THE ACORN AS HUMAN FOOD 



Two or three hours usually suffice. The result is a 

 doughy mass, which is then transferred to a pot with 

 water added, and boiled up for mush. It swells in 

 cooking to about twice its original bulk, and when 

 done is a pale chocolate color. In taste it is rather 

 flat but with a suggestion of nuttiness that becomes 

 distinctly agreeable even to some white palates. 

 Judging from my own experience with it, I should 

 pronounce it about as good as an average breakfast- 

 food mush. Cream and sugar and a pinch of salt 

 are considered needful concomitants by most white 

 consumers. Formerly the Indians baked a sort of 

 bread from acorn dough in their primitive fireless 

 cooker that is, in shallow pits first lined with thor- 

 oughly heated rocks. For this purpose the dough 

 was usually, though not always, mixed with red clay 

 in proportion of about five per cent., according to 

 Mr. Chesnut, from whose valuable monograph, 

 "Plants Used by the Indians of Mendocino Co., 

 Calif ornia," I have drawn for this statement, 

 the purpose of the clay being apparently to remove 

 the last trace of tannin remaining in the dough. 

 Upon a bed of green leaves placed at the bottom of 

 the pit the dough was laid, covered with another 

 layer of leaves, upon which a super-layer of heated 

 stones was put, and all then covered with dirt, to 



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