In the classroom this week, the fourth and fifth grade chefs watched the first part of a short PBS film called Tending the Wild: Decolonizing the Diet. In the film, Lois Conner Bohna, a North Fork Mono and Chukchansi educator talks about the importance of the acorn to Indigenous peoples in present-day California, the tools used to prepare acorn for sustenance, and the challenges facing oak trees today.
In the kitchen, we made strawberry acorn pancakes with acorn flour made from Valley Oak acorns. The recipe gives students an opportunity to taste acorn in an accessible way alongside other ingredients native to North America such as strawberries (now bred into an unrecognizably large size!) and maple syrup. Students noted that the acorn lent a nutty, chocolatey flavor to a familiar breakfast treat.
