Re: Famine foods (was cycad)


Tony & Moira Ryan, Wainuiomata, New Zealand
Climate ( US Zone 9). Annual averages:-
Minimum -2°C; Maximum 28°C Rainfall 2000mm
----- Original Message ----- From: <yarrow@sfo.com> 
To: "Medit-Plants" <medit-plants@ucdavis.edu>
Sent: Wednesday, September 05, 2007 8:08 PM
Subject: Re: Famine foods (was cycad)



At 10:50 AM +1200 9/5/07, Tony and Moira wrote:
....Acorns have been used as food from prehistoric times in most areas where they occur. Some at least can be used without leaching.....
The recent book _Oak: the frame of civilization_ by W. B. Logan has an interesting chapter on the author's experience eating acorn meal that he found at an oriental market. He found it insipid, but hours later realized that he did not feel hungry as he usually did a few hours after lunch.
Actually, we have just finished reading this book which we were lent by our eldest son and now know a lot more about oaks and the remarkably wide influence they had on European civilzaton over many centuries. We found it all quite fascinating and could highly recommend it.
One thing we had not realized prevously was how the gathering of acorns seems to have predated the harvesting of wild cereals in the earliest civilizations. 

Moira
Moira
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