*[Enwl-eng] Earth Island Journal: Seeds of Connection
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Learning about Indigenous foodways through acorn flour.
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News of the world environment
NEWSLETTER | DECEMBER 12, 2025
Seeds of Connection
Since moving back to California’s Bay Area
this fall, I’ve been trying to learn about the Native peoples, cultures, and
histories of this region. This is how, on a recent Saturday, I found myself
at a public library, talking to Gabriel Duncan about acorn flour.
Duncan is a descendant of the Utu Utu Gwaitu
Benton Paiute Tribe who grew up in Alameda, California. He’s the founder of
the Alameda Native History Project, which has been working to produce acorn
flour to share with the local Muwekma Ohlone Tribe and other Indigenous
communities — and with non-Indigenous people like me through workshops.
Like many Americans, I didn’t learn much
about Indigenous peoples in school, and what I did learn was often
inaccurate or referred to them in the past tense, as if all Native peoples
had gone extinct. Of course, they’re still here, and they’re still producing
flour from acorns — once a staple food source for Indigenous peoples in
California and around the world. “[Acorns are] mostly water, and then fat,
starch, and protein,” Duncan told me. “They’re a superfood that’s, like,
magic.”
At the workshop, acorns had already been
harvested, sorted, and cracked open. The next step was grinding. But Duncan
wasn’t using a mortar and pestle like I had seen in the picture books; he
was demonstrating on a metal grain mill mounted to a table. “If we had
technology to grind in a day instead of a month, we’d use it,” Duncan said,
cranking the mill’s handle. “That’s survival.”
This combination of tradition and
technology, Indigenous knowledge and modern food science, is a hallmark of
the ACORNS! Project Arc, Duncan told me later. The larger goal is to
reconnect people with the land and Indigenous foodways, from harvesting
acorns in local oak groves to transforming the finished flour into crepes or
cookies.
Duncan emphasized that eating acorns is not
exotic — it’s something people in this region have been doing for more than
10,000 years. But colonization has severed such food practices in part by
turning Indigenous lands into private property. The Alameda Native History
Project partners with organizations like the John Muir Land Trust to harvest
acorns from private properties, and is looking for other partners —
including farms and vineyards — with oak trees.
Now that I’ve watched acorns get ground and
soaked (to remove harmful tannins), I look forward to tasting dishes made
with acorn flour, and to helping harvest what’s expected to be a bumper crop
next year.
There’s so much to learn, and unlearn, and I
appreciate hands-on opportunities like this to connect in a way that feels
reciprocal. Do you have any plans to incorporate native foods and cultural
traditions into your holiday celebrations? We’d love to hear about them.
Serena Renner
Associate Editor, Earth Island Journal
Photo via Rawpixel
P.S. Learn more about acorns as food and see a
recipe for acorn mousse in this article from our archives.
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From: Editors, Earth Island Journal <editor at earthisland.org>
Date: сб, 13 дек. 2025 г. в 03:45
Subject: Seeds of Connection
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