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Permalink Reply by Sandra on August 16, 2009 at 9:02pm

White Oak

Red Oak

Oaks (acorns) can be divided into two main groups -- the white oaks and the red or black oaks. White oak acorns are usually not bitter and need little or no leaching. Red oak acorns, on the other hand, need leaching because they have a lot of tannic acid in them. While tannic acid has medicinal properties and can be used for other things, eating or drinking too much tannic acid is not only bitter, it will bind you up.
To leach red oak acorns, tie them up in a cloth or t-shirt, put them in boiling water until the water turns brown, drain, and repeat until the water is clear. You can also put the nut meats tied up in a cloth in a running stream until reddish brown liquid no longer runs out of the bundle. (This could take days in a stream.)
In general, white oak leaves have rounded lobes while red oak leaves have pointed lobes.
Tannic acid makes a good antiseptic.

Permalink Reply by Sandra on August 16, 2009 at 9:24pm

There's a whole process to preparing acorns to eat. But basically you collect acorns off the ground, dry them in a single layer (but not in the sun), crack them and take out the meat, grind it a little so that it's about like cornmeal, tie up the ground acorns in cloth and soak in water, changing the water until the bitterness and tannin is gone -- or run water through the ball until the tannin is gone. Use like flour in baking or making acorn mush. If you are going to store the flour or acorns outside, put a natural insect repellent with them, such as cedar, rosemary, or bay leaves.
Don't rush any of this process.
There are a bunch of acorn recipes at http://www.prodigalgardens.info/acorn%20recipes.htm -- acorn pancakes, bread, cookies, and so on.
The high nutritional value of acorns make them a superb survival food.

Permalink Reply by Jim Nottingham on August 16, 2009 at 10:32pm

yummy Acorn burgers! Also look for huckleberrys in your Nw states around late aug early sept. dried mashed and mix up some suet and dried fish.. pemmican alla mode. / Cattail pollen as well as catail roots tasty little buggers. something or note about cattails make sure the water does have some current, stagnent water you really want to stay away from. when gathering cattails for anything but shelter reeds.

Permalink Reply by Sandra on August 23, 2009 at 10:46am

After the cool weather hits, sumac will be ripe -- get the more common red sumac, not the white (posionous). Pick the cluster-like red sumac heads, cut the smaller stems from the larger stem, and put in a bowl of warm water for a few hours to make a delicious lemonade-like drink. You can see what it looks like and how to make the sumac-ade on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPH-IDwVmrM. Sumac berries are very easy to identify and taste great! Great source of vitamin C too.

Permalink Reply by WildernessWillie on August 23, 2009 at 5:03pm

yes indeed, great stuff and it grows in abundance around here :)

Sandra Essary said:

After the cool weather hits, sumac will be ripe -- get the more common red sumac, not the white (posionous). Pick the cluster-like red sumac heads, cut the smaller stems from the larger stem, and put in a bowl of warm water for a few hours to make a delicious lemonade-like drink. You can see what it looks like and how to make the sumac-ade on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPH-IDwVmrM. Sumac berries are very easy to identify and taste great! Great source of vitamin C too.

Permalink Reply by Jim Nottingham on August 30, 2009 at 10:52pm

Great shot of the Rose Hips, and those wild grapes are yummy despite the seeds. have a good one