PUT MORE FUN (AND NUTRITION) INTO YOUR LIFE: EAT ACORNS!

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Look around you: One of mankind's oldest and most versatile "staple foods" is as close as your nearest park or forest... or maybe even your front yard!

Time was-back in the days when the fruit of the oak tree supported a large population of native Americansthat the hills and valleys of California resounded with the sound of acorns being pounded in stone mortars. White settlers, of course, never learned to tap the rich store of nutrients contained in these kernels (perhaps because they had no patience for the laborious grinding and leaching processes that were necessary to make the nuggets edible), and-as a result-acorns (as food for humans) went out of style in the U.S. around the turn of the century.

And yet-appreciated by modern man or not-acorns (millions of tons of them each year) go on growing and dropping to the ground . . . not just in California (where the shiny kernels are so plentiful in the fall that the natural population of jays, squirrels, and chipmunks can't even begin to eat them all), but in the rest of the country, too. What a shame more people don't recognize this yearly bumper crop for the excellent source of nutrition that it is!

You can take advantage of some of this free bounty for yourself. It's a simple matter to harvest a season's supply of acorns, process them into a coarse, meal-like flour, and adapt the flour to your favorite bread, muffin, and cake recipes. Our family has been doing this for some time now, and we've found acorn-meal dishes so rewarding (in taste, nutrition, and sheer fun) that we're anxious to share our "secret" with others!

GATHERING THE ACORNS

You shouldn't have any trouble finding a suitable ° "hunting ground" for acorns, since some kind of oak grows in virtually every part of the U.S.

As for the harvest itself: Your family can make old-time fun out of collecting acorns in a shady grove. The work (if it can be called that) goes quickly and, in less than an hour, you should have all the acorn: you can readily process at one time (If you really want to gather the lit tle oak nuts fast, you can take the advice of Carl B. Wolf of the Ranch( Santa Ana Botanic Garden, who proposedback in 1944-that com mercial growers use power vacu ums to simply "inhale" acorns from the forest floor!)

HOW TO SHELL THE KERNELS

Acorns are best shelled with a conventional nutcracker or a pair of pliers. Simply grip each nut the long way and pinch . . . then grip it the short way and pinch. Presto! Out pops the clean, white kernel! (Witt a little practice, you'll have no trou ble getting each nugget out intact.)