Article and photographs by Green Deane

Brazilian Pepper is a personal unknown: You might like it but it might not like you. This is because many people are allergic to it on par with poison ivy. Others have used Brazilian Pepper for decades as a spice without incident.

Native to Brazil, Argentina and Paraguay, this invasive species was imported to the United States in the 1800’s though when is a debate. Governmental records definitely say it was here just before the the 1900’s but the plant was listed in at least one seed catalogue as early as 1832.  The U.S. Department of Agriculture got packages of seeds in 1898, 1899, and 1901 (one of them from Algeria.) Those seeds, or subsequent seedlings, were forwarded to the Plant Introduction Station in Miami where the species was studied. But it was Dr. George Stone of Punta Gorda, Florida, who championed the species in the 1920s changing the tree from a personal passion to a public menace. An amateur botanist Stone raised and gave away hundreds of plants. They were called “Florida Holly” and planted along the streets in Punta Gorda and elsewhere. In 1937 one company advertised the Brazilian Pepper as “one of our most worthwhile plants for general landscape purposes, as it makes a fine subject for mass planting and succeeds well along the beach, standing quite a lot of salt spray.”  An article in the 1944 edition of the magazine “My Garden in Florida” said of the Brazilian Pepper “it ought to be in every garden in Florida.” Just six years later folks began to noticed it was becoming a serious problem. Brazilian Pepper is so invasive that today it’s in 20 counties of the state limited only by cold weather. Nearly everywhere it’s been imported it’s on the noxious weed hit list. Besides Florida and Texas it’s a serious weed in South Africa, Spain, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, and on Pacific, Caribbean and Indian Ocean islands. In its native range it is not invasive.

The species itself is in the Anacardiaceae (Cashew) family which also includes poison ivy, poison sumac, poison wood, and mangoes, all known allergens along with cashews and pistachios. Toxicity in that family is usually caused by a resin. People can get contact dermatitis from Brazilian Pepper, welts from it like poison ivy, or rashes as from mangoes. Some people can get sick just being in the same room with the crushed berries. It has sickened researchers working with the fruit. The sap can cause lesions resembling second-degree burns. Brazilian Pepper can cause edema, and eye and facial swelling.  When pollenating — usually September to October — it can be a severe allergen even though the pollen is sticky and heavy. Brazilian Pepper can intoxicate birds, injure livestock and can cause fatal colic in horses… Are you sure you want to try it as a spice?

I’m not allergic to the berries but I don’t care for the flavor. I have met six people, however, who use it; two couples and two individuals. In fact both couples have been using it as a spice for decades and one couple likes it so much they put it on pop corn. I know a man who, again for decades, uses Brazilian Pepper as a spice but only on fish and no other time. He grinds up a few berries in a mortar and pesetle as needed. I know a young man who eats the ripe berries off the tree. He doesn’t eat a huge amount of them at a time but he does eat them and I’ve seen him do it. I also know of a young woman who liked the flavor of the berries so much she used them extensively as a spice for a week — even on ice cream — and then got very sick from them. She couldn’t use them after that. So it’s across the board varying from individual to individual from some who consume it as a spice with no problems to others with a wide variety of sickening symptoms.

Despite its dubious nature Brazilian Pepper has several uses other than a spice. Bee keepers champion the species. Opinions on its honey vary: Some call it “esteemed” other say it is below “table grade.” It’s popular enough however to sell between six to eight million pounds annually. The taste is sweet with a mix of spicy aftertaste flavors. Honey becomes “Brazilian Pepper honey” when about 70% of the blossom visited by the bees are that species. The tree has also been used to make toothpicks, stakes, posts, railway ties and research shows it might make a good pulp wood. A resinous extract is used to protect fishing line and nets. It has been used to tan leather. The species also has many herbal applications. A 2017 study said in Brazilian herbal medicine it was used for: “…its antiseptic and anti-inflammatory qualities in the treatment of wounds and ulcers as well as for urinary and respiratory infections.”  The study reported it might have some use against MRSA. It seems to interrupt the bacteria’s signaling capacity keeping it from releasing toxins thus giving the person’s immune system time to mount a counterattack.

As for the botanical name it is — as is so often the case — Greek mangled through Latin tongue-tied into English. The Latin Schinus comes from the Greek word Σχίνος (SKI-nos) which means “lentisk” which is the Mastic Tree. The genus name was chosen because Brazilian Pepper has similar foliage as the Mastic Tree which also exudes a sap. The English the genus is said SHY-ness or SKY-ness. Take your pick. The latter is closer to the original Greek. Terebinthifolius is also Greek but slightly less distorted: τερέβινθος (ter-REH-been-thos.)  In English terebinthifolius is said terra-been-tha-FOE-lee-us  which means “turpentine leaves.”  The species’ name from the Terebinth Tree, Pistacia terebinthus,  which is the turpentine tree in the Mediterranean area.  With Brazilian Pepper you don’t have to crush them to smell them. Just bring them into a room. And for night time fun if you lignite the dry leaves their oil content is so high they can pop and sparkle. 

