swiftdream
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Post by swiftdream on Nov 12, 2020 15:04:29 GMT -8
was wondering about the hot water (never knew about that), the only way he got it done I think it's all about reaction and dissolution rates. Cold water might still work in principle, but it would take an eternity and the paste would probably rot first. It’s fascinating. How did the ancestors of 30,000 years ago, before agriculture, manage the available food sources. |
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BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on Nov 12, 2020 15:17:05 GMT -8
I think it's all about reaction and dissolution rates. Cold water might still work in principle, but it would take an eternity and the paste would probably rot first. It’s fascinating. How did the ancestors of 30,000 years ago, before agriculture, manage the available food sources. I find it fascinating, too. I suspect items like yuca or acorns were quite obviously enormous stores of energy that would be worth figuring out how to use and worth expending much effort in preparing. |
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swiftdream
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Post by swiftdream on Nov 13, 2020 9:59:19 GMT -8
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balzaccom
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Post by balzaccom on Nov 13, 2020 10:57:26 GMT -8
“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.”
Jonathan Swift.
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BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on Nov 13, 2020 11:09:51 GMT -8
“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.” Jonathan Swift. That reminds me of my first really long trip, 11 days paddling, mostly in Quetico, passing through the Boundary Waters to get there. Before the end of the first week, every plant I saw provoked me to think "maybe I could eat that". If I were just a bit hungrier I probably would have started trying. |
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reuben
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Post by reuben on Nov 13, 2020 11:59:30 GMT -8
If I recall correctly, tomatos were once considered at least semi-poisonous.
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BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on Nov 13, 2020 12:13:28 GMT -8
If I recall correctly, tomatos were once considered at least semi-poisonous. That's true, and with some reason, because they were exotic to Europe and correctly understood to be members of the same family as Nightshade (along with potatoes). |
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reuben
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Post by reuben on Nov 13, 2020 12:36:17 GMT -8
You can take my taters (I'll go for turnips), but not my tomatos. I grow a few different kinds of tomatos every year. Homemade Tomato Pie is a summer luxury.   |
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swiftdream
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Post by swiftdream on Nov 13, 2020 14:03:13 GMT -8
Tomatoes, nightshade family, some folks can’t handle them. I do think I read the green leaves and stems are kind of poisonous. Girlfriend can’t handle ground cherries, nightshade family too, sort of like small tomatillos. Found some, I ate one, no problem but they just tasted like some green thing, not so great. Girlfriend picks a bunch, eats them on her ubiquitous salad and they really mess her up, yaked up her tea, couldn’t stand up or balance for a while. She never touched them again. I came across some by a desert drainage and she would not even come look. They have little “paper lanterns” around the small green fruit.
Mushrooms are something else. As teenagers we used to fill paper sacks with psilocybin shrooms but a very deadly mushroom also grew in the same place…(cow pies). The alkaloids in some of these are so potent that just will kill a human. Surely we lost some of our species to the wrong mushrooms.
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franco
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Post by franco on Nov 13, 2020 16:19:04 GMT -8
“He was a bold man that first ate an oyster.” Jonathan Swift. Talking to my wife about these acorn thread , I asked who would have been the first to realise that they could be edible and how to make them so. Often I spot unknown berries or the like and always ask my wife to try one. She never does. So I remark that someone has to, otherwise we will never know. BTW, at the back of our house there is an enormous Norfolk pine. Every few years , what a coincidence it was this year , it drops a great amount of seeds.Apparently they are edible but need to be stored for about 18 months before they sort of pop out of their shell. Other say they are poisonus. I have some in storage. |
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balzaccom
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Post by balzaccom on Nov 16, 2020 17:13:30 GMT -8
We have enough acorns to last us for most the winter, so we're exploring more uses for them. Over the years, M has played around with making nocino--that bitter Italian aperitif that goes by such commercial names as Averna, etc.
The secret to making this stuff is to start with something bitter (she's used green walnuts in the past) and then add Everclear hard alcohol, a few more herbs and spices, and then some simple syrup to balance out the bitterness. When it's all done, you add water to lighten it up, and you are good to go.
So now we are going to make some from the acorns--they're certainly bitter enough. Homespun nocino, with local products. And we went into two different liquor stores in Napa to buy the Everclear. The first store didn't have any, but the only other customer in the store knew about all about it, used it for lemoncello, and directed us to the second liquor store.
The second liquor store had it, but we had to wait a little bit for another customer to ask about it...because he was making another type of liqueur, and also needed Everclear. And he offered us a few suggestions...
Gotta love living in Wine Country.
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BigLoad
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Post by BigLoad on Nov 16, 2020 17:15:57 GMT -8
Good luck. It's got to be better than Retsina.
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franco
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Post by franco on Nov 16, 2020 18:14:41 GMT -8
In Italy there are several brands on sale as well as non branded , like this one :  that is a 2 litre bottle for about $46 USD. (94-96 % pure alcohol ) Mostly sold in the 1 Litre size. BTW, commonly sold in supermarkets. (grocery store type) |
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franco
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Post by franco on Nov 16, 2020 18:26:59 GMT -8
Good luck. It's got to be better than Retsina. Retsina is a wine made the same way as other white wines but with some pine resin added during fermentation. (around 12% alcohol content) |
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davesenesac
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Post by davesenesac on Nov 16, 2020 19:15:47 GMT -8
Thanks B for sharing this. Recall getting seriously interested in doing this decades ago because if civilization ever collapsed, it is probably the most important resource for a person to survive off the land here in Northern California rural areas as our lower elevations are dominated by oaks. Would expect your oaks are more likely to be black oaks that along with valley and blue oaks have less tannin that is preferred for eating. I spent several years growing up in the northeast Sacramento area where I climbed myriad oak trees and we kids would sometimes chomp on acorns. The Sierra foothills have many bedrock locations where one will find grinding holes.
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