This fall I dabbled in balanophagy – on a very limited basis. It started by chance but I’ve been thinking about it for a few years. I was able to recruit others temporarily but I’m not sure they will convert. I’m not sure I will either. It was quite a bit of work.

Before you start thinking bad things about me, balanophagy is the practice of eating acorns. When a way of eating has its own name – vegetarianism or vegan are great examples – you know there is a level of seriousness in it. For a lover of food, it demanded to be explored.

I’ve foraged in the wild for several years, first as a novelty but now more as a supplement to what I buy in the grocery store. However, acorns remained on my list of edibles still to try. That was until I found several large oak trees dropping tons of acorns on a seldom used gravel lot and a lot of free time. Odd motivators I know, but anyone who has looked for acorns on a forest floor in the fall will understand. It is time consuming to sort out the small, brown seed among the layers of brown leaves. It is also time consuming to turn them into something edible.

For those of you still thinking bad things about me, think about your daily diet. We eat plants. The corn and carrots we enjoy are modified from wild plants. Since humans have been cultivating crops, plants were selected for their looks, taste, size, nutrition, convenience or durability in transport. Their relatives (and many other plants) are edible. They just take more time and effort than going to the grocery store – and a change in perspective.

Samuel Thayer, a wild food author, describes a valley full of oak trees as an orchard, not a forest, with endless amounts of food waiting to be gathered. Oak trees grow on every continent except Antarctica. In many areas they are a dominant tree in the forest. And each year, they produce hundreds of small, edible seeds. Thayer states, “The world looks different when you eat acorns.”

I can attest to that. In that gravel parking lot, I tossed acorns into my bag in rapid succession. I greedily gathered them all in. Here was free food for the taking and I was the only one taking. It was a bumper acorn year and I was going to benefit. Or at least I was going to try.

For thousands of years humans did the same thing. Acorns were eaten in cultures from Europe to Japan, from Mexico to the eastern U.S. Acorns are packed full of starch but also contain a little fat and protein – a perfect staple food that can provide calories.

Before wheat, acorns were probably the “staff of life.” They could be used to make bread, pudding, soup and much more. Even in my infantile experiments I’ve made acorn bread, cookies and pancakes and used them to top oatmeal and yogurt.

Now we can’t eat acorns along with the squirrels, birds, deer and other wildlife that depend on them for food. If you pick up an acorn, crack its hard shell and take a bite, you will be disappointed. What will make your mouth pucker, are tannins, the same chemical in red wine and tea.

While the raw acorn tastes totally inedible, it smells incredibly delicious when warmed. For my experiment in balanophagy, I dried out the acorns in my oven to help preserve them and make the cracking and removal of their shell easier. I could see changing the original lyrics to that familiar Christmas carol from chestnuts to acorns “roasting on an open fire.”

While it was quick to gather about a gallon of good, insect-free acorns, it took about 1 hours (or almost two episodes of “NCIS”) to crack and shell all of them. I then ground them as fine as I could and started leeching out the tannins in multiple changes of cold water. Three days later, I started looking for recipes.

After all this, you may still think I’m crazy. Why do all this work when there is more convenient and – let’s be honest – better tasting food available to us?

We connect to nature in a variety of ways – gardening, kayaking, taking pictures, birding. Why not food? I picked up these seeds, touching eat one. I came to understand the feel of a good acorn and one that had been eaten by a weevil larva. I smelled their surprising aroma and tasted their mild sweetness.

There is also a connection to others built around wild food. Just as we can enjoy another’s company on a hike, I laughed and talked as I gathered acorns with a friend. We joked and smiled as we baked and ate acorn bread. We shared in the experiment.

But there is also something bigger and less tangible. In that parking lot, gathering acorns, I made myself slow down and shift from greedy to grateful. Rather than seeing free food, I saw a debt paid with bright sunlight, clean air and fresh water. I wondered about the process of turning those resources into leaves and bark and seeds – those smooth, shiny, beautiful seeds. And how those seeds could nourish me and dozens of other animals but also built this forest, our houses, ships, barrels and the very desk at which I sit.

I felt connected to the people who came before me for whom the gathering of acorns was not a fun experiment but a requirement for life.

But mostly, I saw a beautiful, natural world that provides what we need and often some of what we want.

So on this Thanksgiving weekend, when we’ve filled out bellies with plants and animals, shared our blessings and are preparing for a season that, for so many of us, speaks of abundance, consider also giving thanks for this natural world that has given us our food. Oh, and maybe get outside and enjoy it!

Audubon Nature Center is located at 1600 Riverside Road in the town of Kiantone, one-quarter mile east of Route 62 between Jamestown and Warren, Pennsylvania. Learn more about the Nature Center and the many programs and events by visiting jamestownaudubon.org.

Katie Finch is a naturalist at Jamestown Audubon.