marsh
On TB every waking moment
Little acorn has big history as native staple
By: AGNES DIGGS - Staff Writer
Sometimes you get a taste for something familiar, something not so easy
to come by. Something comforting that reminds you who you are and who
you come from.
Sometimes that means falling back on age-old traditions that require
back-breaking work ---- the kind that, for the first Americans, once
meant the difference between survival and extinction.
When that happens, said Mandy Marine, 33, whose family has been devoted
for four generations to practicing and preserving centuries-old American
Indian traditions, "we just crank some out."
Marine was speaking of the soup, mush, or bread made from acorns, a
traditional food source of many California Indian tribes.
At the recent 15th annual gathering of the California Indian
Basketweavers Association at the Cupa Cultural Center on Pala
Reservation, Marine and her mother, Julie Dick Tex, conducted a hands-on
workshop in the ancient art of preparing acorn mush. A diet staple for
many tribes, acorns are high in fat, carbohydrates, protein and vitamins
and are the basis for several life-sustaining foods.
The workshop area included a nearby firepit and a shaded table where an
array of rocks and baskets were mingled with modern utensils and a
supply of the versatile nuts. "Our people are still using the materials
our ancestors used," Marine said as she explained each tool's use. "It's
a way of life. We can still go out and gather the materials, although
herbicide and pesticide spraying is making it harder, as well as private
owners who buy the land ---- sites that were ancestral gathering sites."
The process is labor-intensive, Marine said. "You're on your hands and
knees (gathering), or you're grinding acorns."
Marine has a degree in cultural anthropology, as do her grandmother, her
father, and her great-grandmother, 1960s activist Marie Potts, she said.
Her family's cultural roots include the Yosemite Miwok/Mono Lake
Paiute/Kayash Pomo and Coast Miwok people, she said. Her family members,
who live just outside Kings Canyon National Park in the Sierra Nevada
Foothills, tend to prefer the acorns from the black oak and the valley
oak among the dozens of possible choices, citing better flavor and
texture.
During the Pala gathering, Marine and Julie Dick Tex offered
step-by-step tutorials on how to prepare the nuts to make dishes such as
a mush called nupa; a thick soup; or an acorn beverage. A byproduct of
the process, called cookies, comes from the crunchy pieces that dry on
the cooking rocks during preparation. Another product, called biscuits,
is made by dropping the mixture into ice-cold water, causing it to
congeal.
Acorn products can be eaten hot or cold, Marine said. They can be mixed
with other foods such as beef or mushrooms.
"I consider it an acquired taste," Marine said. "Some compare it to poi.
Some say it has no taste. We describe it as (tasting like) grits or cold
cream of wheat."
The acorns are gathered in the fall, from the ground under the trees
where they have fallen, she said. "We pick through the bear grass,
through the dust and the snow," she said.
There was a time in their history when they had to compete with the
animals and birds like woodpeckers for the harvest.
"Everything had their time to hunt for acorns," Marine said. "And it's a
battle to see who gets there first ---- the birds, the deer or the
cattle."
Once amassed, the acorns are collected, dried and hulled. Pointing to a
flat rock with several acorn-sized holes in the surface, Marine said
that in the past, cracking the shell was done by setting the end of the
acorn in a hole and striking it with another rock.
Marine debunked the myth of people cracking and eating the acorns while
strolling through the woods.
"You can't eat it freshly cracked," she said, holding up an acorn she
had quickly cracked with her teeth. "Because it has acid in it, and it's
very bitter. It must go through the leaching process."
The acorn meat resembles an almond with a reddish-brown husk. Depending
on personal preference, some people remove the husk; others don't,
Marine said. "You have to dry them (the acorns) before grinding or they
grind up like peanut butter," she cautioned. "Dry them, then grind them
to get the flour."
During the demonstration, as in the past, the grinding was done with
mortar and pestle. The resulting flour is still inedible at this stage,
she said. It must be winnowed in a closely woven basket, where the finer
ground product adheres to the weave, separating from the coarser meal,
which is put through the grinding process again. The end product looks
like corn meal and has the approximate texture of wheat flour.
Once the flour is ground, it's leached ---- a matter of washing the
acids out, Marine said. Acorns contain tannic acid, which can be toxic
in large enough quantities.
The washing was originally done by scooping up a bed of clean sand to
make a leaching bed and placing the flour on it, then slowly pouring
water over it. As water passes over the flour, it cleans out the acids.
"It's the reverse of making coffee," she said. "In coffee-making, you
drink the acids."
When the leaching is done, bitterness is replaced by sweetness. What
remains is edible and can be dried and kept as flour, ready to cook.
That stage of preparation is done in a cooking basket, Marine said. The
household cooking baskets are woven of sturdy Muhlenbergia rigens ----
also known as deer grass. They are easily identified because they have a
decorative pattern on the sides but not the bottom, since the decoration
would be burned off, Marine said.