Note it is illegal in Florida and Texas to sell, transport or plant Brazilian Pepper in any form. A relative, S. molle, is also found in Florida and Texas. Both are also in Hawaii, southern California and Puerto Rico. Brazilian Pepper seeds are popular with mocking birds, cedar wax wings, migrating robins and the Red Wiskered Bulbul. Raccoons and possums eat the seeds. Planted seeds have a high germination rate and sprout within three weeks.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION: It is an evergreen tree to 40 feet, low-branching, bushy, and spreading to equal width; the foliage is dense. Glossy leaves are aromatic with a red midrib, they’re about three inches long, compound, five to nine leaflets to a leaf. Flowers are tiny, white, compact, male and female blossoms on separate trees. Fruit is the size of a BB, 3/16 of an inch round, red, juicy, with an aromatic oil and a peppery flavor. The seed is yellow and kidney shaped.  Sometimes it is mistakingly called “pink pepper corns” which is actually the fruit of a different species mentioned earlier, Schinus molle. 

If you want to get technical there are actually four recognized varieties of Brazilian Pepper: var. acutifolius (lance-shaped leaves, tips pointed,) var. pohlianus (stems winged, stems and leaves velvety-hairy) var. raddianus (leaf edges toothed to toothless, tips rounded) and var. rhoifolius oval to obovate leaves, tips rounded.)  They can be difficult to tell apart. 

TIME OF YEAR:  September to October or November is the main flowering season, fruits mature in December. However the tree can flower and fruit anytime of year and the fruit is persistent. 

 ENVIRONMENT: Dry or wet conditions. You’ll find it in waste ground, at waterfront, in right-of-ways, lawns, pastures, groves, dry lakes or even invading stands of larger trees. 

METHOD OF PREPARATION: The ripe berries are dried then ground to a desired state and used as a spice. Some people eat a few ripe berries at a time. 

Christmas, Wolf, Goji, They’re All Berries

It’s called the Christmasberry even though it fruits from Christmas to April. And while it is one of several “Christmas Berries” this one happens to have a famous relative, the Goji berry of health food fame.

Wolfberries, Goji’s relative, photo by Green Deane

Botanically the Christmasberry is Lycium carolinianum (not to be confused with a couple of edible Crossopetalums also called Christmas Berry.) As for how Lycium carolinianum is pronounced is a bit of debate. Some say LIE-see-um, others lie-SEE-um. As the original word is from the Greek, λύκειον (LEE-kee-on) meaning a Greek school we might argue the genus is more properly LEE-see-um.  Carolinianum means central North America and is said kar-row-linn-ee-AY-num.

For most of the year the Christmasberry is an unimpressive shrub that resembles from a distance a rosemary bush. But there are hints of more going on. Its leaves are plump and the shrub is salt tolerant, preferring coastal or inland areas of high saline content. In early winter or late spring the fruit is quite attractive and a welcomed food for woodland creatures particularly birds. Technically the L. carolinianum fruits all year in Florida but favors the late fall and to early spring. However, I have also found them in abundance in mid-spring and late fall.

Lycium carolinianum blossom

While the foliage would not give it away as a member of the Solanaceae clan the blossoms and berries can. The blossoms look very similar to other Solanums and the berries have an ornamental pepper look, if not in color then shape. The seeds are a familiar look as well reminding one of small tomatoes or pepper seeds. Opinions on taste vary, from sweet and tomato-ish to famine food. All the ones I’ve eaten were on the sweet and juicy side, soft if not hollow but there is a bit of aromatic oil or flavor to them as well as well, nothing dramatic but definitely there.

While most foraging books ignore the L. carolinianum in their line up of edible Lyciums Dr. Fernando Chiang of the National University of Mexico confirms academically that the fruit is edible. Dr. Chiang is an expert on the genus and was consulted on the species for the publication of Florida Ethnobotany by Dr. Daniel Austin.  Chiang describes the berries of other Lyciums as “often edible.” At least one, L. acnistoides, found in Cuba, is toxic. In some species the berries and the leaves (cooked) are eaten. With some edible, one toxic for certain, and others unreported it is best to identify carefully.

