Adaptation of Wild Acorn Bread. I love all things wild and I’d like to share one of my favorite wild recipes with you here.

Information taken from Stalking The Wild Asparagus buy Euell Gibbons.

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When I was a little girl I spent a lot of time in the woods behind our house in Florida. I loved the woods and also the canal at the end of our road. There were lots of strange plants and creatures there, of course, that was before I was afraid of snakes. Today the strange creatures and snakes would not appeal to me. I have been known to run from a garter snake screaming “It’s chasing me”. I know that they are good for our garden and even our yard but that still doesn’t keep me from wincing every time I see one.

Euell Gibbons could not have been afraid of snakes, he spent too much time in the woods combing for food. If you do not know who I am talking about let me enlighten you. Mr. Gibbons was one of the premier foragers of our time. He was the naturalist, at least it seems to me, that began the whole crunchy granola movement. When I was a kid he was in commercials promoting healthy eating, advertising for oatmeal and granola companies we all knew who he was. He began his quest towards this lifestyle at an early age. His book Stalking The Wild Asparagus says, at the age of twelve he happened upon wild asparagus near his home and thus began his quest for wild things.

Today there is increased interest in healthy eating and with that a movement towards foraging or living off the land. I may never know as much as Mr. Gibbons but I try and learn as much as I can and identify as many wild edibles as possible each year. I would say my interest was peaked at an early age when I first learned about poke a green that grows wild in almost every yard, poisonous raw, but very nutritious when cooked. I became interested again after moving to Oregon and taking a wild foraging class through our local community college. We walked all over the small town and even through the golf course finding things that I had never heard of. After gathering sacks of wild food we went back to the instructors house and prepared and ate the most delicious meal. Thus my interest was peaked again. Most recently I attended an herbal foraging workshop and learned about herbs that are native to Oregon many that I had never seen back east. The ability to identify and use wild herbs and foods is a useful skill in today’s changing world. If you are interested in learning more you can check your local community college for classes or Agricultural Office for info on classes in your area. You can also look for Euell Gibbons books Stalking The Wild Asparagus, Stalking The Blue Eyed Scallop, and Handbook Of Edible Wild Plants. All of these are very informative and easy to understand.

I enjoy using the recipes from Stalking The Wild Asparagus and I will be sharing them with you in future blogs. I think it is important that we try to hold on to these old tried and true recipes. Many of them can be adjusted to new ideas but if the base remains true to the original there is something good and wholesome about it. And learning to use things from the wild is not only useful now but might come in handy one day when we really need it. The recipe I want to share with you now is for an Acorn bread it is very versatile. Currently I do not have any acorn meal so I substituted almond meal and it worked beautifully. The bread had a nice crumb and nutty sweet taste. I also used rye flour which helped keep the carbs low. If you cut the bread into nine pieces it has 6 carbs per piece, if you cut it into twelve pieces it will have 4 carbs. I am posting the recipe as written in the book along with my substitutions. You can feel free to experiment with the recipe, but make sure to let me know what you do and how it turned out.

Recipe for Acorn/Almond Meal Bread

In a large bowl combine:

1 cup almond meal

1 cup white flour ( I substituted rye flour and 1/4 cup gluten)

3 tsp baking powder

1 tsp salt

3 Tb sugar ( I used Lakonto monk fruit blend)

In a small bowl beat up

1 egg

1 cup milk

3 Tb oil (I used olive)

Add the liquid to the dry and mix together just until all is moistened. Pour into an oiled pan and bake in a preheated 400′ oven for 30 minutes. Or make muffins by filling an oiled muffin tin 2/3 full and baking for 20 minutes. This can be used for griddle cakes by adding an additional egg and 1/4 cup milk. Remember to be creative and experiment with this recipe then let me know how you like it. I find it very versatile; adding blueberries and additional sweetener, or cinnamon and raisins, even cheese and jalapenos.

Look for more recipes like this in future blogs and of course always

Enjoy!