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🌾 Food From Scratch

How to make staple ingredients — flour, masa, leavening, salt, sweetener, fat — from what grows or can be raised around the Illinois Valley, and how to turn them into bread, tortillas, pasta, crackers and other everyday food. Details and more recipes are in Food-From-Scratch\ (grain, wild and local staples, breads and staples) and Gardening-Food\. The links open each book on the drive at the right page.

⚠️ Two foods here can kill if you get them wrong: camas has a deadly look-alike (death camas), and acorns and lye/ash-cooked corn must be processed properly. Follow the steps exactly, and never eat a wild plant you can't identify with certainty.

🗓️ The year at a glance

When What to gather or make Source
Spring Cattail shoots, 4–16 inches long Cattail guide, p. 1
April–May Death camas blooms (what it looks like) — watch and mark your camas bed now PNW 104, p. 1
Mid-April Plant corn and potatoes (Rogue Valley advice — our valley floor frosts later; see the Start Here frost table) OSU EM 9027, p. 22
June–July Hazelnuts — pick before the bears do Hupa, p. 39
Summer Grain harvest; dig camas after it flowers SARE; Camas, p. 1
Late Sept–Nov Acorns (the second fall); sugar pine nuts; bay nuts UCCE, p. 2; Hupa, p. 40
Cool months Butcher and render (raw fat keeps only 5–7 days even chilled) Minnesota, p. 2
Leaf drop → bud break Tap bigleaf maples on freeze–thaw days (how to tap) OSU EM 9163, p. 3

📚 Go deeper: OSU Growing Your Own, p. 21 — gardening in southern Oregon; Food Plants of the North American Indians — 1,112 native food plants and how each was prepared.

🌾 Flour from grain

Winnowing: threshed grain poured slowly from a pan in front of a fan; the light chaff blows away across a tarp while the heavy grain falls straight into a tub Winnowing after threshing: the breeze carries off the light chaff and the grain drops into the tub; pour it through again until it's clean (a diagram drawn for this guide).

Best-quality rotation times (sealed, about 70 °F; a 90 °F shed roughly halves them — USU, pp. 11, 17–19): whole wheat kernels 25 years · white flour 1 year · cornmeal 1 year · dry beans 1 year · whole-wheat flour only 2 weeks. USU says these are for rotating stock, not how long food stays usable; dry beans and rice packed with oxygen absorbers keep for decades (Food Security guide).

If this goes wrong Fix
Grain feels warm or smells musty Too wet — spread it and dry it now; by the time you feel heat you're late (Peace Corps, p. 54)
Bugs after freezing Thaw a sample on a tray; if anything crawls, freeze again (USU, p. 14)
"Bay leaves didn't work" They don't — only clean, dry grain in tight containers stays bug-free (USU, p. 15)

📚 Go deeper: Peace Corps Small Farm Grain Storage, p. 278 — drying, airtight storage and insects in depth; USU Food Storage in the Home, p. 13 — pest treatments and storage times; FAO Barley, p. 63 — barley breads and dishes.

🌰 Acorn flour

📷 Not sure what it is? Photograph it with the plant and mushroom identifier (🔧 Tools tab). It suggests names and flags poisonous groups, but it's often wrong: confirm every feature here before you eat or use anything.

Our oaks — tanoak (the traditional favorite), California black oak, Oregon white oak and canyon live oak (tanoak photo; oak and acorn drawing) — all make good flour, but every acorn must be leached to remove bitter tannins. A tanoak can drop over 200 pounds in a good year and bears some crop every year (NRCS Tanoak, p. 1).

  1. Gather the second fall (late September–October); the first acorns down are mostly wormy. Dry them 2–5 days in the sun or 20 minutes in a 175 °F oven, door ajar. Whole, dry acorns keep several years — in sacks or jars, not plastic. (UCCE, p. 2)
  2. Crack and shell them, and remove any moldy or wormy ones. Grind the nutmeats to a coarse meal or flour.
  3. Leach — any one of these:
    • Hot: soak in hot water for an hour, drain, repeat several times (fastest).
    • Running water: a cloth bag of meal in cold running water for several hours.
    • Daily change: 3 parts water to 1 part meal in jars, kept cool; pour off the dark water and refill every day for about a week.
    • Traditional: pour nearly scalding water over fine flour in a hollow scooped in clean sand (Hupa, p. 38).
  4. It's done when it tastes sweet, not bitter or puckery. Cold leaching keeps more of the starch's binding power (better for bread); hot is faster.
  5. Use it wet as mush/porridge, pat it into flatbread on a hot stone or pan, or dry it and replace ¼ to ½ of the wheat flour in bread (acorn flour has no gluten on its own).
  6. Ground meal goes rancid in a warm room — grind only a few weeks' worth and keep it cold (UCCE, p. 2).