In North America among the edibles species, besides L. carolinianum, L. andeersonii, L. fremontii, L. pallidum, and L. torreyi. The leaves of the L. halimifolium are cooked and eaten in Eurasia as is the L. chinense. Best known, perhaps, is a Lycium closely related to the L. chinense, and that is the L. barbarum, also called the Goji (GO-gee) berry which oddly is naturalized in England. Also listed as edible is Lycium ferocissimum, which is a pest in Australia. Its native L. australe was eaten by the Aboriginals.

Also called the Wolfberry, L. barbarum is known as a powerful antioxidant and credited with giving you energy, in and out of bed, better metabolism, improved immune system response, blood pressure regulation, cardiovascular health and slowing down aging. Animal research suggest it may be effective against cancer, inflammatory diseases, macular degeneration and glaucoma. It is consumed in the form of pills, juice, dried fruit, powder, teas and the seeds eaten.

The Goji berry is about 68% carbs, 12% proteins, 10% each of fiber and fat. A 100-gram serving is about 370 calories.  It has 11 essential dietary minerals and traces of 22 others; 18 amino acids, six essential vitamins, five unsaturated fats, and five carotenoids. Specifically it is high in calcium, potassium, iron, zinc, selenium, vitamin B2, Beta-carotene, and exceptionally high amounts of vitamin C. It’s also full of antioxidants via its pigment, which I would presume to be lycopene. If your local Lycium lives up to that, it would be quite a dietary addition.

Processed fruits of various species in the genus have also been used to treat diabetes, impotence, and to retard aging. One ingredient, Physalin, is extracted to treat Hepatitis B. Another chemical, Betaine, is taken by weightlifters to bulk up.

As a food Goji berrie (L. barbarum) are usually bought dried like raisins and are cooked before eaten. But the berries are also used to make a tea. Young Goji shoots and leaves are used as a cooked green. The one medical warning associated with Goji berries is they may increase the potency of drugs like Warfarin (making you bleed more easily.) Goji berries also contain atropine in low amounts.

Clearly you cannot assume your local Lycium is as all-around edible as the Goji is. But, identify and investigate.  One would presume many of them would have similar nutritional profiles.

And one last thing: Goji berries are very high in lectins. If those bother you then perhaps you should try only a few at first or skip them altogether. 

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

IDENTIFICATION:

Lycium carolinianum: Shrub to six feet, sprawling, spiny, small, succulent leaves. The four-petaled, somewhat tubular, lavender/blue flowers usually singular, red/orange berries, fleshy. Locally they are often covered with Ramalina, a hairy lichen.

TIME OF YEAR:

Fruits year around in Florida but favors mid-spring

ENVIRONMENT:

Salt tolerant, coastal areas or inland salty ground

METHOD OF PREPARATION:

Ripe berries, fresh or dried, as fruit or tea. I eat them off the bush. 

World’s Largest Acorn

 Acorn: More than a survival food

The first time you eat an acorn it makes you wonder what the squirrels are going nuts about.  As the bitterness twists your mouth into a pucker it reminds you that animals can eat a lot of things we can’t… unless we modify them.

A lot has been said about acorns in foraging publications. I’ll try to say a few things that haven’t been said. Let’s start with that fact that the world’s biggest acorn is in Moore Square Park in downtown Raleigh, North Carolina. Raleigh calls itself “The City of Oaks.” The “Big Acorn” is 10 feet tall and weights 1,250 pounds. I’d hate to meet the squirrel that can carry it away. But, it does remind me of a general rule of thumb about acorns: The bigger the cap on the acorn, compared to the size of the nut, the more bitter the nut will be.

The English word “oak” is some 1,260 years old. In German it was “eih” ending up “eiche.” The Dutch extended it to “eychen” or ” eychenboom.” (I went to school with a “Cossaboom” meaning cherry tree.) Oaks are also mentioned in ancient texts. Greeks of old said “dryas.” Modern Greek say “dris.” It was the preferred tree of Zeus (whom the Greeks call ZEFF, rhymes with Jeff. Zeus is mangled through Dead Latin then into English.)  Those faithful to ZEFF… ah… Zeus… gathered around oak trees. The Celts preferred to knock on oak wood. One variation of their word for oak was “dair, the fourth letter of the Celtic alphabet and part of the name of the city Kildare (which means “Church in the Oaks.”) Often associated with strength, the US military awards gold “oak leaf clusters” for exceptional bravery. Oaks have been a significant part of every culture around them.

