I have always wanted to try acorns, but I don’t know how to do it safely. I’ll have to look it up once I’m back in a part of the country that has a lot of oak.
Don't they eat acorns in the Parable books? At some point prior to the start of the first book, the protagonist's father had found that information in the book and got all their enclave onto that extra food source.
Looking at the steps involved in the safe preparation of acorns for food makes me wonder how people first figured that out, not just eating them raw like they saw other animals doing.
As You No Doubt Know, the labor-intensiveness is a major reason that acorns are very much a food of necessity (and, in European bread-centric cultures, a desperate ersatz flour substitute or a marker of asceticism. Among classes with pasturage and hunting prerogatives, the preferred culinary use was to convert them into pork or wild game.)
And it somehow doesn’t even remotely surprise me that the upper crust would archly elevate peasant struggle cookery:
(The Messisbugo cookbook illustration has me wondering: what are the cooks going to do with the trussed fox at lower left—-cook and serve it? Use it in a whimsical presentation? Display it as a cautionary example?)
"Many recipes call for substituting a portion of wheat flour with acorn flour"
NO. NO, THEY DO NOT. They call for replacing a portion of wheat flour with acorn flour, or else substituting acorn flour for a portion of the wheat flour. This turns out to be something I am still prescriptivist about, because serious ambiguities can occur when you do mixy-matchy on recipe terminology in English. (I think this one is fairly clear anyway and I am being a little unfair. I just felt like HARRUMPHING.)
*fistbump* I have been meaning to rant about that misuse of the word "substitute" and how it shows up so much in food writing for unknown evil reasons.
"Mistake" and "confuse" also seem to be difficult. I see "mistake with" and "confuse for" (rather than the other way around) frequently now, and I swear I never used to. I wonder if my memory is wrong and people have always done this, but I haven't yet gotten around to checking Google Books or anything.
Incidentally, I took a course in copy editing nonfiction once, and my favorite part was the cookbook unit.
Also I remember once watching Canada geese swallow acorns whole, as fast as they could go. You could see the lumps going down their necks, just as in the old ad with the ostrich swallowing the Guinness glass. I have wondered ever since if acorn-fed geese taste especially good, the way acorn-fed pigs are said to.
When I saw the link title I was like, "Hey, we eat acorns..." and what do you know, there's a picture of 묵 (Korean acorn jelly) right in the article! xD The amount of acorns we consume here is actually an ecological problem, since human foraging of acorns deprives wild animals like boars and squirrels of a major food source.
Edited (boars do not deserve to be called boors. My instinct is simply to call them "wild pigs," haha) Date: 2025-07-16 01:27 am (UTC)
I wish that, too. As it stands Korean forests are too pine-heavy, which is preferred by many woodside communities because pine trees serve as beds for profitable mushroom farming. Unfortunately, coniferous trees like pines are at greater risk for fires in our tinderbox Anthropocene so we'd do well to plant more broadleaf trees like oaks. Forest composition is definitely a conversation to be had in ecological governance.
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malionette
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Date: 2025-07-15 05:39 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-15 05:59 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-15 07:10 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-15 09:43 pm (UTC)And various Indigenous folklores might shed some light on the subject.
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Date: 2025-07-15 09:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-15 07:52 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-15 10:46 pm (UTC)And it somehow doesn’t even remotely surprise me that the upper crust would archly elevate peasant struggle cookery:
https://www.medievalists.net/2020/10/acorns-middle-ages/
(The Messisbugo cookbook illustration has me wondering: what are the cooks going to do with the trussed fox at lower left—-cook and serve it? Use it in a whimsical presentation? Display it as a cautionary example?)
no subject
Date: 2025-07-15 11:51 pm (UTC)NO. NO, THEY DO NOT. They call for replacing a portion of wheat flour with acorn flour, or else substituting acorn flour for a portion of the wheat flour. This turns out to be something I am still prescriptivist about, because serious ambiguities can occur when you do mixy-matchy on recipe terminology in English. (I think this one is fairly clear anyway and I am being a little unfair. I just felt like HARRUMPHING.)
no subject
Date: 2025-07-16 01:43 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-16 01:56 am (UTC)Incidentally, I took a course in copy editing nonfiction once, and my favorite part was the cookbook unit.
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Date: 2025-07-16 01:45 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-15 11:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-16 01:26 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-16 12:45 pm (UTC)Oh asbolutely. I wouldn't've posted the article if it left out Korean cuisine's important uses of acorns.
I hope more oaks are being planted!
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Date: 2025-07-23 12:28 pm (UTC)I wish that, too. As it stands Korean forests are too pine-heavy, which is preferred by many woodside communities because pine trees serve as beds for profitable mushroom farming. Unfortunately, coniferous trees like pines are at greater risk for fires in our tinderbox Anthropocene so we'd do well to plant more broadleaf trees like oaks. Forest composition is definitely a conversation to be had in ecological governance.