ACORN SOUP PREPARATION

It is acorn time in October - it is called Big Time to the Coastal Native Americans. I have not tasted acorn soup - I have heard that it has a distinct flavor according to the Pomo Indians. They used to put red clay in the soup to sweaten it!! When I tell this to my classes they always frown about using clay as an edible additive. The process of preparing the acorns was primarily the women's job. They collected about 50 pounds in their burden baskets. Then as a group they cracked the shell open with a mano on a hard metate like stone. After the shell was off they pounded the acorns into a meal or powder using a mortar and pestle. The archaeologists in California have dated these tools to about 5000 years ago. Once the shell is off and the meal has been ground, they make a basin of sand about 3 feet in diameter into which the ground up acorn meal is placed. They pour either cold or hot water over the acorn meal and do this for several days until the tannic acid is leached out of the meal - it has a sweat taste after it has been leached of the acid. (I guess the squirrels have a different digestive system than we do!)

Once the leaching is done the meal is carefully scraped off the basin and placed into water in a basket sealed with pine resin. It is heated by placing hot rocks from a campfire. The leaching process is usually done along a drainage or river bank. It can be done by a village or up a stream away from a village. Once hot it becomes acorn soup and was the main staple of most of the Californian Indians.

The meal can also be made into a bread which is surrounded with soaproat leaves and baked in an underground oven. Their ovens were made by digging holes about a foot deep and lined with river rocks. They placed the leaves of the soaproot to surround the pit and then placed more leaves over the acorn bread. Then hot rocks from a campfire and some soil were placed on top of the bread and it baked for a day or so.

Today the Pomo make the acorn soup using a blender to grind up the meal and then use a cheesecloth to contain the meal and hang it around a dripping fawcet to leach the tannic acid. They still serve it at Big Time ceremonies in Santa Rosa, at the SRJC Native American dances, at Point Reyes, and at Stewart's Point.

You may want to check out the ceremonies that are open to the public.