The larger the cap the more tannic acid

The word “acorn” is a combination of “ak” for oak and “corn” meaning seed thus acorn means “oak seed.” The Greeks say velanidi, the Spanish bellota, the French gland, Italians glanda, Portuguese, glande, and in the forgotten fifth romantic language, ghinda in Romanian. Those Romans got around. All the Romantics come from the Latin word for gland, which also lent itself to the medical term for a certain acorn-like part of the male anatomy.  The acorn is also one of the few nuts or fruits that is not directly named in Modern English after the tree it comes from. This is why one does not hear of oak nuts… walnuts, beechnuts, hickory nuts, oak nuts… gland… it could all get rather naughty.

The smaller the cap, the less tannic acid

At least 450 species of oak populate world wide. Some 30 species in the United States have been used for food and oil. The Live Oak is the most prized, not only for food but particularly ship building. Its very long, graceful limbs were ready-made for boat keels and ribs. In fact, the U.S. Navy once had its own Live Oak forest just for boat building. Sold off long ago, the Navy began stockpiling Live Oak in 1992 for restoration of the USS Constitution. It got 50 live oaks from Florida in 2002 of 160 that were cleared for a golf course near Tallahassee. Just as 200 years ago, the trees were selected for their natural curves for the ship. In the white oak family, the Live Oak’s acorns are among the mildest one can collect. Botanically the Live Oak is Quercus virginiana. Quercus (KWERK-kus ) was the Roman name for the tree and virginiana (ver-jin-ee-AY-nuh) means North America and usually where the species was first noticed, such as Virginia. (If you want to get confusingly technical “Ilex” — the genus name for Hollies — also means “oak.” Early botanists though the Hollies in North America were oaks so they called them Ilex, which was the name of an evergreen oak. When the mistake was found out Hollies kept the oak-genus name and the Oak genus was changed to Quercus.)

Storing acorns the Acorn Woodpecker way

The seed crop from an oak, the acorns, is called a “mast” which means “food” and putting on a crop of acorns is masting. It is tempting to say it is probably related to the word to “masticate” meaning to chew but it isn’t. Mast came from the Middle English word “mete” meaning meat, which at that time meant any food, and we still use it abstractly in that way, as in “Education became his meat and experience his drink.”  Mete came from the Italian word madere which came from the Greek word, madaros, meaning to be wet. That takes a bit of explaining: Ancient Greeks divided food into two large categories. “Wet” food was food fit for humans and pigs. Dry food was fit for cattle and fowl.  Now you know. How many acorns a tree produces is directly related to the amount of rain in the spring time of the year it is supposed to mast. The more rain the more acorns.

Acorns are quite nutritious. For example, the nutritional breakdown of acorns from the Q. alba, — the white oak — is 50.4% carbohydrates, 34.7% water, 4.7% fat, 4.4.% protein, 4.2% fiber, 1.6% ash. A pound of shelled acorns provide 1,265 calories, a 100 grams (3.5 ounces) has 500 calories and 30 grams of oil.  During World War II Japanese school children collected over one million tons of acorns to help feed the nation as rice and flour supplies dwindled.

Live Oak leaves have no teeth

Oaks fall into two large categories, those that fruit in one season, white oaks, and those that fruit after two seasons, the black oaks and the red oaks. The latter category can be more bitter than the former. The first category have leaves with round lobes and no prickles at the end of the leaves. The black and red oaks have prickles at the end of their leaves. They also  have scales on the caps of the acorns, hair inside the caps, and a sheath around the nut (which always throws a color even when the tannin is leached out.) Sometimes those in the first category don’t need any leaching, or very little. The rest always do. But first, separate the acorns.

Floaters are bad or have a usable grub in them

To separate acorns dump them into water and remove the ones that float.  Take the ones that sink and dry them in a frying pan on the stove or in the oven at 150F or less for 15 minutes, preheated. Or put them in the sun for a few days. You don’t want to cook them yet, just dry them off and shrink the nut inside making them a little easier to shell. The yield, not counting bad acorns, is 2:1. two gallons of usable acorns in the shell will yield a gallon of nut meat. We must leach out the tannic acid it can damage our kidneys, Most unleached acorns are too bitter to eat without leaching.

Soaking in cold water, minimal energy and the starch is not cooked

There are three general ways to leach acorns. The least common way is to bury them whole in a river bank for a year, which turns them black and sweet, good for roasting. The other method is to grind them into a course meal and soak several days or weeks (depending on the species) in many changes of cold water until the water runs clear. These will be slightly bland but good for making acorn flour. (Sometimes the leached acorns will be dark but sweet afterwards.) The third way — boiling — is least preferred because if done wrong it will bind the tannins to the acorn and they will not lose their bitterness. Also, when you boil the acorns you also boil off the oil with the tannins, reducing  their nutrition. That oil, however, is very nutritious. At this writing it is selling for about $10 an ounce. You can make it for far less. There is actually a fourth method of processing that requires lye but it is not commonly used nor have I tried it.

