savanna pizza (farmers, grain, water, the wild)

[gwynedd1]

crust:

1 cup flour( it could have been pure acorn, or if you are a real wack job, crab grass grain flour is possible)
1 cup acorn flour
pinches of salt
a teaspoon or two of olive oil( extra points for wild oil like walnut, beechnut or bear fat)
water until workable

spread and bake 10 minutes or so at 350

sauce:

1 cup of S. nigram night shade berries.
1 tablespoon of vinegar(thought this would balance the sweeter nightshade berries vs tomatoes. I think it did. Extra points if you made it with mulberries or some such. )
1 cup of milkweed pre-silk
1 teaspoon of dried bee-balm
field garlic ( I cheated with regular garlic)
oil

Sauté milkweed pre-silk a few minutes, then add garlic.
after a minute, add nightshade berries until it becomes a thick sauce.
spread on crust and bake a few minutes.

Even though pre-silk is very cheese like, I did add some cheese. I am not a fanatic after all. Though, its nice to know I can still make a pizza in a savanna. I am having it now, and its quite good.

[1957TabbyCat]

It sound good,

I did not know until now that Crab Grass had a use.

Crabgrass usually gets a bad reputation as a pesky weed. However, crabgrass does have several redeeming qualities. Crabgrass seeds into flour. This flour is used for porridge. The seeds can also be fermented to make beer. In some parts of Africa, crabgrass is a staple crop. Crabgrass can grow in both hemispheres in a variety of climates including temperate, tropical and subtropical areas.
Crabgrass is a highly prolific wild grass which homeowners make every possible attempt to eliminate from their lawns. Farmers buy millions of tons of herbicides annually just to remove the wild grass from their crop fields. Most people in the Western world are unaware that the seeds of this grass were once a highly sought-after grain for baking breads, making porridge and fermenting to make beer. When making flour for bread, crabgrass grain is handled in a similar fashion to other grains.

[Ketabcha]

They use the crabgrass seeds in Afghanistan to make flour. It's a staple in the diets of the rural folk in northern parts of the country.

[Woof]

Pretty much any grass will produce edible grains. You can go out into any field in the autumn and gather the grains - cook them as they are or grind into flour. I've done that (boiling them, not grinding into flour). Mostly the flour isn't very good for bread since the amount of gluten is variable, often quite low.

Where is the savanna, Gwynedd?

[gwynedd1]

Originally Posted by Woof

Pretty much any grass will produce edible grains. You can go out into any field in the autumn and gather the grains - cook them as they are or grind into flour. I've done that (boiling them, not grinding into flour). Mostly the flour isn't very good for bread since the amount of gluten is variable, often quite low.

Where is the savanna, Gwynedd?

Hi Woof,

The Chicago area. The ingredients however should be available in most of North America. However one would find this mix where forest meets prairie.

I did gather a bit of grass seed recently but never got the project off the ground and got rather busy. How was yours?

[lifelongMOgal]

Very interesting thread.

How does one go about making acorn flour? Is it done with acorns from the previous Fall totally dry and then ground?

Is one type of acorn better than another, say the acorns from a white oak vs. red oak or pin oak?

[gwynedd1]

Originally Posted by lifelongMOgal

Very interesting thread.

How does one go about making acorn flour? Is it done with acorns from the previous Fall totally dry and then ground?

Is one type of acorn better than another, say the acorns from a white oak vs. red oak or pin oak?

Hi lifelongMOgal,

Its the current year but It depends on the tannin and its not a precise correlation between red, white or black oak. The red and black tend to taste more bitter due to the structure of the starch. The red do tend to have more tannin, but not always. The higher tannin acorns take longer to leach ,but they store much longer before processing. If I had a lot of acorns, I'd actually prefer higher tannin, red acorns.

Basically you need to remove the water soluble tannins in basically one of two ways( with some variations in each of them). You can hot leach with full kernels, halves or large pieces which means boiling until they are not bitter in changes of water or grinding into a meal and cold leaching them between 1 to 3 weeks. If its bitter, leach more.

I have also used wood ash water which is like cold leaching with bigger pieces but, at the end, neutralizing the last of the acidic tannins with the potassium hydroxide in the wood ash water.


I prefer the cold leach method mostly because it will bind when the starch activates above a 150 degrees. Simply change the water every day or so until its not bitter, drain through cheese cloth and dry.

Though do a little research on it to get the most out of it.

[lifelongMOgal]

Thanks!

[Woof]

Originally Posted by gwynedd1

I did gather a bit of grass seed recently but never got the project off the ground and got rather busy. How was yours?

iirc, it was a basic whole grain type gruel, maybe a little funkier than the regular. Not worth the trouble unless you have a good system for gathering and threshing.

Originally Posted by gwynedd1

Hi lifelongMOgal,

Its the current year but It depends on the tannin and its not a precise correlation between red, white or black oak. The red and black tend to taste more bitter due to the structure of the starch. The red do tend to have more tannin, but not always. The higher tannin acorns take longer to leach ,but they store much longer before processing. If I had a lot of acorns, I'd actually prefer higher tannin, red acorns.

Basically you need to remove the water soluble tannins in basically one of two ways( with some variations in each of them). You can hot leach with full kernels, halves or large pieces which means boiling until they are not bitter in changes of water or grinding into a meal and cold leaching them between 1 to 3 weeks. If its bitter, leach more.

I have also used wood ash water which is like cold leaching with bigger pieces but, at the end, neutralizing the last of the acidic tannins with the potassium hydroxide in the wood ash water.


I prefer the cold leach method mostly because it will bind when the starch activates above a 150 degrees. Simply change the water every day or so until its not bitter, drain through cheese cloth and dry.

Though do a little research on it to get the most out of it.

You might already know of this site with additional information: Acorn Recipes and Acorn Preparation - Grandpappy's Basic Recipes - by Robert Wayne Atkins, P.E.


Here's a little video from some tweaker out in the woods:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nRcrM...eature=related