A very interesting book about oaks and acorns is William Bryant Logan's "Oak: The Frame of Civilization." It has all sorts of interesting and amazing information about oaks and acorns and their use throughout history.

The process of making acorns into a usable food is intricate. It includes gathering, grinding, and then leaching the tannin out of the acorns. This looks like a good guide:

http://honest-food.net/2010/01/14/acorn-pasta-and-the-mechanics-of-eating-acorns/

And if you want to try acorn products before you go to the bother of preparing acorn meal yourself, visit your nearest Korean grocer.

This just makes me think of My Side of the Mountain, which is a children's book about a boy living off the land. I forget the process he uses, but he makes acorn pancakes and serves them with jam, which I always thought sounded very nice.

Boil them several times with new water to get rid of the bitterness. Not really an amazing preparation, but I do this when camping.

Indians would place acorns in a basket in a fast flowing stream and allow the water to leach the tannins out. Most of us don't have access to streams like that so you just boil them. Placing the acorns into a pot of boiling water will leach the tannins out and turn the water brown (think tea color). This will need to be done until the water no longer turns brown. Different types of oaks produce acorns with different amounts of tannins so it might take multiple boilings to remove them all. Afterwards the acorns can be eaten boiled, dried, or crushed into a flour.

A minor note, the bitterness of tannins is a result of them being mildly toxic. It's not too much of a problem unless you eat a vast amount of acorns and leaching (if done correctly) removes the danger.

Yes, choose oak species that are low in tannins, most of the white oaks.

I remember reading a great post on Amber Dusick's blog about making acorn bread with her kids. We don't have a bunch of oak in my neighborhood or I'd be tempted to try it.

Here's the link:
http://www.amberdusick.com/woodmouse_loves_crafts/2010/10/acorn-bread-recipe-acorn-processing.html

This culinary masterpiece calls for acorns
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=GrQbWeNQpiA#!

There was an article about this in yesterday's SF Chronicle:

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/09/28/DDPN1L7GQU.DTL

We do a cold leach with white oak acorn with great results. Keep in mind that white oaks have cycles of production of every 3 years and it is easy to gather a great quantity of nuts. This (2011) is an off-year for New England, so we have to use what we have in the freezer.

http://the3foragers.blogspot.com/2011/09/acorn-recipe-acorn-cupcakes-with-wild.html

Karen

@ginkotree5 - YES. My Side of the Mountain Cookbook? What?

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/acorn-pancakes-dandelion-salad-and-38-other-wild-recipes-jean-craighead-george/1003211444

It even includes a recipe for acorn bread. This is so going on my to-buy list of cookbooks...

http://mykoreankitchen.com/2007/02/08/seasoned-acorn-jelly-dotori-muk-muchim/

A Native American woman told me that she usually hangs the acorns (shelled but not ground) in a porous bag under a tap. She leaves the tap on a little so there's water running over them and just leaves them there for a few days. The book Hunt, Gather, Cook also discusses gathering and preparing acorns and has a delicious-looking recipe for acorn flatbread.

Adamwa- it calls for corn nuts, not acorns. And that recipe is a gem. LOL.

I've made acorn flat bread before from red oak acorns, the leeching process took quite a while and honestly it wasnt worth it. It probably would have came out better had there been a white oak close by