We are so blessed with magnificent oak trees in the Conejo Valley, that an alternate name for where we live could be Oak Valley. Or, we could use the Latin name for oaks, which is Quercus, except that doesn’t have as good a sound to it as conejo.
About five years ago, I took a class in making flour from acorns at Satwiwa, which is part of the Santa Monica Mountains National Recreation Area. In the class, we learned how the Chumash gathered acorns here, mashed them, and then kept rinsing them, to remove the bitter portion. Eventually we ended up with a pinkish, ground flour. It was a lot of hard work!
It is so much easier just to buy a package of wheat flour off the supermarket shelf. I can see that there would be satisfaction from cooking with a diet staple made from what naturally grows locally, but I’ll say it again, making acorn flour was hard work!
Posted by Janna Orkney
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