THE ACORN AS HUMAN FOOD 



States in situations near streams and swamps, and 

 ripening in September or October plump, sweet nuts 

 an inch and a half long. 



Oddly enough it is not the sweet acorns but the 

 bitter that have played the really noteworthy part in 

 aboriginal history. The Indians of the Pacific Coast 

 did not become maize growers until after the white 

 occupation of their country, preferring to accept 

 from the hand of indulgent Nature such nutrients as 

 came ready made, among w^hich the abounding fruit- 

 age of extensive oak forests formed, and still forms, 

 a conspicuous part. The acorns of all species of 

 oaks indigenous to that coast are more or less stored 

 with tannin, which imparts to the taste an unwhole- 

 some bitterness and astringency as disagreeable to 

 red men as to white. Some inventive Indian — and 

 doubtless it was a woman, the aboriginal harvester 

 as w^ell as cook — long ago hit upon a simple but 

 effective way of extracting the deleterious principle ; 

 that is, washing the finely ground acorns in water. 

 The process of preparing the acorn for human use, 

 as still practiced in some parts of California, is as 

 follows : 



In autumn v/hen the nuts are ripe but not yet 

 fallen, they are gathered in baskets and barley sacks, 

 brought home and laid in the sun to dry. Some are 



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