Boiling speeds up the process but cooks the starch

The boiling process requires two pots of boiling water. Put the acorns in one pot of already boiling water until the water darkens. Pour off the water and put the hot acorns in the other pot of boiling water while you reheat the first pot with fresh water to boiling. You keep putting the acorns in new boiling water until the water runs clear. Putting boiled acorns into cold water will bind the tannins to the acorn and they will stay bitter. So always move them from one boiling bath to another. Putting acorns in cold water and bringing the water to a boil will also bind the tannin. So it is either use all cold water and a long soaking or all boiling water and just a few hours of cooking. There is one other difference between the two methods.

Mrs. Freddie, a Hupa, pours water over ground acorns in a sand basin

The temperature at which you process the acorns at any point is critical. Boiling water or roasting over 165º F precooks the starch in the acorn. Cold processing and low temperatures under 150 F does not cook the starch.  Cold-water leached acorn meal thickens when cooked, hot-water leached acorn meal does not thicken or act as a binder (like eggs or gluten) when cooked.  Your final use of the acorns should factor in how you will process them. If you are going to leach and roast whole for snacking then boiling is fine. If you are going to use the acorn for flour it should be cold processed, or you will have to add a binder.

The finer acorns are ground the quicker they leach

Personally, I grind mine in a lot of water to a fine meal, let it set, then strain. I add more water to the meal, let set and strain. I do that until the water is clear or the meal not bitter. That takes a few days to a week. Then I dry it in the sun, unless there are squirrels about, then in a slow oven (under 150º F.)  I end up with a meal or flour, depending on the grind, that will not crumble when cooked.

There are nearly as many variations to leach acorns as there are opinions about acorns. Another way is to put the shelled acorns in water in a blender or food processor and blend them into a milk-like slurry. Put that slurry in a fine mesh bag and then massage that under running water like a faucet. It works very quickly but of course some meal and oil is lost in the process. But it turns hours of leaching into minutes. Of course, leaching them in an unpolluted stream is the easiest way but you can also arrange for a container to leak slowly. Simply put a cloth on the bottom to hold the meal in and fill the container when it is empty, or run the faucet slowly to maintain the leaching. Another ways is to clean out the tank on your toilet and put the shelled acorns in a mesh bag in there. Every flush will remove tannic water and bring in fresh.

Acorn bread in a classic cast iron pan

Many Native Americans preferred bitter acorns to sweet ones because they stored better. If after leaching there is just a hint of bitterness that can sometimes be removed by soaking the acorns in milk for a while.  The protein in the milk will bind with the tannin in the acorns and can be poured off, if there is just a little. To get oil from the cold-leached acorns, boil them. The oil will rise to the top of the water. Also, charred acorns can be used as a substitute for coffee but really nothing is a substitute for coffee.

Acorn grubs are edible raw or cooked

Whole leached acorns can be roasted for an hour at 350º F, coarsely ground leached acorns slightly less time.  They can then be eaten or ground into non-binding flour. To make a flour out of your whole or coarsely ground acorns, toss them in a blender or food processor. Strain the results through a strainer to take out the larger pieces then reduce them as well.  Acorn flour has no gluten so it is usually mixed 50/50 with wheat flour.  Since acorn flour is high in oil it needs to be stored carefully and not allowed to go rancid. Remember cold processed acorn flour has more binding capacity than heat processed acorn flour.

Live Oak acorns top the food list for birds such as wood ducks, wild turkeys, quail and jays. Squirrels, raccoons and whitetail deer also like them, sometimes to the point of being 25% of their fall diet. Interestingly, the tannin tends to be in the bottom half of the acorn which is why you will often see a squirrel eat only the upper half of the acorn. Squirrels are also not fools. They will eat all of a white acorn when they find one because it is the least bitter. They will bury the very bitter red and black acorns so over time some of the bitterness is leached into the soil. Raiding a squirrel’s hoard will get bitter acorns.  By the way, acorns shells and unleached nut meat have gallotannins which are toxic to cattle, sheep, goats, horses and dogs.