The baskets are seasoned by soaking them in water, causing the deer
grass to swell and making the basket watertight. Once seasoned, the
baskets can be used to cook the acorn flour, which is placed inside and
mixed with water to make a slurry.
Specially chosen rocks are heated in a fire pit, then transferred from
the pit to the basket with a primitive but very effective acorn spoon.
It's woven with an opening designed to hold the heated rocks as they are
placed into the basket. The spoon is also used to keep the rocks moving
to prevent them from burning the basket, she said.
The heat permeates the acorn mixture and is diffused. "It's like cooking
in a microwave," Marine said, running her hands over the basket. "From
the inside out."
When the preparation and cooking are over, the cleanup is traditionally
done with what Marine calls "the greatest tool in Indian history": the
soap root brush. These brushes can also be used as a "hair brush,
baby-cleaning brush, house-cleaning brush," Marine said, demonstrating
as she spoke.
The soap root plant's fiber makes the brush end, and the bulb is ground
to a paste that hardens for a handle. During winnowing of the acorns,
the brushes help keep the flour in the basket. When preparation is
finished, brushes help scrub the baskets clean.
The old ways have changed, conforming to a motorized society. In modern
times, the leaching table is about waist-high and the sand bed is placed
on a chicken wire screen covered with a clean cloth. The leaching still
takes about the same amount of time. But hand-held sifters, paring
knives and hammers have replaced more primitive tools. And a coffee
grinder or food processor can be used for the hardest, most
time-consuming part of the work.
"If my grandmother had an electric motor, she would have used them,"
Marine said. "You don't see us running around in horse and buggy any
more, either."
Contact staff writer Agnes Diggs at (760) 740-3511 or
adiggs@nctimes.com.
Acorn muffin recipe
1 cup acorn flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoons garlic or onion salt
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tablespoons bacon drippings, melted
Preheat oven to 425F. Sift together the acorn flour, corn meal, flour,
baking powder, and the onion or garlic salt. Beat egg and milk together;
stir in bacon drippings. Add liquid to dry ingredients and stir just
until moistened; don't overmix. Pour into well-greased muffin tins and
bake 15 minutes, or until brown and crusty. Makes about 18 muffins.
Sweet or nut muffins can be made from this recipe by adding 4
tablespoons sugar to the dry ingredients, omitting the garlic or onion
salt (substitute 1 tablespoon of plain salt), and substituting melted
shortening for the bacon fat. Add 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans to the
batter, if you like.
- Source: The FamilyClassroom.net network of resource Web sites
By: AGNES DIGGS - Staff Writer
Sometimes you get a taste for something familiar, something not so easy
to come by. Something comforting that reminds you who you are and who
you come from.
Sometimes that means falling back on age-old traditions that require
back-breaking work ---- the kind that, for the first Americans, once
meant the difference between survival and extinction.
When that happens, said Mandy Marine, 33, whose family has been devoted
for four generations to practicing and preserving centuries-old American
Indian traditions, "we just crank some out."
Marine was speaking of the soup, mush, or bread made from acorns, a
traditional food source of many California Indian tribes.
At the recent 15th annual gathering of the California Indian
Basketweavers Association at the Cupa Cultural Center on Pala
Reservation, Marine and her mother, Julie Dick Tex, conducted a hands-on
workshop in the ancient art of preparing acorn mush. A diet staple for
many tribes, acorns are high in fat, carbohydrates, protein and vitamins
and are the basis for several life-sustaining foods.
The workshop area included a nearby firepit and a shaded table where an
array of rocks and baskets were mingled with modern utensils and a
supply of the versatile nuts. "Our people are still using the materials
our ancestors used," Marine said as she explained each tool's use. "It's
a way of life. We can still go out and gather the materials, although
herbicide and pesticide spraying is making it harder, as well as private
owners who buy the land ---- sites that were ancestral gathering sites."
The process is labor-intensive, Marine said. "You're on your hands and
knees (gathering), or you're grinding acorns."
Marine has a degree in cultural anthropology, as do her grandmother, her
father, and her great-grandmother, 1960s activist Marie Potts, she said.
Her family's cultural roots include the Yosemite Miwok/Mono Lake
Paiute/Kayash Pomo and Coast Miwok people, she said. Her family members,
who live just outside Kings Canyon National Park in the Sierra Nevada
Foothills, tend to prefer the acorns from the black oak and the valley
oak among the dozens of possible choices, citing better flavor and
texture.
During the Pala gathering, Marine and Julie Dick Tex offered
step-by-step tutorials on how to prepare the nuts to make dishes such as
a mush called nupa; a thick soup; or an acorn beverage. A byproduct of
the process, called cookies, comes from the crunchy pieces that dry on
the cooking rocks during preparation. Another product, called biscuits,
is made by dropping the mixture into ice-cold water, causing it to
congeal.
Acorn products can be eaten hot or cold, Marine said. They can be mixed
with other foods such as beef or mushrooms.
"I consider it an acquired taste," Marine said. "Some compare it to poi.
