Trump suggests US will buy Argentinian beef to bring down prices for American consumers

[eppur_se_muova]

49. Native Americans would place acorns in a basket and anchor them in a stream, so they got a long soaking & washing ...

others dug a pit in the ground, lined it with wood ashes (aka "pot ash"*, which is used to make lye soap), put acorns and ashes on top, then more ashes, and covered it with soil for a few months. The alkaline potassium & sodium carbonates in the ashes leached into the rainwater as it percolated through and so the acorns got a good alkali wash. When food ran low in the winter months, they dug up the acorns and ate them (hopefully after thorough washing!).

With wood ashes and water, you can do the same in your kitchen pretty quickly. Here's a YouTube video (I know, I hate YT videos, but couldn't find a text version -- click on "show transcript" while the playback is off for fast reading). I checked the ingredients of our budget dishwasher powder -- it's almost pure sodium carbonate ("washing soda" ), which could be used in place of pot ash. But be careful to keep it off your hands, and *don't* get any in your eyes ! Only quick, thorough flushing with water can prevent eye damage if that happens.

These processes (hot or cold water, or alkali) remove tannins, which are not only bitter, but toxic. Even the bitterest acorns can be detoxified for human consumption. https://heatherholleman.com/how-we-made-acorn-flour-a-lesson-in-bitterness/

The process is similar to the alkali soak used to convert horn into hominy. This can be done with a variety of alkalis, including lime and even baking soda. The latter is the slowest approach, but certainly the safest. Probably worth trying baking soda and a long soak, or boiling, and see if that removes the bitterness from acorns.



* The element potassium takes its name from the English roots, "pot ash", phonied-up into Latin for respectability by Humphrey Davy, who also gave us sodium, from soda ash. The IUPAC symbol, K, is from al qalīy, an Arabic word meaning ... calcined ashes, the etymological precursor of alkali, which also gives the alternative name Kalium, favored in most of eastern Europe after the suggestion by the German chemist Klaproth, who gave us both kalium and natrium.