Tag Archives: foraging

How to make acorn flour

Posted on by
4

When you are interested in foraging, you really have to pay attention to the seasons. If you read about ramps in the winter, you are going to have to wait until spring to find them. Shopping at grocery stores seems to have made us forget that certain things grow at certain times of year. At least locally, that is. I had read about making acorn flour a while ago, but it wasn’t acorn season. I forgot all about it until I saw Stephanie mention it in her blog. I was going up to the Berkshires for the weekend and it was the right time of year for acorns.

We went on a hike and I brought a backpack along to gather nuts. I had no idea how many I would need, so I summoned my inner squirrel and kept gathering and filling my bag. When we got home, I weighed the nuts I had found and had 8lbs. After pulling off the tops and discarding the ones that had worm holes in them I had 6lbs. I read in a couple of places that you place the acorns in water and the ones that float aren’t viable. I tried that and almost all of mine floated. I decided to check inside and see what they looked like. Some were bad, but most were good, so I decided to skip that theory.

Now comes the gross part…grubs! Many of the acorns had grubs. The fat, white, wiggly things totally grossed me out, so I decided to bake the acorns at 170 degrees F to kill them. A dead grub is still gross, but a wiggling one is much worse.

After discarding the acorns that were discolored or had grubs in them I think I was down to about 2-3 lbs. Acorns are full of tannins, so you have to soak them for several days to remove the bitterness. I tried soaking them when they were chopped, but thought that the water wasn’t getting to the inside of the acorn meat. I ran them through a meat grinder to chop them smaller.

Directions for how to make acorn flour:

  • Gather a ridiculous amount of acorns
  • Discard any that have obvious problems (squirrel bites or worm holes)
  • Bake acorns at 170F for 1 hour to kill grubs
  • Shell acorns tossing out any that are discolored or have grubs. It is pretty obvious which ones are good and which ones aren’t
  • Grind acorns in a food processor, or a meat grinder
  • Wrap in several layers of cheesecloth and soak in water. You will need to do this for several days, until the meat isn’t bitter.
  • Lay the acorn flour on a pan and either dry in the sun, or in the oven on the lowest setting. Make sure it’s completely dry or it will mold.

I will post some recipes within the next few days.

Wintergreen

Posted on by
Reply

I just recently planted this little creeping wintergreen plant in a shady spot in my garden. This plant first came to my attention while I was reading Farmer Boy to Lindsay. The character Almonzo and his siblings would dig in the snow for the red, mint-flavored berries. I was reading the book during the period I was getting more and more interested in foraging, native plants and edible plants in particular. Seemed like the perfect plant for me. Plus it is meant to grow in the shade. My tiny, Brookyn garden has several different zones. One of them is pretty deep shade once the neighbor’s mulberry tree fills in with leaves. I had been considering growing mushrooms, but somehow forgot about that endeavor.

In case you aren’t familiar with this beautiful, native plant, it bears bright read, slightly mealy berries in the winter. The foliage turns a lovely red also. What makes it so interesting is that it is the source of oil of wintergreen. All the flavoring for toothpaste, gum, candies, etc. came from this plant before an artificial wintergreen flavor was developed. I squished one of the berries and sure enough it had a very strong wintergreen scent. You can use the leaves to make a tea. The plants grow in the woods and have pretty bell-shaped flowers. Take a look around when you go hiking to see if you find the plant. Here’s a link that gives some more information on growing it and has a photo with the berries.

The plant likes well-drained, acidic soil. Hopefully it will like its spot in my garden and spread all over the place. In the meantime, I’m going to do some research to figure out what I can make with the natural wintergreen flavor.

Fallen Fruit

Posted on by
Reply

200165320-001

A friend just sent me a great website called fallen fruit. Public Fruit is the concept behind Fallen Fruit, which is an activist art project that aims to map all public fruit trees around the world. They are based out of CA, so most of the mapping is there. When you go to their website there is a pull-down menu. Go to the maps and then click on the interactive online map. What is considered “public fruit” is fruit on or overhanging public spaces such as sidewalks, streets or parking lots. I think I would be respectful of a tree that is obviously in someone’s yard, but otherwise I think the concept is great. Why plant ornamental trees that aren’t even native species, when you could feed hungry people and wildlife?

In addition to mapping fruit trees, they are planning fruit parks in under-utilized areas. 

I love this idea and think that everyone should spread the word and add pin points onto their interactive fruit map.