perchie.girl
RIP 1953-2021
you get a bit of lye when you mix ashes with water... They used to Dry them then soak them in water to get the Tanins out. Changing the water several times till it ran clear.Don't know about the lye, but the first nation people ground acorns, too
Same process can be used for curing olives....
When we moved here we had an olive tree that was loaded with olives every year... Dad had me help him and we stripped that tree of everything and filled an eighty gallon Trash can with olives. Just one tree.... SMH Of course we removed leaves and bits and the occasional iffy olive...
Then we washed everything with a big two by four as a stirrer... about four times Once drained it went on the back porch... in the shade. Dad shooed us all out while he mixed the draino. No additives. and pourd it in to the now filled with water container. I think he used a half a contaienr for eighty gallons. A couple of linin towls went over the container and the lid went back on.
once a week he would snag an olive out and slice the meat off down to the pit. You could see where the olive was being cured by the lye. It took about three weeks.... Then he dumped the container of water and Refilled it with water and a gallon of Vinegar... Lye is a base Vinegar is an acid.... Together they nutralized each other.
Another two weeks and he drained them again and tasted. Oooh they were good. He packed them in glass jars some with Vinegar and garlic some with peppers and most of them plain. Eighty gallons of olives didnt last a year.
deb