Has anyone eaten acorns?

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
I only ask, as I'm reading a book about oak trees in which the author claims that our ancestors in the Stone Age ate a lot of acorns. They would soak them in a stream to lose the tannin and store them in pits for use round the year. Apparently it's a very nourishing food, pigs certainly thrive on them.

Dwayne Beck says he always asks what would grow on your land if you weren't farming it, in Dakota it's grass, round here it's oak trees. Hell of a crop of acorns this year, rubbish crop of wheat. Are we barking up the wrong tree?
 

banjo

Member
Location
Back of beyond
A cracking tup of mine ate a heap last year and snuffed it, so I'm pretty sure only pigs can eat them as their poisonous to everything else, do not eat them!
( I've read the post above, but be careful for Christ sake )
 

Dr. Alkathene

Member
Livestock Farmer
Didnt people make acorn coffee in the war? Think i read that in richard mabey book
WP_20160910_001.jpg
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
Thanks for this link...recipes, just what I was after! I'll wait until they are brown, harvest a bucketful and do some research. We're a bit short of running water here, living on top of a hill, in an area where it hasn't rained properly since June, but we'll improvise something. Does sound like there's a lot of faffing about with the shells etc, might be a job to mechanise the process. Probably easier to get some pigs.
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
A cracking tup of mine ate a heap last year and snuffed it, so I'm pretty sure only pigs can eat them as their poisonous to everything else, do not eat them!
( I've read the post above, but be careful for Christ sake )
Yes, we had some heifers that got belly ache from scoffing acorns, don't think we lost any, but they looked pretty sick for a week or two. That was 20 odd years ago, not had any problems since. I'd always assumed they were poisonous to humans as no-one ever talked of eating them, even in the war (apart from the ersatz coffee business referred to above).
 

Blaithin

Member
Livestock Farmer
Location
Alberta
I know acorn flour was a big staple for a lot of Native American people. Although it would be nicer if you could just eat them and not go through all the work of milling them.
 
Interesting but i would be very careful about broadcasting the practice of leaching acorns in running water as the masters of the universe (EA) might find it interesting as well.
You would then have a visit from some 16yr old who knows doodle squit but could make your life a misery.
Useful tip if this happens ask them the precise bit of the legislation to which they refer and they never know but only the general heading which may not apply.
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
Just had some nice acorn soup for lunch, very nourishing...bit of a long-winded process to prepare them:
1 Stick them in a bucket of water, discard any that float (normally got a maggot in them)
2 Mash them up a bit and discard the shells, leave the rest in water, changing whenever it goes brown (this is effectively extracting the tannin which is the poisonous bit). This might take a fortnight.
3 Grind up and add to soup, or use where-ever you might use cornflour.

It turns out that they are perfect food for paleo-diet type people, a couple of biscuits will keep you going all day. Elves in particular are very fond of acorn cakes.

One big oak tree can produce a tonne of acorns in a good year, the clever bit is finding a way to harvest and process it semi-industrially. You need a lot of water. I've got a mate who is now soaking them in the cistern of his loo...when the water flushes clear he knows they are ready to eat. Can't see that catching on somehow, but it would be a perfect project for anyone with a redundant water mill: float off bad ones, grind the rest, float off shells, rinse in mill-race, dry and sell. Easy...
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
Ive always meant to make nettle soup but never got round to it. Anyone do it?

@martian have you really got a mate with the same acorn predilection as yourself or is it in fact you? Could maybe to save water lower another net of acorns in the pan of the toilet too
Nettle soup is ok if you use the really young plants in the spring, as soon as they get stringy, you're stuffed.The fibres are as strong as cotton, you can make clothes with them if you're really bored.
The cistern man is another farmer...it's all right for you guys in wet Wales, but things are hard here (at least the ground is) in the dustbowl, and we've got to look for any income streams we can find. You see some of the wierd stuff they sell in health food shops, I reckon acorn flour would be a smash...just needs a bit of research...
 
Nettle soup is ok if you use the really young plants in the spring, as soon as they get stringy, you're stuffed.The fibres are as strong as cotton, you can make clothes with them if you're really bored.
The cistern man is another farmer...it's all right for you guys in wet Wales, but things are hard here (at least the ground is) in the dustbowl, and we've got to look for any income streams we can find. You see some of the wierd stuff they sell in health food shops, I reckon acorn flour would be a smash...just needs a bit of research...
The biggest problem would be water supply and disposal. Tannin is not really desirable in ponds or streams so you would need to dispose of it through the soil with a sprayer or raingun if your enterprise corners the market:LOL:
 

martian

DD Moderator
BASE UK Member
Location
N Herts
The biggest problem would be water supply and disposal. Tannin is not really desirable in ponds or streams so you would need to dispose of it through the soil with a sprayer or raingun if your enterprise corners the market:LOL:
I think you're maybe not thinking outside the envelope enough, or pushing the elephant or whatever...tannin presumably has a value too, fake tans spring to mind. We are very close to the Essex border here, I'm sure we could supply a lot of the salons that dot that fine County and then the customers would come out acorn brown rather than that slightly alarming orange which their current system results in.
 

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quote: “Red Tractor has confirmed it is dropping plans to launch its green farming assurance standard in April“

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