MISSOURI BOTANICAL GARDEN BULLETIN 33 
causing the bitter taste. The meal then is washed clean of sand 
and worked into dough. The pasty cakes are baked flat, and when 
cooked possess the oily taste of peanut butter.” 
The Indians of Massachusetts parched the fresh acorns and 
stored them in that condition. The early records of the Pil- 
grims tell of the discovery, during their first hard winter, of 
such a store buried in baskets in the ground. The meal was 
used in various ways. Probably the commonest was to make 
it into hoe cakes which were baked in the ashes, but the 
Indians of the Great Lakes region boiled it as a mush, usually 
combined with maple sugar and often with the further addi- 
tion of venison. 
With a modern kitchen equipment the acorn meal can 
easily be prepared at home. After husking the acorns they 
should be ground in a hand-grist mill or food-chopper. The 
meal is then mixed with hot water and poured into a jelly 
bag. The bitter tannin, being soluble, will be taken out by 
the water, but sometimes a second or even third washing may 
be necessary. After washing, the wet meal is spread out to 
dry and then parched in an oven. If it has caked badly it 
should be run through the mill again before using. 
In cooking, acorn meal may be used in the same way as 
corn meal. Its greatest fault is its color, muffins made from 
it being a dark chocolate brown. The taste suggests a mix- 
ture of cornmeal and peanut butter, and some people relish 
it at once, but others, it must be confessed, have to be edu- 
cated to it. Because of the high oil and starch content of the 
acorn, it is very nutritious and is reported to be easily 
digested. Only acorns from white oaks should be gathered, 
as those from the black oaks are too bitter. The white oaks 
have flaky gray bark and leaves which are not spine-tipped. 
Typical Missouri representatives of this group are the white 
oak, the swamp oak, the bur oak, and the chestnut oak. The 
small pile of acorns shown in plate 3 made nearly two quarts 
of meal. 
ee oe se eae a cae a el -.  — ) Ss Oo 1 
Pane aioe 
