Garden thread.

[glenn kangiser]

The Native Americans in their main use made a mush - sort of like a semi-cear gravy out of them that they still simply call Acorn.  Such as - We're going to have Acorn at the Big Time Celebration, or let's eat acorn.

They used to pound it with a mortar and pestle made of stone with the mortar many times being in the bedrock, but they also used a portable one in many cases.

Today - an easier modern method ---- one of our local natives and a very nice lady, Julia Parker, in her book, "It Will Live Forever", http://www.amazon.com/s?ie=UTF8&keywords=parker%20%20it%20will%20live%20forever&tag=countryplanscom&index=books&Search=Search&link_code=qs



New method by Julia,  recommends collecting them. let them dry a while to get the shells off easier, crack with a hammer light enough to get the shell off and crack the nuts into 2 or 3 pieces but not smash, remove the shells and bad nuts and return them to the earth.

To loosen the skins, put them on a cloth and lay in the sun.  Split the grooves open with a knife lengthwise on the groove.  Sprinkle them with water and allow them to dry.  Rub them between your hands to loosen the skins.  Scrape off the remaining skins with a knife.

4 lbs of nuts will result in about 4 cups after cleaning and removing the bad ones.  Measure by one cup at a time 5.5 ounces - and process them (the 1 cup at a time) in a blender , started on low until the jumping around slows then go to high and continue processing until the nut pieces stop falling from the sides into the blades.  While still in the blender, mix with a wooden spoon including the sticky bottom part and repeat processing until it make a fine flour.  If it gets to oily as it is being blended, Julia says to add a few whole nutmeats at low speed to absorb the oil as it is blending.

Repeat with the rest one cup at a time until all is fine flour.  This will make about 5 cups of flour.

If there are chunks in the flour you need to process it longer.

Leaching - It is bitter with Tannins so this is how Julia does it... 

Put it into an empty 5 lb flour, sugar or salt sack.  Fill it with water and allow it to drain so the flour is saturated.  Tie the sack to a faucet and allow a slow trickle of water - just past a drip to flow so the water flows out the top of the sack very slowly.  The sack erves as a waterbreak.  Leave it all night long.to leach the bitterness from the flour.

This leaves about 4 cups of wet flour.  Place it into a stainless steel pot.  Add 3 cup of water and mix.  Cook at high heat stirring frequently, and gradually add 7 more cups of water as it cooks.  continue boiling and stirring for 15 minutes until it has the consistency of tomato soup.  For cornmeal mush consistency add less water.

This makes 11 1/2 cups "nuppa".

If using new acorn add more water as it thickens more than older acorn.  I recall reading that the skins were harder to get off also.

Lots of interesting stories in Julia's book.  I recommend it -- and I bought an official signed copy from her at the fair in '02.  She was (and is?) in charge of the Indian museum and other things in Yosemite.

[glenn kangiser]

I have heard of breads and other ways to use them but this is the main way they were used.  Maybe we can find more ways to use them with a bit of research.  With the current economy maybe it will be useful knowledge.

[southernsis]

I will have to get the book. I found another site that has some great information.  www.grandpappy.info    With the cost of food going up, you are correct about useful knowledge. Well, It looks like I will be gathering acorns today. I can't let anything go to waste. If I keep gathering things to dry, I am going to have to build a larger building.

[glenn kangiser]

That's great, Sis.  Julia recommended the cardboard flat boxes like a case of soda cans comes in to spread and dry the acorns.  Any way to get them spread out.  They used to store them in granaries made in trees to keep them off of the ground.



www.primitiveways.com/acorn%20granary.html

Please keep us posted on your progress on this.

[Redoverfarm]

There are alot of Swine farmers who would love to have them.  They are a good supplement to hog feed and yes the hogs like them also.

[glenn kangiser]

I just went to the bottom of our property cutting wood and the deer have eaten every acorn there on the ground.  The fire took the rest of their food to the north.  They eat them every year anyway except near the house where the dogs keep them away.

The live oak acorns are small and exceptionally bitter.  The ones around here that are mild are the blue oak, white oak and black oak acorns.

[MountainDon]

The live oak acorns are small and exceptionally bitter.  The ones around here that are mild are the blue oak, white oak and black oak acorns.

Personal experience?   

[glenn kangiser]

Yup -- I tasted them -

The live oak ones are very small and bitter, but the Blue Oak (White Oak family) are not too bitter with tannins even fresh and unleached.

I have Native American friends who just like the bigger acorns. At Carla's place where I have been working there are many bedrock areas with pounding holes in them where they pounded the blue oak acorns-- right in the rock and near a year round spring.

[glenn kangiser]

Our winter garden and so far, remains of the summer garden are still doing well.



