How do you make Grains and NutButters w/o Technology?

psy-ops

psy-ops

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Sep 27, 1999
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During a period of long term survival Food prep would become a real challenge. Most forests have some type of nut available. One, nut or grain processing technique I am trying to make is a large wooden mortar and pestle. I have seen these on National Geographic shows in African villages. Often, it is a very large African women with a 3 foot long pestle standing over a deep narrow wooden mortar pounding away. It looks like serious work.

Another type of mortar and pestle is from Mexico. They use a large round smooth stone of a large plank shaped rock to ground grains.


Does anyone have any other ideas of grain or nut processing?
 
I can't add to the grinding methods - the mortar/pestle is about as efficient as it gets. We homogenize tissues in the lab and find that we can get better consistency with them then with blendars. Although a ball mill is the best (technology).

The only thought I could add to the above is that it might be advangateous to periodically sort out fine grains and rough grains using some type of manufactured sieve. E.g. an interlaced twine mesh strung to a frame.

This way, you can have two people working together. One concentrating on the fines to get it in powdered form, and the other working on the courser particles and periodically sieving them out/supplying the fines person with new material.
 
Sounds like an awful lot of work to me. I wonder how many calories you will have to expend for the number of calories you'll be able to absorb when you somehow prepare and consume the results of your efforts. To survive for very long you have to be efficient in your efforts to obtain usable food.
 
That is an interesting point Dr. Mudd. I think after you eat acorns or any nut for a while you would rather die than eat another. At this point it becomes important to change the way you eat. Also, developing food products like flours and butters can add to your dietary variety and help make other things you are relying on more palatable.
 
For dried nuts and grain use a stone morter and pestle or grinder. For fresh use morter and pestle even of wood. Acorns require special treatment because they contain high amounts of tannic acid .Chopped up or ground the nuts are soaked in a number of changes of water to leach out the acid.Roasting the nuts improves flavor.
 
No technology? As soon as you pick up a stick or rock and use it for something, you are using technology.

I enjoy using hand cranked mills for flour, coffee, pepper, nuts, etc, but except for the lack of an electric motor, this is advanced technology.

Primitive technology? I have ground up grains, coffee, pepper, etc, etc, with stone and ceramic mortars and pestles and even in small quantities it is a lot of work. Just finding suitable rocks or wood to make one yourself would be no small feat in the wilderness. (I think I am getting inspired to go out and look!)
 
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