Other local nuts need no leaching: hazelnuts (June–July, dry and eat raw; photo) and sugar pine nuts (October; pound the cones to free the seeds) — Hupa, pp. 39–40. Bay nuts (Oregon myrtle; peeled bay fruit) must be roasted at 350 °F for 30–45 minutes until dark-chocolate brown; they taste of coffee and contain a caffeine-like stimulant (UCCE, pp. 2–3).

📚 Go deeper: UCCE Foods from the Tanoak Forest, p. 2 — modern acorn and bay-nut processing step by step; Goddard, Life and Culture of the Hupa, p. 37 — how acorns were gathered, ground, leached and cooked just south of us; NRCS Tanoak guide, p. 2 — storage, leaching and acorn bread.

🌰 The local way: choosing oaks, storing, pounding, leaching in a sand basin and stone-boiled mush, as the valley's first peoples did it, are in Skills of the Valley's First Peoples.

🌿 Camas, cattail and other local starches

Camas (edible) Death camas (deadly)
Flowers Blue-violet to creamy white, on a tall leafless stalk Greenish to yellowish-white, in a pointed cluster
Height 24–48 inches 6–18 inch stem
Leaves Long, narrow, grass-like Grass-like, V-shaped, edged with stiff hairs
Bulb Edible only after long cooking Blackish scales, no onion smell — every part poisonous

Sources: Camas guide, p. 2; PNW 104, pp. 1–2. Death camas drawn: Army survival manual; Air Force survival handbook. Some Oregon camas (great camas) is white-flowered — which is why color can't be trusted. Death camas symptoms start 1–8 hours after eating (drooling, vomiting, weakness, irregular heartbeat): get help at once.

Old line drawing of camas in bloom: a tall stalk with star-like six-petaled flowers along the top and long, narrow, grass-like leaves, labeled "Camas (Camassia esculenta)" Camas: open, six-petaled flowers spaced up a tall stalk above long, narrow leaves (Saunders, p. 44). The flowers are blue (this old drawing has no color); the bulbs look like death camas, so dig only plants you marked while they bloomed blue.

Two USDA photographs of death camas in bloom: clusters of small yellowish-white flowers on short stalks above grass-like leaves Death camas: small yellowish-white flowers crowded at the top of a short stalk, grass-like leaves; left, meadow death camas (AIB 415, p. 35).

USDA photograph of a western water hemlock rootstalk split lengthwise, showing the stacked hollow chambers inside, with thick tubers and fine roots below Western water hemlock, the killer in wet ground: the thick rootstalk is hollow, with cross-walls making chambers full of poisonous juice (AIB 415, p. 110).

📚 Go deeper: USDA Great Camas guide — harvest, cooking, drying; PNW 104 Meadow Deathcamas — identification photos; PNW 109 Western Waterhemlock, p. 3 — photo comparison with look-alikes.

🌽 Corn: masa, tortillas and hominy

Always cook dried corn with lime or wood ash ("nixtamal") before making it a staple — it unlocks the corn's niacin. People living mostly on untreated cornmeal get pellagra (FAO Maize, p. 13).

Old drawing of a corn kernel cut through, with the skin (a) around the outside, the germ (b) low in the middle and the starchy endosperm (c) filling the rest Inside a kernel: lime or lye loosens the skin (a) so it rubs off; the germ (b) holds most of the fat (FB 1236, p. 6).

📚 Go deeper: Smithsonian Nixtamalization — the full masa method; USDA FB 1236 Corn and Its Uses, p. 11 — mush, pone, cornbreads and hominy; FAO Maize, p. 96 — tortillas and other corn recipes; Parker, Iroquois Uses of Maize, p. 115 — hominy, samp and old corn dishes.

🍞 Leavening without store yeast or baking powder

A timeline for starting sourdough: day 1 mix flour and water, days 2 and 3 discard and feed once a day, from day 4 feed twice a day, usable about day 7, strong at 2 to 4 weeks; below, two jars show a starter that has doubled within 4 to 6 hours of feeding The first weeks of a wild starter, and the doubling test that tells you it's ready (a diagram drawn for this guide).

Starter trouble Fix
Not rising after a week Somewhere warmer; switch to rye or whole-grain flour; avoid very hard or chlorinated water (Illinois, pp. 1–2)
Dark liquid on top ("hooch") It's hungry — pour it off or stir it in, then feed (Illinois, p. 3)
Any mold Throw it out; restart from your dried back-up (Illinois, p. 3)

📚 Go deeper: Illinois Sourdough Bread 101, p. 4 — step-by-step loaf and schedules; UAF Sourdough, p. 3 — hotcakes, muffins and bread; USDA FB 807, p. 10 — potato yeast and saved dough.

🧂 Salt, 🍯 sweeteners and 🥓 fat

📚 Go deeper: OSU Making Bigleaf Maple Syrup, p. 3 — tapping, sanitation and bottling, with photos; Minnesota Making Lard at Home — rendering and what spoils lard; Practical Action Honey Processing — straining, moisture and wax; USDA FB 876 Making Butter — cream, churning and storage.

