VIDEO Traditional Native American method of gathering, processing and using Acorn flour (1933)

Old Gray Mare

TB Fanatic
Fair Use.
Bread From Acorns (1933)
Feb 11, 2018
AlV Geeks

( b/w, silent) Guy D. Hasselton’s Travellettes presents… Featuring Maggie nee Tra-Bu-Ce. Photographed by Guy D. Haselton. Copyright MCMXXXIII Passed by The National Board of Review About how Native Americans used acorns to make bread.

We digitized and uploaded this film from the Orgone Archive. Email us at footage@avgeeks.com if you have questions about the footage and are interested in using it in your project.
link to source:
View: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x4-F5N63Cdo

Run time 10:01
 

ioujc

MARANTHA!! Even so, come LORD JESUS!!!
My oaks are dropping BIG acorns this year!!

For the past week, I have sincerely been thinking about trying to make a type of chicken feed out of them.
 

Ractivist

Pride comes before the fall.....Pride month ended.
Just talking about this the other day. Thanks. Living in the oldest stand of hardwoods in the county....red and white oaks are dominant, with some walnut and burr oak. Be interesting to find a book on the values of all trees in such regards....guess I should look, eh.
 

Cag3db1rd

Paranoid Pagan
I have been looking into using acorns as human food for a few years, but I haven't found a ready source since my besties moved. They had a huge oak that dropped about a tonne of acorns each year.
 

Pinecone

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Thanks for the video. Very interesting. I've always wanted to try that. I think I have a book somewhere on how to cook with acorns, but never tried it. I'll have to take a walk down the street and gather some and give it a try.

And those baskets . . . to die for! Beautiful and utilitarian. They must have taken many, many days to create that tight weave and the intricate designs. Just, wow.
 

Old Gray Mare

TB Fanatic
I've read and heard of historical accounts of baskets woven so tightly they'd hold water but this film is the first time I've seen them being used. I think that's so cool. I wonder how long it took to learn how to weave like that?

Know all acorns aren't created equal. Some have more tannins that have to be leached out than others.
 

tanstaafl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
Keep in mind that not all acorns can be processed to be tasty. You're going to have to try many oak trees, preferably in different locations, to find a good one. Don't forget to gather up the dropped acorns promptly, because animals know better than you when to eat and gather them. You can't take acorns from a tree that drops great tasting acorns, plant them, and get another tree that drops great tasting acorns. Which is why oaks and acorns have never been domesticated for widespread human consumption. But if you can find a tree, or better yet a grove, then by all means go for it! I seem to recall reading that while much is made of Indians "not owning the earth" or having private property in the modern sense, nonetheless some tribes were extremely proprietary about their oaks, even fighting to retain the rights to gather the acorns.
 

Illini Warrior

Illini Warrior
just saved a bunch of UTubes about black walnuts - acorns are another great forage item for the North - not alot of pecans and the chestnuts are almost a thing of the past ....
 

naegling62

Veteran Member
Lots of YouTube videos about acorns lately, I think the herd is uneasy. I started collecting my Chinese Chestnuts this year and Nutall Oak acorns, I'm going to try my hand in a few years selling trees.
 

ShadowMan

Designated Grumpy Old Fart
It's a heaping shit-ton of work for very little reward.

Very true, but....when there's nothing else, it's better than nothing at all. It's good to know as much as you can about natural foraging and everything edible in your AO. Beats starving to death and the way things are looking we could very well be facing that issue right here in the good old US of A. The future does not look bright.
 

WalknTrot

Veteran Member
Very true, but....when there's nothing else, it's better than nothing at all. It's good to know as much as you can about natural foraging and everything edible in your AO. Beats starving to death and the way things are looking we could very well be facing that issue right here in the good old US of A. The future does not look bright.
Problem comes in when you expend more energy in harvest and preparation than you gain by consuming the product.
 

ShadowMan

Designated Grumpy Old Fart
I can easily fill up a five gallon bucket of acorns off of just one oak tree on my property and I've got dozens and dozens of oaks. May give this a try this year just to see how much work it really is. The biggest competition is getting them before the squirrels do....but then squirrels are edible too and mine are pretty fat little fellows. :rolleyes: :chg:
 

Siskiyoumom

Veteran Member
I sort the acorns (check for pin hole worms), dry them in a wire mesh basket by the wood stove, crack them with a small hammer, pick out the meat, hand grind in a meat grinder to make a flour, put the flour on an old pillow case and run the kitchen faucet on a slow to medium drip to leech the tannin out. Dry the flour in my dehydrated, store in quart jars. The flour makes a very bland porridge. Or you can substitute it for 1/4 regular flour. I used to do an acorn unit each fall with my predominately Native American classes each fall. Our local university is developing Food Safe recipes for acorns, sturgeon and salmon.
 

bracketquant

Veteran Member
It's not a lot of work.

Gather acorns, place in spot, wait for deer, shoot.

As for cooking them, most have high levels of tannin that needs multiple boils to remove it. I know of one tree that the deer refuse to eat any of the acorns. My guess is that it is of very highest tannin content.
 

packyderms_wife

Neither here nor there.
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tanstaafl

Has No Life - Lives on TB
I have a book titled "Acorns and Eat 'Em" (Suellen Ocean, 2013, 114 pages) that has recipes and various info about acorns. Several of them on eBay right now.
 

xtreme_right

Veteran Member
How to Make Acorn Flour


How to Make Acorn Flour
In the event that the world as we know it crumbles, the ability to forage for edible flora and fauna will be an important skill. While stockpiling necessary items will undoubtedly help you to survive if things go south, learning how to gather and prepare food is crucial if you’ve got a long-range outlook in mind. As fall approaches, you might consider learning how to make acorn flour.

