Gathered acorns

Although pigs do pretty well just eating raw acorns and oak leaves, the high tannin concentration makes most types of acorns too bitter (and potentially liver damaging) for regular human consumption. However, because tannin is highly water soluble, prolonged soaking or boiling with changes of water are enough to make the acorn nuts edible. Apparently, white oaks and live oaks make acorns in one year, while red oaks take two years. This means that red oak acorns are more full of tannins, so I didn't want to use the trees in my backyard. Plus, I started too late in the year, and couldn't get any fresh local acorns. Luckily, I had to be in Orlando for a few days, and it's live oak acorn season there. I gathered up a cup full of acorns and took them home for processing.

Shelled acorn meats

First, I cracked the acorns in a garlic press. About 1/2 or 2/3 of the acorn meats were unacceptably moldy, withered up and hard, or contained grubs. Discarding those, I ended up with a small pile of acorn meats, which I boiled with several changes of water.

Drying

Then, I dried the acorn chunks in the toaster oven on low, pulverized them, formed them into a sort of acorn cake, and toasted some more. I realize that post-apocalypse, I might not have access to a toaster oven, so this step would be slightly more complicated.

Mashing

The result

I can't really recommend the taste of plain acorn meal cakes, but it didn't seem poisonous, and I assume it had nutritional value. Maybe it would taste better cooked up with some squirrel. (Or heck, maybe I shouldn't have picked out all the grubs.)