Nut Foods

Acorns

The Acorns, especially of the Black Oak, Tanbark Oak and Live Oak, were gathered in the fall. Part of the crop was stored in large storage baskets in huts. Those to be used soon, were ground with pestles in mortar baskets that were placed above hollows in hard anvil stones, then leached with water in a prepared basin of sand. The water, allowed to run over the acorn meal for some time, took out the bitter tanic acid. The leached meal was either boiled as mush in baskets with water and red-hot stones, or baked in ovens as bread. Ground buckeye balls were also leached, but much more thoroughly, often for months in running water, or buried in mud.

Some grass seeds, like those of the Chia, were gathered and roasted. Pine seeds of the Sugar Pine and Digger Pine were knocked out of the clones and then eaten either raw or roasted.

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