Some say it has no taste. We describe it as (tasting like) grits or cold
cream of wheat."
The acorns are gathered in the fall, from the ground under the trees
where they have fallen, she said. "We pick through the bear grass,
through the dust and the snow," she said.
There was a time in their history when they had to compete with the
animals and birds like woodpeckers for the harvest.
"Everything had their time to hunt for acorns," Marine said. "And it's a
battle to see who gets there first ---- the birds, the deer or the
cattle."
Once amassed, the acorns are collected, dried and hulled. Pointing to a
flat rock with several acorn-sized holes in the surface, Marine said
that in the past, cracking the shell was done by setting the end of the
acorn in a hole and striking it with another rock.
Marine debunked the myth of people cracking and eating the acorns while
strolling through the woods.
"You can't eat it freshly cracked," she said, holding up an acorn she
had quickly cracked with her teeth. "Because it has acid in it, and it's
very bitter. It must go through the leaching process."
The acorn meat resembles an almond with a reddish-brown husk. Depending
on personal preference, some people remove the husk; others don't,
Marine said. "You have to dry them (the acorns) before grinding or they
grind up like peanut butter," she cautioned. "Dry them, then grind them
to get the flour."
During the demonstration, as in the past, the grinding was done with
mortar and pestle. The resulting flour is still inedible at this stage,
she said. It must be winnowed in a closely woven basket, where the finer
ground product adheres to the weave, separating from the coarser meal,
which is put through the grinding process again. The end product looks
like corn meal and has the approximate texture of wheat flour.
Once the flour is ground, it's leached ---- a matter of washing the
acids out, Marine said. Acorns contain tannic acid, which can be toxic
in large enough quantities.
The washing was originally done by scooping up a bed of clean sand to
make a leaching bed and placing the flour on it, then slowly pouring
water over it. As water passes over the flour, it cleans out the acids.
"It's the reverse of making coffee," she said. "In coffee-making, you
drink the acids."
When the leaching is done, bitterness is replaced by sweetness. What
remains is edible and can be dried and kept as flour, ready to cook.
That stage of preparation is done in a cooking basket, Marine said. The
household cooking baskets are woven of sturdy Muhlenbergia rigens ----
also known as deer grass. They are easily identified because they have a
decorative pattern on the sides but not the bottom, since the decoration
would be burned off, Marine said.
The baskets are seasoned by soaking them in water, causing the deer
grass to swell and making the basket watertight. Once seasoned, the
baskets can be used to cook the acorn flour, which is placed inside and
mixed with water to make a slurry.
Specially chosen rocks are heated in a fire pit, then transferred from
the pit to the basket with a primitive but very effective acorn spoon.
It's woven with an opening designed to hold the heated rocks as they are
placed into the basket. The spoon is also used to keep the rocks moving
to prevent them from burning the basket, she said.
The heat permeates the acorn mixture and is diffused. "It's like cooking
in a microwave," Marine said, running her hands over the basket. "From
the inside out."
When the preparation and cooking are over, the cleanup is traditionally
done with what Marine calls "the greatest tool in Indian history": the
soap root brush. These brushes can also be used as a "hair brush,
baby-cleaning brush, house-cleaning brush," Marine said, demonstrating
as she spoke.
The soap root plant's fiber makes the brush end, and the bulb is ground
to a paste that hardens for a handle. During winnowing of the acorns,
the brushes help keep the flour in the basket. When preparation is
finished, brushes help scrub the baskets clean.
The old ways have changed, conforming to a motorized society. In modern
times, the leaching table is about waist-high and the sand bed is placed
on a chicken wire screen covered with a clean cloth. The leaching still
takes about the same amount of time. But hand-held sifters, paring
knives and hammers have replaced more primitive tools. And a coffee
grinder or food processor can be used for the hardest, most
time-consuming part of the work.
"If my grandmother had an electric motor, she would have used them,"
Marine said. "You don't see us running around in horse and buggy any
more, either."
Contact staff writer Agnes Diggs at (760) 740-3511 or
adiggs@nctimes.com.
Acorn muffin recipe
1 cup acorn flour
1 cup cornmeal
1 cup flour
3 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoons garlic or onion salt
1 egg, slightly beaten
1 1/2 cups milk
2 tablespoons bacon drippings, melted
Preheat oven to 425F. Sift together the acorn flour, corn meal, flour,
baking powder, and the onion or garlic salt. Beat egg and milk together;
stir in bacon drippings. Add liquid to dry ingredients and stir just
until moistened; don't overmix. Pour into well-greased muffin tins and
bake 15 minutes, or until brown and crusty. Makes about 18 muffins.
Sweet or nut muffins can be made from this recipe by adding 4
tablespoons sugar to the dry ingredients, omitting the garlic or onion
salt (substitute 1 tablespoon of plain salt), and substituting melted
shortening for the bacon fat. Add 1/2 cup walnuts or pecans to the
batter, if you like.
- Source: The FamilyClassroom.net network of resource Web sites