Eating Acorns (December 2018)
Eating Acorns (December 2018)
Taste and Explore the Ancestral Stories of the Oak Nut
This class offers a rich and flavorful overview of the ethnobotanical history of your relative the oak tree and the ancestral and contemporary uses of acorns as food. Part hands-on cooking class, part storytelling; use your senses to explore the Celtic cosmology, botanical characteristics, cultural worldview, spiritual teaching, and culinary potential offered by oaks.
Date: Saturday, December 1st
Time: 10 am - 1 pm
Location: Leaven Community Center | 5431 NE 20th Ave.
Tier A Pricing: $99 ($30/hr or above wage earners)
Tier B Pricing: $80 ($16-29/hr wage earners)
Tier C Pricing: $60 ($15/hr or below wage earners)
This price reflects a per student fee for materials to make yummy acorn-based food.
See our Pricing + Generosity Policy for more information on tiered pricing
PUGS is a community of lifelong learners. Register with a friend and get 25% off with the code YOUVEGOTAFRIEND
William Bryan Logan’s novel, Oaks: The Frame of Civilization, describes that at the end of the last ice age acorns would have been the one crop with the nutritional characteristic to be the staple food for communities all over the world. Due to this, oaks have a varied and rich ethnobotanical history that stretches for centuries in cultures all over the world.
So what can our urban, fast-paced culture today learn from these giant teachers? Come learn the wisdom of oaks and how to bring its ancestral food into your home and community.
This hands on class will begin in the kitchen. In groups, you will prepare Acorn Mushroom Soup and Acorn Muffins. While the dishes bake and cool, learn the step-by-step basics to harvest and process acorns into grits or flour. This time will include sharing best practices for ethical wild harvesting and honoring Traditional Ecological Knowledge (TEK). After gratitude and exploring flavors, we’ll share a meal in community paired with the telling of interesting facts and stories about oaks including their basic botany, cultural cosmology, and culinary potential. Everyone will leave with a bag of uncracked nuts and a list of resources.
*The recipes for this course are gluten-free. If you are vegan or have other food sensitivities, please notify PUGS and we can do our best to accommodate your needs.
Leah Walsh is an embodiment coach, wellness consultant, chef, and wild food harvester who is has a deep affinity with acorns and oak trees. This May she graduated with a certificate in Ethnobotany, the incredible study of the relationship between people and plants. She studies with our non-human relatives as teachers of wisdom, cooperation, and deep belonging to land, self, and one another.