Hi:.
I live in Florida where there are a lot of oak trees with a lot of acorns. Is there any way to prepare acorns so that humans can eat them in a survival situation? Thanks. – Joe in Florida
The Memsahib Replies: Yes! The California Indians’ main staple was acorns. Along the creek where I played as a child, there were many grinding holes in the rocks where the native California women ground their acorns into flour. One anthropologist has speculated that it was the acorn as a diet staple that made the development of civilization in Europe possible. The tannins in acorns make them bitter, make you feel sick, and can cause liver damage. So it is important to leach out the tannins before eating acorns.
Here is the basic “how to” from the University of Illinois Extension Solutions Series: Around the House:
“Acorns are very high in tannins, which make them very bitter and astringent when eaten raw. They need to be boiled or roasted, or both to make them palatable. The sweetest nuts come from the white, burr, and chestnut oaks. The black, pin, and red oak acorns are bitter.
To use: Collect the acorns in the fall, when ripe. Remove the shells and caps. The shells will come off easier if you first slit them with a sharp knife. Boil the acorns whole for at least two hours, changing the water each time it becomes light brown in color. This boiling removes the bitterness and they become pleasantly sweet. You will find, after this boiling, that they are quite dark brown in color. Toast in a 350 degree F oven for another hour. They can then be eaten as they are or ground into flour.”
Here is an article which includes some recipes for using acorns, that ran in one of my favorite magazines, Backwoods Home: “Harvesting the Wild: Acorns” by Jackie Clay