Acorns
http://www.gastronomique.org/nutrition/food/12060.html
http://www.jackmountainbushcraft.com/acornbread.html
http://www.selfsufficientish.com/acorns.htm
http://www.connielapallo.com/AcornFlour.htm
http://www.prodigalgardens.info/acorn%20recipes.htm
http://www.henriettesherbal.com/archives/best/1995/acorns-1.html
http://www.crpusd.org/Goldridge/acorn.htm
http://www.motherearthnews.com/Whole-Foods-and-Cooking/1970-05-01/Food-Without-Farming.aspx
http://www.nativetech.org/recipes/recipe.php?recipeid=115
http://www.dcn.davis.ca.us/vme/ARNHA/acornepi.html
http://www.mapsgroup.org/acorn_and_oak.htm
http://www.cdkitchen.com/search/search.php?c=&order=1&site=cdkitchen&q=acorn&t=0

I have read accounts of southwest desert people first grinding them in stone depressions with a rock and then putting the flour into depressions in the sand and pouring water over them to leach out the tannins relatively quickly. I have seen old photos of this. I think they did it this way because they didn't have the luxury of running water in the summer months. I'm not exactly sure, but I have seen some of the rock depressions they used. They then baked or fired the flour into a biscuit.
I have read that white oaks have less tannin than black oaks.
I have tried them raw and they aren't too bad at first, but I can't eat more than one of even the mildest I have found unless leached. They are very bitter and astringent otherwise, but they do seem to crisp (if that makes sens) and freshen the breath. It's been awhile. The tannin aspect seems very distinct from a sweeter much more subtle potential taste.
I would ideally keep them whole in a slow moving stream, checking one everyday, until palatable. Then I would eat them raw or ground and mixed with berries and maybe a little wood ash (binder?) and pressed into cakes and fired to maintain shape and keep and perhaps to improve flavor as well.

The wood ash is a great reminder since the pioneers used it as baking soda for their biscuits and other breads.

they used this stuff in the old day because thats all they had.
not because it was really any good..

But it made real strange, entertaining noises as you chewed the biscuits. Noises like: Boinnng, squiggle, ting, tang, sprunnnng!!!

My DW has not yet let me forget those delicious, grey, musical biscuits that I made one morning and served her as part of a breakfast in bed!!!!!

I know, I know,,,,Bad Bo, Bad Bo, Bad Bo!!!!!!!

Here are the directions for preparing acorn "meal" that I received today at an edible plants tour:

1. Shell acorns (white oak trees generally have the least bitter acorns, followed by red oaks then live oaks).
2. Allow shelled acorns to dry for a few hours in the sun
3. Grind acorns to fine powder
4. Mix acorn powder with boiling water
5. Place wet acorn powder in jelly bag (cotton bag) and squeeze out water
6. Repeat boiling water wash/squeeze until powder in no longer bitter
7. Spread powder out in thin layer in shallow pan to dry in sun or oven on low heat
8. The acorn flower will "cake" up during drying so it needs to be reground at this point
9. Store dried, ground powder in sealed glass jars where it'll keep indefinately.

-Blast

Acorn food

http://www.nativetech.org/recipes/recipe.php?recipeid=115

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/plantanswers/recipes/squirrel.html

http://www.aaoobfoods.com/acorns.htm

http://www.paleofood.com/veggies.htm

http://www.scu.edu/SCU/Departments/EnvironmentalStudies/ulistac/history/ohlone.html#acorn

Find out what kind of oaks live in your area. Most people don't have the land necessary to grow their own oaks. Most of them get VERY large, and they produce a lot of shade that could be put to better use for providing food. Oaks also take years to start producing acorns.

Your local arboretum should be able to provide quite a bit of info on the local types.

I think most of the white oaks grow up here in WA & OR, and in N. CA.

To tell the truth, I would be have to be pretty desperate to go through all that labor to make them edible. Cattails would be easier.

Sue

Where do we go to check the nutrition value of a given wild food? Is there a recognized university or government source?

Thanks.

You might try googling something like 'wild foods nutrition', and maybe it will give you some leads.

Sue