PUT MORE FUN (AND NUTRITION) INTO YOUR LIFE: EAT ACORNS!

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If you're hulling a particularly large quantity of acorns, you migh~ want to dry them slowly in a 100°F oven or food dryer, allow the nuts to cool, and then pass a heavy roller over the brittle shells. Actually though, even if you hull the crop b3 hand you'll be pleasantly surprisec at how fast the pile of cleaned meat: grows. (And those oblong beauties are all meat, too: They have no pesky membranes or partitions, a; do chestnuts or walnuts.)

GRINDING

This is where technological gad. getry comes in handy: I use an elec tric blender to grind acorn meats to pulp in a matter of seconds. (If you don't have a blender-or even if you doyou can, of course, try the mor- tarand-pestle method of grinding It's more time-consuming . . . buy the final result is the same.)

All you have to do with a blender is dump in a cup of shelled acorns fill the blender's container on up with water (the exact amount o: liquid is unimportant), and whiz away at high speed for a minute or two. When you're done, you'll have a thick, cream-colored goo that looks utterly delicious but is-in factunpleasantly bitter due to the high concentration of tannins in the slurry. Our next job is to remove these bitter substances, via a process known as leaching.

LEACHING

Fortunately, the substances that make most (but not quite all) acorns bitter are water-soluble. Which means that to get rid of the bitterness, all you usually have to do is [1] pour your acorn pulp into a dish-towel-lined colander, [2] place the colander under slow running water, and [3] gently work the pulp around with your hand, allowing the liquid to wash the acorn meal.

Continue to stir the meal in this fashion for about five minutes-or until the "creamy" look is gone and the water runs clear-then taste it. If the grinds are still bitter, rinse them a minute more . . . then taste 'em again. When leaching is complete, the finished product will be rather blandtasting ... almost sweet.

OK. All that's left now is to press the excess liquid out of the dishtowelwrapped acorn solids, then place the doughy meal in a storage container. The finished acorn pulp will have about the consistency of the wetground cornmeal that Mexicans call masa. Borrowing their terminology, I call our product "acorn masa".

For long-term storage (Le " a week or more), acorn masa can be frozen. (If the meal is left exposed to the air, it will oxidize to a darkbrown color. The taste, however, will be unchanged.)

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