Acorns and Natives

Acorns were a traditional food of many indigenous peoples of North America, and served an especially important role for Californian Native Americans, where the ranges of several species of oaks overlap, increasing the reliability of the resource.^[20] One ecology researcher of Yurok and Karuk heritage reports that "his traditional acorn preparation is a simple soup, cooked with hot stones directly in a basket," and says he enjoys acorns eaten with "grilled salmon, huckleberries or seaweed."^[21]Unlike many other plant foods, acorns do not need to be eaten or processed right away, but may be stored for a long time, much as squirrels do. In years that oaks produced many acorns, Native Americans sometimes collected enough acorns to store for two years as insurance against poor acorn production years.

After drying them in the sun to discourage mold and germination, women took acorns back to their villages and cached them in hollow trees or structures on poles, to keep them safe from mice and squirrels. The stored acorns could then be used when needed, particularly during the winter when other resources were scarce. Those acorns that germinated in the fall were shelled and pulverized before those that germinate in spring. Because of their high fat content, stored acorns can become rancid. Molds may also grow on them.

The lighting of ground fires killed the larvae of acorn moths and acorn weevils by burning them during their dormancy period in the soil. The pests can infest and consume more than 95% of an oak's acorns.^{[citation needed]}

Fires also released the nutrients bound in dead leaves and other plant debris into the soil, thus fertilizing oak trees while clearing the ground to make acorn collection easier. Most North American oaks tolerate light fires, especially when consistent burning has eliminated woody fuel accumulation around their trunks. Consistent burning encouraged oak growth at the expense of other trees less tolerant of fire, thus keeping oaks dominant in the landscapes.^{[citation needed]}

Oaks produce more acorns when they are not too close to other oaks and thus competing with them for sunlight, water and soil nutrients. The fires tended to eliminate the more vulnerable young oaks and leave old oaks which created open oak savannas with trees ideally spaced to maximize acorn production.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Acorn