Acorn Dreams

I had what my sister and I call a real dream last night. According to us Campbell girls, a real dream is one that strikes us as significant. It's not necessarily realistic in content, but it has a real feel to it. I've not done a very good job of describing it, I'm afraid. But like pornography, you'll know it when you see it.

Anyway, I dreamed I was finishing up a job. I had moved into a small room for my job and I'd brought far too much stuff. The room, my office I guess, was the bathroom in the house in which I grew up. It had a cabinet above the toidy and I had it stuff with beach towels, gloves and hats - things I really didn't need in the Southern location of my job. I was purging all the things I didn't need.

I was also fixin' to leave the job, but in the meantime, I met with the big boss. I told him my vision for creating a display (we had a small space in a museum nearby) that encouraged people to think about using corn and beans as building materials. I told him this was a good idea because we were in the middle of the corn and bean fields (so we must have been in the Midwest with Southern weather) and it was good to find additional uses for the crops.

As soon as I told him this idea, I realized that it was actually a bad idea because we really needed to use those crops as food. Then I changed my vision to include finding a way to easily harvest and convert acorns to eatable food. I told the big boss what a good source of protein acorns are and that you just have to get rid of some of the tannins to make them more palatable.

Then I was trying to tell my friend, Edie, where I was going to go to college the next fall. I told her the name of the college (I can't remember it now) and she looked it up and said it was on the dark side of Atlanta. This meant that it was on the far side of Atlanta from where we were. I didn't really want to go to the other side of those mountains, so I told her I changed my mind. Then I told her I wanted to go to Western (Illinois University) and study biology so that I could figure out how to use acorns as food and their shells as building materials.

The acorns in my dream were about 3 inches across and had hard shells. And I was hurriedly filling one large paper bag and one small paper bag with them on my way to a science building on campus. There was no doubt in my mind that I would accomplish my task. I planned to begin my education with my dissertation research, in case I ran out of time, the important part would be done.

Throughout the dream there was an interesting element of time. I was going back to college as a college-aged person, but with the wisdom I have now (well, isn't that everyone's dream) but I knew I wouldn't have enough time to get everything done I wanted to accomplish. It was as if I had to accomplish things quickly in order for them to be used well.

Sometimes writing about my dreams helps me understand the meaning of them. Sometimes not.

Will someone please do some research into turning acorns into good food on a commercial basis? Then maybe I can get back to dreaming about Eric Clapton or George Clooney.

Living Simply - Acorns

I'm sure you've heard the phrase Live simply so that others can simply live. Much to be said for that, I think. You might take a second and figure out what that phrase means to you. Living simply can mean taking advantage of the bounty of food that the Universe has put in your front yard.

Maybe your mother told you that acorns were poisonous, but that's because she didn't know that early American settlers and Native Americans often got half their protein from acorns. We just forgot that they were a bountiful, free, easy food. I don't know why.

I am blessed to be living with ten oak trees on this property. Next door is a bit under two acres of mostly oaks. This fall I've been collecting acorns and experimenting with how they are best prepared to eat. People at work think I'm a bit off but have been bringing me bags of acorns from their oaks as well.

One thing I've learned is that you have to start with good acorns. There is nothing I can do to those little acorns from Red Oaks with the beautiful, pumpkin-colored meats, to make them eatable. They are just gonna be nasty. The later, larger acorns from White Oaks have pale yellow or white meats and are much better when it comes to eating.

Acorns are full of tannins, which need to be removed before they are going to be tasty. There are a couple of ways to do this. The way I've found most effective is the boiling water technique.

Have two pots with enough water to cover the nut meats (oh, yeah, you have to shell them and discard any meats the worms have beat you to.) When the first pot of water is at a full boil, drop in the acorn meats and turn off the heat. Let it cool to the point that you can put your hands in there without burning them.

You'll notice that the water turns brown. The harder shelled acorns yield a light brown water and the softer shelled acorns yield a very dark brown water. Pour off some of this first broth into a little jar that you'll keep in the frig. When you get a scratch or an insect bite, put some of this natural astringent on it and it will fix you right up. I understand that you can also use it to tan your animal hides, but I don't want to think about that.

Ok, back to the acorn meat. Get the second pot of water boiling before you strain the first pot. They'll still be hot when you plop them into the second pot. Taste one of the meats. If the bitterness is sufficiently gone, you don't even have to give them a second boil. Each type and every tree of each type produces a different level of bitterness. Also, what you consider terribly bitter, I might rather like. It seems we all have different taste buds. Go figure. Anyway, you just keep doing this until the meats are un-bitter enough for you.

Now you've got a bunch of chunks of un-bitter acorn meats. Let them drain onto a towel a while then put them on a cookie sheet in a 200 degree oven until they are crunchy. The time differs of course, and will usually take 1 to 2 hours.

Now you can put the chunks in the frig to use as nuts in cooking or you can grind them into flour to use in baking. I cook them in my oatmeal at lunch. They give the oatmeal a nutty tea flavor. And they give me a protein boost mid day. I also use the acorn flour in bread, substituting it for a quarter to a third of the wheat flour.

Ok, so why would I do all this when I could just go to MacDonalds? Acorns are healthy, they are plentiful, they are free and I enjoy hunting, collecting, shelling and processing them. I really enjoy finding new ways to use them. So my question is why don't more people do this?