How to harvest, process, and eat acorns – poor and bored series – pt. 1?

Never underestimate the combined forces of ‘poor’ and ‘bored’.

Acorns are one of the healthiest nuts you can eat and they grow just about freakin’ everywhere. For most folks think of a yard full of fallen acorns as a nuisance, but it’s free food!

Large sections of pre-Colombian North America and the dense forests of Eurasia relied on acorns as a major food source. Trouble is, it takes a newly planted acorn ten years before the oak is big enough to produce its own nuts, and oaks produce nuts every OTHER year. So, when you flee from your village because of raiders or fire or what not, it’s better to take a sack of oats or barley or wheat and hope to survive long enough to plant and harvest it somewhere else rather than try to drag along an oak tree with you.

But, most likely, you’re in a fairly stable place and possibly have oak trees about, or else why the heck are you even reading this?

Okay, so first, harvesting.

Red oak trees tend to have the largest acorns. White oak trees produce acorns with a bit less tannins and are a little less bitter which is a good thing. Black oak, chestnut oak, pin oak produce smaller nuts, I find, so I stick with an ancient red oak trees near me.

As soon as the acorns begin to fall (early September in my area) it’s time to harvest.

You’ll need a large brimmed hat, a large basket (no, bigger than that) and a large tub or stock pot or kiddie pool, or some such. Maybe a large sheet.

Maybe a lot of acorns have fallen. You can try picking them up from the ground but you must ONLY collect INTACT nuts. Cracked nuts spoil very quickly, so don’t take the chance.

You can try spreading out the sheet and shaking the branches and if they’re ready, they’ll fall. I find that I’ll pull them off of the lower branches and get a ladder to get higher up. If you can SAFELY climb the tree, you may get even more. The nuts should come off super easy. More like falling into your hand when you touch them. If they’re still attached, they’re not ready.

Oh, the hat? There’s a reason.

You’re picking acorns and that will attract the attention of the local squirrels AND piss them off something fierce. They WILL yell at you and chuck things at you like acorn husks, bits of dead twigs, and possibly things less wholesome. You’ll thank me later for the hat.

So, you’re going to pick a LOT of acorns. No, more than that. In fact, as soon as you think you have ‘far too many’, you have almost enough.

When you’ve collected far too many, pull the caps off of them (should take only a little effort) and put them into the vat, or stock pot or whatever, add water.

Add enough water until some of the acorns float.

Any acorns that float are BAD and must be discarded.

Take the rest out of the water, you don’t want to soak them!

In fact, you want to dry them.

Preheat your over on its LOWEST setting, spread the acorns out in a single layer over something like a cookie sheet or large flat pan, and ‘roast’ them on the LOWEST setting for an hour.

You COULD instead put them out in the direct sun every day for three days, but the squirrels WILL steal what you’ve rightfully stolen!

Okay, now the processing.

The first part sucks. It’s the really ‘suck’ part of the job.

You need to shell the acorns.

Use what ever method is best, I usually use a wee hammer and a board. I’ll pull out some pliers for the more stubborn ones.

The shells wilk more ‘split’ rather than ‘crack’ and once you’ve opened it, you can pull out the nut meat. It’ll be palish and have just a bit of a filmy-sticky texture. That’s probably the fat content. Acorns have one of the highest fat contents of any nut, but it is the GOOD kind of fat. The sort that actually fights cholesterol.

In fact, you can eat one now if you want to. It’s healthy, but you’re not going to enjoy the experience. Eat too many raw acorns, in fact, and it may upset your stomach. But in its raw form it is a great source for number of the vitamin Bs and especially B6. A number of important minerals in them too.  

Once you’ve extracted the meat, it’s best to break apart each one into two or three pieces. They snap pretty easy and don’t stress if you have a few that don’t snap so good.

Now the long and boring part.

I mentioned before that acorns have a lot of tannins in them. That makes them bitter. One of the reasons the squirrels bury the nuts is so that the ground moisture will leech out some of the tannins.

You’re going to half way fill a pitcher or something (or several), and fill it the rest of the way with water. Put that in the fridge.

The next day you’re going to remove that water. Now, you COULD just dump it, but you can also save it! The water is now a very mild tannic acid. Strain it and it can make a good astringent for minor cuts and bruises. Or make a cleaning solution out of it.

You’re already hassling over nuts, so maybe just dump it.

Now refill the container, back in the fridge, and repeat again tomorrow (if you’re saving the tannic acid, only the first day is really strong enough to be useful).

You’re going to do this for a good seven to ten days.

If you have a goodly running stream of CLEAN water nearby, you could leech these out in a day instead … tie them up in a cheesecloth bag and lash them in the stream in a place where the current is running good and next day they’ll be fine.

After you’ve leeched them, they are READY! Take them OUT of the water and dry them!

So now the cooking.

You can eat them raw if you really want to. Sure, they’re leeched, and the taste will be somewhere between “Slightly less bitter than before” to “Doesn’t taste much like anything, really”

But if you want to ENJOY these nuts, best to cook them.

You can candy and roast them like you would any other nut! Time and temperature may vary from other nuts, so you may have to ‘wiggle’ that a bit.

I like to grind them up in a coffee grinder and make them into acorn flour.

Once you have flour, use what you’re going to use, and FREEZE the rest. The high fat content will have them spoil if you store it like wheat flour, so into the freezer. Will be fine for months in the freezer.

Acorn flour doesn’t rise like wheat flour. You can make flat cakes with it on a griddle.

I think it’s best when used like you would a corn flour. Like you’re making corn bread.

It’s not as sweet as corn bread, but has a mild ‘nutty’ flavor. It is good with a bit of butter, and GREAT with a bit of butter and honey!

Well, that’s it. In anyone actually READS these things, and wants a recipe for acorn ‘corn’ bread, comment below and I dig mine out.