If you use the boiling method don’t throw away the tannic water. The water has a variety of uses. With a mordant it can be used to dye clothing. The tannic acid also makes a good laundry detergent. Two cups to each load but it will color whites temporarily a slightly tan color. Tannic water is antiviral and antiseptic. It can be used as a wash for skin rashes, skin irritations, burns, cuts, abrasions and poison ivy. While you can pour the tannic water over poison ivy, if you have the luxury freeze the brown water in ice cube trays and use the cubes on the ivy eruption. If you have a sore throat you can even gargle with tannic water or use it as a mild tea for diarrhea and dysentery. Externally dark tannic water can be used on hemorrhoids. Hides soaked in tannic water make better leather clothing. Using the brown water turned hides tan-colored and that is why it is called tanning and from there we get the words tannins and tannic. In traditional tanning methods, whole hides are soaked in a vat of tannin water for a full year before being processed.

Besides dyes paints have also been made from the oaks. It also a dense wood for working and weights 75 pounds per dry cubic foot. The hull of the US warship, USS Constitution, was made entirely of oak, white oak covering over a live oak core. At the waterline she was 25-inches thick. Eighteen-pound cannonballs bounced off the oak, notable in the 1812 battle with the HMS Guerriere. That battle and the subsequent loss of British ships caused the British to issue the order that no ship was to attack the Constitution singlehandedly. The Constitution, as of this writing, is still on duty and berthed in Boston.

Oak trees begin to produce acorns at about 20 years old but usually the first full crop won’t happen until the tree is about 50.  The average 100-year old oak produces about 2,200 acorns per season.  Only one in 10,000 will become a tree.

Peter Becker’s “Newtella”

Sprouted acorns are also edible as long as they haven’t turned green. I’ve heard from German forager Peter Becker who has a slightly different view of what to do with acorns.

“What I do to prep acorns for consumption is let them germinate, so the starches turn into malt sugar. I’ve only just developed a new product with acorns to introduce this precious nut to public because acorns are generally considered inedible here in Germany. NewTella is a sweet bread spread just like Nutella, the famous hazelnut creme, except that all ingredients are locally available, it has less sugar and the only fats are from the acorn. The basic preparation is to roast leached, peeled and germinated acorns, boil 1 part acorns with 3 parts of apple juice, when soft process them smoothly, add 20 % sugar with pectin. This bread spread is also a great way to preserve acorns and can be used for cookies. It’s a great way to promote this gigantic untapped resource and jazz up general nutrition.“

A few exchanges about Peter’s process is below in the comments. He shells them, leaches them (cold water) and sprouts them before using them to make his NewTella. That helps convert the starch to malt, which is sweet.

Older oaks with swelling.

What about other parts of the oak? Get ready for some official hearsay… A century ago a pamphlet was published by a W.C. Coker on “The Seedlings Of The Live Oak and White Oak.” Coker referenced an article called “The Acorns And Their Germinations” by a Dr. Engelmann in Vol IV, 1880, of the Academy of Science of St. Louis. He in turn was referencing three fellows in South Carolina one of whom, William St. John Mazyck, made the original observation. Englemann wrote: “The structure of the acorns and the germination of the oaks seem to be so well-known, that I did not pay much further attention to it until my interest was excited by the information that the germination Live Oak developed little tubers, well-known to … children and greedily eaten by them….”

Is this oak seedling creating a starchy swelling that’s edible?

Essentially they write that after the acorn sprouts and sends up a young shoot the root develops a small elongated swelling that is edible. They agreed the swelling contains starch. The question they were discussing was when does the “tuber” form and how long does it last? They suspected it formed before the young shoot developed many true leaves. The swelling persists but grows woody in a few years. The “plate” in the pamphlet (above left) showed older oaks shoots but was used to show the swelling location when younger. One question was why would some species do this and the possible answer was hard times, or if you’re an oak, bad weather. The starchy swelling would help feed the seedling.

Lastly you may have a use for those acorns mentioned above that float when tossed in water. Most of them have a weevil grub in them, the Acorn Curculio. Look for a little 1/8 inch hole. In time that grub will crawl out and burrow into the ground for a couple of years turning into a full-fledged insect. You can use that grub in the acorn as bait for fish. Or, you can let it crawl in to a bucket of dirt or sawdust or a container of oatmeal where it will make a cocoon which you can then open later and use for bait. Store live in the frig. Also, squirrels like the grubs so it is not beyond reason to use them for bait for squirrels. And to answer your question, the grubs are edible by humans raw or cooked.  I like them cooked in butter though bacon fat might do as well. You may also find a little worm with legs in an acorn. My entomologist friends tell them they are edible, too.

Acorn Bread

2 cups acorn flour

2 cups cattail or white flour

3 teaspoons baking powder

1/3 cup maple syrup or sugar

1 egg

1/2 cup milk

3 tablespoons olive

Bake in pan for 30 minutes or until done at 400 degrees.

