Monday, June 1, 2009

Are you nuts?





Acorns to be exact.  This weekend the local resident expert on all things acorn taught me how to process the fruit of the oak.  The nut is full of tannins and after shelling must be rinsed in several changes of water.  We roasted the nuts next and then ground them into meal.  With the meal we made a beautiful, sweet and wholesome loaf of bread.

2 comments:

Aaren said...

That is the coolest thing ever. How long did it take to gather? What kind of oak? Live oak? Looks labor intensive, which means I would like it!

SloRide and Shake n' Bake said...

Labor intensive?.... Yes! The most time consuming part is rinsing the tannins out. It would be easier to let them float around in a creek for some time - not too many of those in Tucson. You can do acorns from any oak but some are more bitter then others. It is mesquite season right now. I work with a group called desertharvesters.greenbicycle.net/ Check us out! I'm with you, I'm drawn to the labor intensive stuff, luckily the desert complies. It is also saguaro fruit season.