Live well on a diet of seeds
I. Seed eaters are Gatherer-hunters, not hunter-gatherers.
A. Hundreds of species eaten across CA.
1. Perennials - plants which live for an indefinite number of years and which bear more than one crop of seed.
a. Trees - oak, mesquite, pine, hazel, chestnut, palm, hickory, plum.
b. Shrubs - sage, manzanita, choke cherry, elder, sunflower, buckwheat
c. Miscellaneous - deer grass, water lily (wokus).
2. Annuals - an annual sprouts, flowers, and sets seed all in one season.
a. red maids, chia, goldfields
II. How to serve a seed.
1. Requires: locating, monitoring, maintaining, gathering, transporting.
i. strict rules regarding who gathers where and when.
2. transplant, sow, pest control, prune.
i. crop improvement through selective genetics.
ii. this magnified damage done by grazing animals.
3. timing of harvest critical.
i. crop may be lost to rot or consumption by competitors.
ii. it is a waste of energy to harvest immature or overripe.
B. Prepare
1. Sort, remove inedible testa, husk, parch, store (long or short term), pound or grind.
a. save largest and best seeds for replanting.
b. hammer used to remove some testas.
c. corn more than 1,000 years old can germinate.
d. fibrous hulls removed by parching from buckwheat.
2. Remove by leaching the tannin which tastes bitter, causes extreme digestive upset, found in acorns.
a. all flour particles must be the same relative size.
b. whole acorns may be buried in a stream for two years or more. This turns them dark purple.
c. hot or cold water poured through acorn meal, laid on sand or a bed of grass or leaves.
3. Cook by boiling, baking, grilling or eat raw.
a. acorn always cooked.