A far more simple form of acorn bread is to make a thick acorn porridge out of cold processed acorn flour. Take a large tablespoon of the porridge and drop it into cold water. This causes the porridge to contract. Take the lump out of the water and dry.

Green Deane’s “Itemized” Plant Profile

Autum Acorns

IDENTIFICATION: Acorns, small nut with cap. Rough and larger caps belong to the more bitter acorns.

TIME OF YEAR:  Usually late summer, fall, tree do not produce every year.

ENVIRONMENT: Oaks inhabit all kinds of environments.

METHOD OF PREPARATION:  Numerous once leached of tannins.: out of hand, flour, candy.

HERB BLURB

The tannins have been used as an astringent as well as antiviral, antiseptic and antitumor but could also be carcinogenic. The mold that develops on acorns has antibiotic properties.

Nopales blossoms will turn to purple fruit. Photo by Green Deane

Nopalea Cochenillifera: Cactus Cuisine

Be brave when you collect cactus.

Of course, good gloves and tongs help. With those tools you can have a very steady and nutritious supply of a tasty wild edible, and not only in warm areas. Cactus grow from Alaska to Argentina, or chilly Canada to chilly Chili, and other parts of the world. People have been eating Nopalea/Opuntia for at least 9,000. It’s not too late to join them.

Many flower stamens

For example, Opuntia, the most common of the edible cactuses, is native to every U.S. state except Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and Hawaii, the four states farthest from its native area, Central America (yes, Opuntia are native to southern Alaska and have become naturalized in Hawaii.)  That said, I seem to remember seeing some growing in southern Maine in the woods when I was a kid, and I can remember the exact spot. So if not native, they did survive there. Some other families of cactus with edible members are Cereus, Hylocereus and Saguaro. There is probably an edible cactus near you. It also might be healthy: A close cousin, Opuntia Ficus-Indica, seems to have good effects on blood lipids. It also has antioxidants and might help in repair of DNA. O. ficus-indica is the cactus most often found for sale in stores.

Proflific blossom turn into fruit

Here in Florida there are several kinds of edible cactus. A very common one I have planted in my yard — but can be found growing wild everywhere — is Nopalea cochinellifera, (Noh-PAL–ee-uh koh-ken-ill-EE-fer-uh) also called the cochineal cactus. It was Opuntia cochinellifera (oh-PUN-she-ah  koh-ken-ill-EE-fer-uh) but was given it own genus. It can grow in to a 12-foot tree-like cactus and requires much trimming to keep it in check. Both the fruit and the pads are edible after de-spining. Many references say the N. cochinillifera has no spines but they ar wrong. It has little tuffs stuffed with microscopic needles called glochines or glochids (best remove by a blast of water, and or burning off. Hot wax as last resort or duct tape.)  “Glochis” is a Greek word meaning “the point of an arrow.” If you get one in your finger you’ll understand.

I got my Nopalea 19 years ago the true forager way. I was in Daytona Beach going to their annual Greek Festival. While walking on the sidewalk I saw one pad — technically a cladode. It had broken off a parent plant and lay on the walkway. I took it home, you know, be kind to homeless plants and all that. Now I have several N. cochinillifera and more cactus than the neighborhood can eat.

Besides food, the blossoms of the N. cochinillifera are a wonderful fuschia. They attract bees, butterflies and those rare  little feathered helicopters, hummingbirds. The pear-shaped fruit are ripe when deep red to purple. A large cactus can have virtually hundreds of fruits

Fruit pulp tastes like raspberries.

Harvesting: The best thing to do is spray fruits and pads with water to reduce the amount of glochids. Pick the fruit with heavy leather gloves then wash them again and or burn what spines there might still remain off — a butane torch works well, a candle flame, or a deftly held propane torch. You then peel them for the soft red fruit flesh inside. It can be eaten raw or cooked and has a raspberry like flavor. Just be sure to take the seeds out. They are very hard and can break your teeth. Grind them into flour.  I use often use the cactus fruit to make a salad dressing, especially when I am making a backyard salad. The pads are treated the same way, eat them as is or peeling them and eating the inner part of the pad, raw or cooked. Some say it is an acquired taste but I don’t think the flavor is that far out of the mainstream to say that. Besides everything other than mother’s milk is an acquired tasted. If you can get the spines off you can also eat the outer part of the pad. Just as the Nopalea has a history behind it so to does its name.  Let’s take the species name first.