🥩 Jerky

📚 Go deeper: PNW 632 Making Jerky at Home Safely — tested methods and the hot-brine recipe; NDSU Preservation of Game Meats and Fish, p. 5 — game jerky, smoking and curing.

🥖 Staples

Basic yeast bread — per loaf (USDA FB 807, pp. 13–17): 1 cup lukewarm liquid, about 3 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, 1 Tbsp sugar or honey, up to 1 Tbsp fat, and yeast (or ½ cup active sourdough starter in place of yeast and part of the liquid). Knead until smooth and springy, let it double, shape, let it rise again, and bake at about 400 °F for 40–50 minutes, until it sounds hollow when tapped. Stop adding flour once the dough doesn't stick to unfloured hands — too much flour makes heavy bread. Rise it covered, at about 80 °F; it's ready for the oven when a light touch leaves a slight dent.

Simple sourdough loaf: 1 cup active starter + 1 cup water + about 3 cups flour + 1½ tsp salt. Knead, let rise 4–8 hours (longer when cool), shape, rise 2–4 hours more, bake at about 425 °F for 35–45 minutes. Poke test: a floured finger-dent that springs back halfway means bake now; one that stays means over-risen — bake at once. A preheated Dutch oven (lid on 30 minutes, then off) gives a good crust without a real oven (Illinois, pp. 5–6).

Flour tortillas / flatbread: 2 cups flour, ¼ cup lard, 1 tsp salt, about ¾ cup warm water. Knead, rest 20 minutes, roll thin, cook on a hot dry pan 30–60 seconds a side. Works with part acorn or barley flour. Barley flatbread with no yeast: FAO Barley, p. 63.

Biscuits (USDA FB 1136, p. 23): 2 cups flour, 1 tsp salt, 2 tsp baking powder (or the soda and sour milk swap above), 2 Tbsp fat, ⅔–¾ cup liquid. Bake hot (about 450 °F) 12–15 minutes. Keep it all cold and handle it lightly. Too much soda makes them yellow and bad-tasting (p. 22).

Crackling bread: for each cup of cornmeal, ¾ tsp salt and ½ cup cracklings left from rendering lard; pour on boiling water until you can mash it by hand, shape into cakes and bake (FB 1236, p. 12).

Pasta / egg noodles: 2 cups flour, 1 egg + 2 yolks, ½ tsp salt, about ⅓ cup water (or the old way: one egg, a pinch of salt and enough flour for a very stiff dough). Knead 8–10 minutes, rest 10–20, roll paper-thin, cut ⅛–¼ inch strips. Cook fresh 2–4 minutes, dried 10–12. To store, dry until the noodles snap; keep airtight about a month (longer frozen). (Illinois Extension, p. 2; Fannie Farmer 1896, p. 167) Because of the raw egg, Illinois says don't air-dry over 2 hours — finish them at about 135 °F.

Hardtack (keeps for years): 3 parts flour to 1 part water (no salt — salt draws moisture and mold), stiff dough, ½ inch thick, prick with holes, bake 1 hour at 375 °F, then dry 3 more days. Soak or crumble into soup to eat. (City of Alexandria)

Beans: soak overnight (6 cups water + 2 tsp salt per pound) or quick-soak (boil 2 minutes, stand 1 hour), then simmer 2–4 hours. Old beans take longer; lentils and split peas need no soak. Beans + corn (or wheat) together make complete protein. Add tomatoes or vinegar only after they're tender — acid stops beans softening (USU, pp. 2–4). Canning beans needs a pressure canner: at Cave Junction's elevation a weighted-gauge canner runs at 15 lb (OSU EM 9435, p. 3).

Porridge and mush: cracked wheat, oats, barley, cornmeal or leached acorn meal simmered in about 3–4 times their volume of water with a pinch of salt. Hominy grits can finish overnight in a hay box (how to build one; its parts) after a 10-minute boil; coarse hominy needs longer on the fire first (FB 1236, p. 19).

📚 Go deeper: USDA FB 807 Bread and Bread Making, p. 12 — kneading, rising and baking; USDA FB 1136 Quick Breads and Biscuits, p. 22 — biscuits, muffins and griddle cakes; Fannie Farmer 1896, p. 92 — hundreds of everyday recipes; Practical Action Fireless Cookers, p. 5 — hay-box cooking times.

Old recipes in these books are fine for methods; for food safety (canning, curing, storing) follow the modern USDA guides in Gardening-Food\.

🖼️ Pictures & diagrams

Look before you try it. 🖼️ = drawings in the books on this drive; 📷 = photos in the offline Wikipedia.

Grain: threshing, grinding, pests

Acorns and nuts

Camas, cattail and their deadly look-alikes

Corn

Syrup, oil, lard and butter

Jerky, bread and slow cooking

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