We picked red tomatoes, squash, green tomatoes peppers and a bit of broccoli today.



and enough strawberries for cake and ice cream covered with strawberries and whipped cream -- if we don't get too greedy on the strawberries and slice them thin enough.

[Sassy]

We could hardly get any zucchini squash to grow this summer but they sure are growing now...  plus we have lots of hubbard & "sweet mama" winter squash.  Lots & lots of carrots, parsnips, onions, beets...  the artichoke plants are getting big, not putting any artichokes on yet, though.  Also lots of swiss chard & I think a lot of celery plants that reseeded themselves...  also, my lime tree has put on a lot of baby limes.  Hopefully next year I should have lots of plums (4 different types), peaches, blueberries & apricots, plus the strawberries & maybe one of these years we'll get some oranges from the orange trees.  We still need to plant some grapes...  we have lots in the valley. 

Last week & again today I picked big bags of cherry tomatoes & a variety of peppers.  Still lots of green tomatoes - they were late this year, also...  Cherokee purple & Brandywine - but doubt if they'll ripen - we'll just have to eat fried green tomatoes some more... 

[Homegrown Tomatoes]

Yup -- I tasted them -

The live oak ones are very small and bitter, but the Blue Oak (White Oak family) are not too bitter with tannins even fresh and unleached.

I have Native American friends who just like the bigger acorns. At Carla's place where I have been working there are many bedrock areas with pounding holes in them where they pounded the blue oak acorns-- right in the rock and near a year round spring.

Glenn, do you have any Burr Oaks out there?  (Quercus macrocarpa?  It seems like that would be the most efficient acorn if you were going to harvest them to eat because they're huge.  It seems like it'd be more trouble than it's worth to harvest them from things like blackjacks and live oaks, though.  Around here pecans, black walnuts, sand plums, persimmons, and blackberries grow wild, so there's no shortage of wild stuff to eat.  Persimmons are weeds that usually grow in the bar ditches and fencerows, etc.  I remember my grandpa splitting the seeds with his pocketknife when I was a little girl to show me the inside of the seeds which looked like a little fork, knife, or spoon.  (I had to show the same thing to my kids a few years back when I found some wild persimmons growing.) 

They're predicting a freeze this weekend here.  I think my container with lettuce, etc., will survive if I cover it.  The tomatoes are almost gone, but they are such delicious tomatoes... about 9-10 ripe ones sitting on the kitchen counter right now. 

[glenn kangiser]

I haven't heard of Burr Oaks.  I think the Native Americans here prefer the Black Oaks - could have been White though.  They also know how to take the poison out of the Buckeye and make them edible.  They are a bit smaller than a tennis ball.

[Whitlock]

No Burr oaks. Most of the acorns we pick up are Black oak. The white oaks have more acid and are smaller. We do have pin oak acorns that are very tasty but hard to find ???We use a large coffee pot to leach the acorns out after they have dried.
We mostly use the acorn flour with our wheat flour gives it a nutty flavor

By the way acorns are one of the only things that regulate blood sugar naturally.

[glenn kangiser]

Dang, Whitlock... I didn't know you knew all of that stuff.

[Whitlock]

Dang, Whitlock... I didn't know you knew all of that stuff.

Hang with me kid you will learn a lot

[glenn kangiser]

I'm old enough to be your dad--- does that mean I didn't pay attention when I was young?

[Redoverfarm]

  Persimmons are weeds that usually grow in the bar ditches and fencerows, etc.  I remember my grandpa splitting the seeds with his pocketknife when I was a little girl to show me the inside of the seeds which looked like a little fork, knife, or spoon.  (I had to show the same thing to my kids a few years back when I found some wild persimmons growing.) 

They're predicting a freeze this weekend here.  I think my container with lettuce, etc., will survive if I cover it.  The tomatoes are almost gone, but they are such delicious tomatoes... about 9-10 ripe ones sitting on the kitchen counter right now. 

Good for the persimmons though the freeze that is.   Remember finding some and giving to my son before the frost.  He learned real fast when not to eat them.  It could take the place of alum.

[Whitlock]

does that mean I didn't pay attention when I was young?

What do you think

[glenn kangiser]

I'll soon be catching up with you....you didn't even see the choppers...

[glenn kangiser]

Son and family are here.  My grandson, Samson has something to say.

Being somewhat of a genius he completely forgot what I was prompting him to say and ad-libbed the whole thing.

[MountainDon]

What a pitchman!   

[glenn kangiser]

The little sales dude has left taking with him a batch of quartz crystals he broke out with an air chisel and one last ride on the Bush Hog.

Here is the latest of the garden.

[PEG688]

A natural ham just like his Granddad. 

[glenn kangiser]

I'm a canned ham...

[PEG688]

I'm a canned ham...

Spam I am , said Glenn 

BTW Spam , I heard , is  doing great business these days , over time, double shifts, etc. Part of the down turn has been a up turm at Spam.