Pads can be used like a vegetable

Cochenillifera in Latin means “cochineal bearing” but is from the Greek word for red, “kokinos.” That’s because the cochineal insect lives off that particular cactus and others in the family. That might be almost interesting except you may have eaten that exact insect at one time, or more specifically, a product produced from their crushed, little dehydrated bodies: Cochineal dye. Actually, only the female cochineal provides the red dye and it takes some 75,000 to make one pound, 155,000 to the kilogram. Sometimes in the wild you will see a Nopalea or Opuntia pad flecked with white gray, or even covered with white or gray cotton. That’s a cochineal condo.  The hard part is each of the scale-like insects has to be harvested by hand, when they are around 90-days old.

These cactus seeds are tough and need to be ground or roasted.

Until artificial dyes were invented, cochineal dye was the main red dye from food to fabrics. In the 1400s, eleven cities conquered by Montezuma each paid a yearly tribute of 2000 decorated cotton blankets and 40 bags of cochineal dye. During colonial days Mexico had a monopoly on cochineal dye and it was that country’s second largest export after silver. Cochineal went out of favor and flavor when chemical dyes came in but the organic movement and rejection of artificial dyes has brought it back. Cochineal trumps chemicals, as it were. If you use a cosmetic or have eaten a product with any of these ingredients, you have used or bitten the bug: Cochineal extract, carmine, crimson lake (or lac) natural red 4, C.I. 75470, E120, or even “natural coloring” when the product is any shade of red, scarlet or orange. Cochineal is one of the few water-soluble dyes that resist fading.

Cactus with yellow blosoms and pads are edible

The genus name, “nopal” means cactus in Nahuatl, the language of the Aztecs, wrongly reported as “Spanish” for cactus. No, the Aztecs had the word first. Opuntia, however, is very removed from the New World. It is from a Greek word, Opos. Opos is an area near Lokria on the island of Euboea, which is northeast of Athens. The Greeks say the island’s name as EH-via (see how Latin has perverted the Greek it imported.)  Evia is a favorite get away and one end of the island is only about 100 tidal-torn feet from the mainland. In the Opos area, according to Pliny and Theophrastus, there grew a spiny plant. There also grew figs. Figs are one of the few foods with a latex sap that we can eat (see Natal Plums.) That sap was used as rennet in making cheese. Rennet makes the solids in the milk separate from the liquids so it can be made into cheese. The adjective form of the opos is opuntios, meaning “of Opos.” It came to mean fig-shaped. The cactus, which has spines and a fig-shaped fruit (kind of) got named Opuntios. That was then degraded via Latin to Opuntia, and where I get linguistically irritated when it comes to English.  The original word is Greek and is spelled with a T. The T is pronounced as a T, not an S. Yet when you say “oh-PUN-tia” there is always someone around who will try and correct you with “oh-PUN-see-ah.”

Incidentally that cheese-making technique was mentioned in the Iliad and later by Aristotle. It was used well into the 1800s until bacterial ways were found to curdle milk.  The technique was so common it was mentioned in several farming “books” by ancient Greeks and Romans.

Opuntia littoralis was introduced to Mediterranean area long ago and flourishes in its mild climate, such as in the south of France, southern Italy, and Sicily where it is a culinary speciality called ficurinnia. In Greece the fruits are called frangosyka (French figs) or pavlosyka (Paul’s figs). The prickly pear also grows in Malta where it is a typical summer fruit and used to make the popular liqueur, Bajtra. There the opuntia is a common dividing wall between Maltese fields.

Nopales pads with fruit

Nopalea is good for you. There is some lab evidence that it lessens low-density cholesterol, though not reported is whether that was large molecule LDL or small molecule LDL. It’s the small molecule LDL that harms (as of this writing.) The exact nutritional value is not set with several sources giving differing amounts. But, it is low in calories and sodium, high in fiber and vitamin C. It also helps control blood sugar and, according to lab work, reduces the effects of a hangover if eaten before drinking. One word of caution, besides avoiding the spines: Never eat any part of any cactus that has white sap.

Grilling Steak and Nopales

Below are some recipes, though they are as common on the internet as spines on a cactus. One note of forecaution: Eating ripe opuntia fruits can turn ones urine reddish. Thought you’d like to know rather than it be a surprise.  My two favorite ways of preparing Opuntia/Nopales pads is to pick young ones, brush off the glochids, julienne the pads, and fry in oil. Or, grill them and put them in a sandwich. Delicious. Of course, you can always skip the cactus collecting and give Nopales a try from the can or with commercially harvested pads. Both are found in many supermarkets these days.  And let me be honest, I used to cheat a little. Many times when I was serving a dish of a “wild” food — to a group known to have a few squeamish people in it — I would actually buy the “wild” product in the local market, keeping the receipt. That way if someone said they got sick from the “wild” food it was 1) highly unlikely or 2) the grocer’s problem not mine.