I have an abundance of acorns this year. I thought last year was the
"on" year, but my white oaks are as productive as ever.
Is there anything I can do with the acorns, other than grinding them to
pulp as I drive up and down the driveway?
The tree closest to the driveway has very large nuts: nearly as big
around as a dime, and more than an inch long. The other two front yard
trees have much smaller nuts, more like the ones I grew up with, a bit
smaller around and not much longer than wide. All are prolific. all
are also sprouting right and left, but at least a quarter of the nuts
are clean, intact, and unsprouted. I've gathered a couple of cups of
them, and am about to gather some more, mostly just to get them off the
driveway.
I'm looking for something relatively easy and useful for a suburban
family. I don't have pigs, and I'd rather not spend 50 hours preparing
something that only the starving would eat. On the other hand, I've
tried odd things in the past. (Grinding eggshells into the pasta to
boost the calcium content was not a winner, but adding crandall currants
or cranberries to apple pie was.)
I also have some black oak acorns (less prolific this year) and access
to red oak acorns, which I find collected on my car when I pick it up at
the lot at the end of the day. Red oak acorns are enormous, and always
look tasty to me, but they taste awful.
Thanks,
Ginda Fisher
eastern Mass, where fall seems to be here, at least today.