Why Acorns?
You might have heard before that acorns are poisonous. That’s absolutely true of raw, unprocessed acorns, or acorns that have been improperly processed. They canmake you sick due to the high level of tannins they contain. You’ve likely heard of tannins before; they are a compound found in many commonly consumed items, including wine and tea

There are a couple reasons why you should put processing acorns at the top of your “To Learn for Preparedness” list. First off, they’re actually quite good for you, so long as they’re prepared so that they aren’t actively bad for you. They have a high fat content, a little protein, and carbohydrates for instant energy.

Second, acorns are plentiful. A large oak tree is said to be able to produce up to 1,000 lbs. of acorns per year. Even when you cut out weight from shells and moisture, that’s a significant amount of consumable calories that can be processed for eating through the year.

Third, acorns are found pretty much everywhere. While some acorns are better than other for consumption, they’re all edible when processed. Wherever you may roam (assuming it’s late summer to early fall there), there’s likely an oak tree full of acorns you could beat the squirrels to.

Finding Acorns
Oak trees can be found all across the U.S, Europe, and the rest of the Northern hemisphere. There are some species found in Asia and Central America, as well. North American oaks are, more or less, split into two groups, red and white. You can tell the difference between red and white oaks because red oaks tend to have leaves with pointed tips, while white oaks have rounded leaves. Check the following link to learn how to properly identify and how toconsume oak – nature’spowerhouse.The best acorns for processing tend to come from white oaks due to lower tannin levels, but red oak acorns can be eaten if they’re what you have to work with. Oaks that produce larger acorns are ideal, like the bur oak. Some varieties offer sweeter nuts that are more palatable, like bur, chinquapin, and chestnut oak varieties.

Acorns begin to drop at the end of summer through the beginning of autumn. Keep an eye out for increased squirrel action so you don’t miss them! Be sure to process acorns within a couple days so they don’t mold. Otherwise, you’ll need to dry them (pread them out on a screen for an extended period, from a couple weeks to a few months) for processing at a later day.

How to Make Acorn Flour
So, let’s assume you’ve found a worthy oak tree. Here’s how you can turn acorns into versatile, nutty acorn flour.

  1. Collect the acorns – You’ll need a large amount to make this process worth your while. Collect several pounds of freshly fallen acorns. Avoid dirty, broken, or very dry looking acorns. Then, you’ll need to make sure they’re free from weevils. To do this, drop the acorns into a bucket of water and toss the floaters. You can also check for the tiny bore holes that the adult acorn munching beetles leave. Toss the wormy acorns.
    harvested acorns
  2. Boil – Bring a large pot of water to a rolling boil, then add your acorns. Quick, now! You only want the acorns in the boiling water for 30-60 seconds. Pour into a colander to drain water. This step serves to soften the shells a bit, making them easier to crack.
  3. Crack – Now it’s time to crack the shells on your acorns. You can do this with a handheld nutcracker, a mallet and towel, or with a large nutcracker.
    cracked acorn get the meat
  4. Dry – Now it’s time to dry out the cracked nuts. This can be accomplished in a dehydrator, by leaving them out in the sun on screens to dry naturally, or in a low temperature oven.
    cracked acorns
  5. Separate meats – Time to get to the good stuff! To extract the actual nuts, often times known as the meat. Because you’ve already dried out the cracked nuts, it should be very easy to just rub off the shells and skins with your hands. Once you’ve got the meats out, you’ll need to give them meats a quick mashing with a potato masher.
    smashing the boiled acorns
  6. Leach – This is the part where you get rid of the tannins, effectively making the inedible acorns edible. There are several ways you can do this, but cold-leaching is today’s preferred method. To do this, you’ll place the smashed nut meats into a cheese cloth bag. Then, you’ll place the bag into a five gallon bucket of cold, clean water. Give the bag a squeeze or two to make sure the water is getting between the pieces. Leave it to soak for about half an hour, drain the water, and then do it again. Repeat this cycle until the water is clear.
    acorns in cold water get the tannin out
  7. Dry – Dry out leached, smashed meats on a cookie sheet by spreading them thinly and then placing the cookie sheet in the oven at 200 degrees F for a few hours or until dry.
    drying the acorns
  8. Mash – This can be accomplished with a simple, handheld potato masher, or you can employ the use of an immersion blender or food processor if doing it by hand doesn’t sound appealing. You can also use a coffee grinder or conventional grain mill.
    acorns blended
  9. Sift – Using a mesh colander, sift the flour to make sure there are no large or hard pieces remaining. Now you’ve got usable acorn flour. Store it in an airtight container and it should be good for several months. While it doesn’t preform exactly like regular wheat flour, there’s still a lot you can do with it by adjusting your favorite recipes a bit.
    sift-acron-flour-from-nuggets
While making acorn flour is a bit more time consuming than bopping over to the supermarket to pick up a bag of regular wheat flour, consider practicing this skill now so that you have the know how to utilize nature’s fall bounty in a SHTF situation.
 
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