Acorns: Barbaric Food

From The Encyclopedia of Practical Cookery (published 1898, edited by Theodore Francis Garrett)...

At an early period of barbaric existence this fruit of the oak was ground into meal to make a kind of cake, or bread. In modern times it is regarded as food fit only for hogs, and even that is disputed. It is stated that in Germany acorns are sometimes chopped up and roasted to be used medicinally by invalids as coffee; by this process of roasting much of their intense astringency is destroyed.

Yes, acorns are highly questionable fodder for hogs as compared to the diet of most hogs today. Good grief, the world's best pork is acorn fed!

The best part: This encyclopedia entry started with...

Acorns (literally, oak (ac) corn)

Although we think of the word corn as being synonomous with maize, historically the word corn has had a much more general meaning of the edible seeds of plants.

So in other words, people down through history have called acorns "the edible seeds of oak trees," and then a writer in the "modern times" of 1898 decided that as food acorns might not even be fit for hogs.