ANTHROPOLOGY ARTICLE
Acorns
Excerpt from AMERICA'S ANCIENT TREASURES
12.11.2002 -- The prehistoric population was more dense in
California than in many other parts of America north of
Mexico. Some specialists believe that about 150,000 people
were living in the present area of California when the Spanish
began to settle there. Obviously these Indians had a food
supply ample for maintaining such a population, and the most
important single element in their diet was acorns.
Most varieties of oak tree produce acorns that contain tannic
acid and are bitter-tasting in their natural state. However,
if acorns are soaked in water long enough the tannic acid
disappears, and the nut that is left is sweet and nourishing.
Archaeologists don't know when Indians discovered this source
of food; they do know that the technique of preparing it
spread along the West Coast wherever oak trees grew.
The process of leaching whole acorns was slow. It took months
to get out all the tannic acid. Finally someone made an
invention to speed up the work. Using mortar and pestle of the
kind that crushed hard-shelled seeds to make them edible, a
women ground the soft acorns into a flour. When this acorn
flour was soaked in hot water, the tannic acid disappeared
very quickly.
To do the leaching, a woman often made a small hollow in the
sand beside a stream. In the hollow she placed a lining of
leaves and poured in acorn flour. Then she filled a
water-tight basket with water and dropped hot stone in it.
When the water was hot she poured it over the acorn flour.
Several dousings completely carried the acid away. What
remained was a moist cake that could be eaten without delay or
dried and saved for future use. The dried acorn flour, mixed
with water, was served as a kind of thick soup or mush.
Acorn flour was not only tasty but nourishing. It contained
about 21 percent fat, 5 percent protein, and 62 percent
carbohydrate. Its fat content was much greated than that of
either maize or wheat; its protein and carbohydrate content
somewhat less.
Franklin Folsom; America's Ancient Treasures; Rand McNally and
Company; New York, NY; 1974.
Reprinted for educational purposes under the "fair
use" provision of the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976.
|