This is a short post on acorns. I was recently walking down a boulevard lined with oak tress and noticed a person with a plastic bag that was collecting acorns! Yes like those collected by squirrels. I needed to investigate more. What can you do with them? What's their place in the history of food?
The Grandpappy website contains a lot of useful information on the history of acorns and how to collect and process them for eating. To be brief, the acorn was eaten since the beginning of time by populations living close to oak trees. Apparently more acorns have been consumed over history than rice and wheat!
Acorns contain many nutritious vitamins and proteins and of course carbohydrates. They also contain tannins which need to be flushed out before cooking.
It's quite a process to prepare acorns but if you are adventurous enough you can use acorns to make grits, bread, tortillas, and cookies.
However, the person that I saw collecting them was going to make Dotorimuk - acorn jelly. This is a traditional Korean recipe that is regaining popularity as a health food. Dotorimuk is commercially available in powder form that is ready for home use. I'll see if I can find it at the local Korean supermarket. If my search turns out empty Debbie Lee of the New York Times describes Dotorimuk as "a silk jelly that tasted faintly of chestnuts and artichokes."
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