seems like they could be used for something, maybe burned as a fuel source! Can they be eaten by humans, cooked or something. I have raked up wheelbarrows full of them, and it seems like they should have some purpose besides feeding squirrels and denting my car. ANyone know anything about acorns??
2006-10-14 15:57:46 · 13 answers · asked by Coco 4 in Science & Mathematics ➔ Botany
I hear they make great trees if you plant them...
2006-10-15 18:38:51 · answer #1 · answered by churnin 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
The Pilgrim Fathers used to eat acorns regularly. They're a perfectly good food. Acorns have been roasted and ground to make ersatz coffee, which is bloody awful. It looks like the real thing but doesn't taste even remotely like it and it contains no caffeine. I could use some of your acorns because we live on the south coast of NZ and we could use a shelter belt of oak trees. And if you know anybody with rodent pets, they're cheap feed. Dry acorns keep indefinitely. And oak is a useful building material, especially for boats.
2006-10-15 00:06:44 · answer #2 · answered by zee_prime 6 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Check out some sites on the internet for how to use them as a food.
I just typed in "Cooking with Acorns" got over 100 sites. Try this one
http://www.siouxme.com/acorn.html for a start
2006-10-14 23:07:33 · answer #3 · answered by knittinmama 7 · 0⤊ 1⤋
People can eat them, but there's a reason they choose not to. They are full of tannic acid and are very bitter.
Most of the stuff I've read on how people used to prepare them involves soaking them in lots of water, draining them and soaking some more to leech out some of the tannins.
Native Americans ate them, and before the introduction of more modern cereal crops (wheat barley oats etc.) the Celts of northern and central Europe ate them. Think druids, it's one of the reasons the oak was central to their religious practices.
2006-10-15 11:56:09 · answer #4 · answered by corvis_9 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Acorn soup: http://www.nativetech.org/recipes/recipe.php?recipeid=115
Acorn flour: http://www.siouxme.com/acorn.html
2006-10-14 23:08:17 · answer #5 · answered by sofarsogood 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
Native Americans have, going back before time recorded.
2006-10-14 22:59:59 · answer #6 · answered by Eldude 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Native Americans, I understand, use to use them to make a bread like food. They are very bitter and I guess they had to smash them and wash or rince them somehow. Compost the heck out of them.
They'd make great soil someday.
2006-10-14 23:01:42 · answer #7 · answered by Ahab 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
being native american,i can honestly say,i have no knowlegde of my people eating them.i do however know that we once used them to grow pin oak trees from.which is what the name of the tree they came from is called.
2006-10-15 02:37:11 · answer #8 · answered by jgmafb 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Excellent food for deer and wild pigs. When hunting either I always look near oak trees first.
2006-10-14 23:06:22 · answer #9 · answered by Larry T 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
You can make flour with acorns. See below.
2006-10-14 23:06:23 · answer #10 · answered by I'm_Bored 4 · 0⤊ 1⤋
It doesn't require a scientist; they have been ground into flour for thousands of years. If you want to know if they could be burned, why not try it yourself?
2006-10-14 23:05:38 · answer #11 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 1⤋