By DEBBIE LEE
THE assault began in early September. That’s when my 60-year-old mother, an avid gardener, began laying mulch under the shrubs at her home in Westchester. She had her shovel in hand when — thunk! — a white oak fired its first shot. For the next several weeks, the century-old tree would rain acorns on her head like a Newtonian nightmare.
It’s a nuisance, but it’s also nourishment.
Acorns were once a dietary staple wherever oak trees took root. Native Americans used acorn flour for baking; Germans roasted the nuts as a coffee substitute, and Berbers in North Africa pressed the fruit into oil.
These days, besides survivalists and squirrels, Koreans are among the few who’d think to find dinner on the front lawn.
Dotorimuk, or acorn jelly, is a common dish at the Korean table. Its origins are shrouded in a bit of over-the-top romance: wild acorns were gathered in misty mountain forests, intensely labored over using old-fashioned millstones, and provided sustenance for riverside villagers.
By contrast, today’s standard recipe is sterile: head to Asian supermarket, buy acorn starch, prepare according to package.
The truth is that homemade dotorimuk is more complicated than opening a box, but certainly easier than using the winnowing baskets of yore. And with acorns blanketing lawns across North America — including mine — a hyper-local dish was waiting right outside my door.
My mother, who was raised in South Korea, was dubious. What if dotorimuk could be made only from a specific species of oak? Would I poison the family? Didn’t I know I could spare myself the work and buy pre-made mix at the grocery store?
I decided to investigate.
To address the first question, all acorns are edible if prepared properly. And with mature oaks producing up to a half-ton of them each season, the hunt for the perfect specimens was simple. I just combed the grass. Both green and brown nuts made the cut, as long as they were firm (insuring against interior mold) and free of cracks (a potential sign of insect infestation.)
But the trade-off for the easy harvest was prolonged prep time. First was hulling. Quartering the nuts lengthwise with a chef’s knife generally revealed kernels akin to blanched almonds. However, a chunk of labor went toward peeling and discarding fruit that was either discolored or damaged by bugs.
My mother’s second concern was legit. Acorns in their raw state are full of tannins, which are toxic in high doses. To avoid death by dinner, the nuts must be rinsed with water until the compound is thoroughly leached out. Processing time varies depending on the type of oak you choose.
Steve Brill, who leads edible foraging tours of New York City parks and is known as Wildman, says acorns from white oaks are generally less astringent than those from red oaks. He advises avoiding the red variety altogether unless you have access to an unpolluted freshwater stream.
“The ideal process is to put acorns in a weighted sack and set them in the running water for a few weeks,” he said. “But only if you know there are no poachers around.”
Mr. Brill, who mills his own acorn flour from nuts collected in Central Park, alternatively suggests placing the sack in a toilet tank for a month. Each flush will provide a quick rinse. “The tank isn’t contaminated with sewage,” he said, “but be warned that the tannins will turn the toilet water brown.”
To date, his wife has refused to let him use this particular method.
I opted for something less unsavory by blitzing the acorns in a blender with some water and leaving them in a large, covered mixing bowl. The smaller pieces created more surface area, which in turn sped up tannin extraction. Without disturbing the acorn sediment, I replaced the tannic solution with fresh water every three hours until the nuts lost their bitterness.
My batch of white oak acorns took three days, but this could take up to three weeks depending on the nuts.
“It’s an art more than a science,” Mr. Brill said. “It’s safer to soak the acorns until the water is clear, but you can also just taste for sweetness.” In this case, trusting your palate is the secret to avoiding toxicity.
Once the acorn meal lost its bite and resembled a pale, sandy sludge, it was ready for use.
Making the dotorimuk was as easy as boiling the nuts and — for a modern presentation — straining the mixture into individual ramekins. Waiting for it to set was a final test of patience. But two hours later, the result was a yard-to-table meal that captured fall in a bowl: a silky jelly that tasted faintly of chestnuts and artichokes. A dressing of chili and green onions added heat as well as color to rival an autumn in New England.
Even my once-skeptical mother approved. Her suburban landscaping enemy had now become a throwback to Seoul.