On Saturday, Nov. 4, 28 people enjoyed Mary Carpelin's workshop on traditional Native American ways to prepare acorns for food. Here are notes about what she taught us:

Processing Acorns for Food

Collect

Collect acorns off the ground. Lay the shells out to dry, one layer thick. Do not dry in the sun.

Shell

Remove the meat from the shells. The outer skin is removed with the shell if the acorns are dry enough. The shells can be cracked with pliers, a rock on a hard surface, pounded with a hammer or any method you find easy. The meat comes out of the cracked shell with a pointed knife.

Grind

Grind the meats to the coarseness of cornmeal. This can be done with a food processor, blender, or pistol and mortar. Be careful not to over grind and turn the meats into a butter.

Leach

Place ground meats inside four layers of cheese cloth. Tie to make a ball. Run or drip water through the ball until the tannin is gone so that the acorns no longer taste bitter. The ball can also be soaked in water and the water changed several times until the bitterness is gone.

Cook

The leached meats can be cooked like oatmeal or baked, taking the place of flour.

Storing

Native Americans stored acorns before processing. They used cedar to keep insects away. An easy way to store acorns would be to put them in a net bag with bay leaves, cedar leaves, or rosemary keep out insects. Hang the bag in a cool, dry place.

The processed flour can be stored if it is thoroughly dried.

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Some of us who have tried leaching acorns since have found running water over the mashed acorns took a lot of time and a great amount of water. I asked Jeff and Cindy Weiss of Bluestone Arc near Montegue how they leach their acorns. Here is their reply:

The trick to quick leaching with minimal amount of water is:

1. After shelling the acorns, use a food chopper to break up the acorns to small pieces, the size of a green pea or so.

2.Dry this for a few days in a dry location.

3.Take the dried nuts, let's say a qt to a half a gallon and put it into a 5 gallon bucket of water, using only about 2 gallons of water to cover the broken acorn pieces. Mix up with a large spoon or your hands and go away. Come back and repeat maybe 5-6 times in a day.

4. By the last rinse taste the bits to see if they are really that bitter.

5. If done, spread out on a stoneware or stainless steel cookie sheet and air dry. If you have a wood stove, set the cookie sheets on metal/stone hot pads. When dry, use a grain/nut mill to grind into acorn meal. If you do not have a grain/nut mill use any blender.

We had a very good crop of white oak acorns this year. We still have several pounds still in the shells. Sampling some of them has revealed no rotting or worm damage. We will process more meal as we need. So far we have put up over 5 lbs of acorn meal. It is great. We use it in pancakes, cereal, breads, and as a thickener for many different sauces.

Good luck to all,

jeff/cindy from the Bluestone Ark