leaching plant." It was a bowl made of twigs or pine needles, supported about two feet off the ground by vertical stakes. Cloth or burlap was placed over the bowl, and the ground acorns put in. Water was poured into the acorn meal and allowed to filter through. The leaching time depended on the bitterness of the acorns, but a few hours were usually sufficient. The final product would then be boiled into a mush, and was usually eaten cold. The acorn flour was usually baked into bread in crude ovens or used as a base for soup. Corn meal was often mixed into the acorn meal.

Boiling is the quickest way for rendering acorns edible. The shelled acorns are boiled, continually changing the water each time it becomes brown. You know they're done when you taste them and the bitterness is gone. Though this method may take only 45 minutes, it does result in a loss of oils and flavor.

A better method is to peel the acorns, place them in a container, and cover with water. Pour out the water after 24 hours, and replace with fresh warm water. Three or four changes of water with this non-boiling method should be sufficient to leach out all of the tannic acid.

Once leached, the acorns must be ground into flour and then dried to ensure a long storage life. If you have a meat grinder, you can coarsely grind the just leached acorns while they are still wet and easy to grind. Then the coarse grind should be dried, and then finely ground with a hand mill, stone grinder, or heavy duty blender. If you're out camping, the acorn meal can be ground between rocks.

You can use flour in bread, muffins, pancakes, grits, soup, etc., either alone or mixed with wheat or corn flour.

MEDICINALITY: The bark is used medicinally for such things as chronic diarrhea, and wherever an internal astringent is required. Externally, this oak bark decoction is used for skin sores and as a sore throat gargle, according to Alma Hutchens, author of Indian Herbology of North America (Merco, Canada, 1973).

DETRIMENTAL PROPERTIES: Eating large amounts of the raw acorns can lead to toxicity due to the tannic acid. Humans rarely eat toxic amounts of raw acorns because of the extreme bitterness. Anyone with a normal sense of taste would find it nearly impossible to consume large amounts. Those who have persisted in eating raw acorns have nearly always been stopped short of death because of the onset of frequent urination, constipation, abdominal pains, and extreme thirst. Kingsbury, author of Poisonous Plants in the U.S. and Canada (Oxford University Press, 1993) included raw acorns on his list of poisonous plants. He stated that eating large quantities over a long period of time, results in bloody stools and other symptoms.

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