![]() Strictly speaking, not having been tanned, a tawed skin is not leather, and is putrescible when wet.īecause horns and hooves had no value to a butcher, they often left them attached to the skins. Sometimes egg yolk and flour were added to improve the product. In tawing, the hide was soaked in an aqueous solution containing potash alum and salt. The lighter, smaller skins of sheep, goat, pig, and deer were handled by fellmongers and preserved by tawers (also known as a tawyers or whittawers). Tanners enjoyed the exclusive right to purchase cow hides from butchers. (Detailed description of leather-working techniques here.) Leather 'workers' included skinners, tanners, curriers, and specialist leather artisans, such as saddlers. Yet if you belonged to any of many acorn-eating cultures around the world you might have enjoyed acorns most often ground to flour, leached, and made into mushes, porridges, cakes, and breads.In need of shoes, gloves, armour, bottles, saddles, harnesses, bellows, sheaths, or scabbards? In the Middle Ages, you would rely on leather workers in a sequence that ran from husbandman to butcher, skinner, and fellmonger. Tannins are bad for you, and who knows what else is present. Low tannin is why deer and humans prefer White Oak acorns. Some years, mast years, the trees make acorns in such massive quantities that overmatch the nibblers. These acorns tend to be dispersed less than the Red Oak acorns, staying nearer the parent tree, and germinating quickly. The White Oak Group, including today’s Live Oaks as well as Chapman’s Oak and Sand Live Oak, tend to have more-edible acorns probably more attractive to distributors yet also more susceptible to destruction. Scrub Jays reportedly prefer such high-tannin acorns for caching, spotting them because they have less insect damage than the low-tannin alternatives. They correspondingly tend to be slow to germinate. ![]() Such acorns surviving storage are effectively relocated and planted. When animals bury acorns they are more often from the Red Oak Group. The species in the Red Oak Group, locally including Myrtle Oak and Sandhill Oak, tend to have especially bitter acorns especially repugnant to distributors yet more likely to be only partially eaten non-fatally. Tannin is not evenly distributed among species. Much later, the root thickening enlarged. Creatures eating such acorns tend to reject, relocate, and maybe even bury, the nasty part which retains the ability to sprout. ![]() The more expendable portion is the cap end. The critical vital portion of the embryo is toward the acorn’s pointy tip where the acorn concentrates tannins. The interesting thing John and Dee discovered is that tannin distribution is not even throughout the acorn, especially in the Red Oak Group, defined below. We exploit that ability to preserve leather. Tannins bind up the salivary proteins in the mouth and digestive systems of herbivores and they suppress microbes. The main anti-nibbling ingredient in acorns is tannin, as in tan your hide. If everybody wants to eat you, you need protection. Jays and squirrels feast on acorns, but there’s a tradeoff, the animals disperse surviving acorns in the process. Weevils alone can destroy a substantial portion of an acorn crop. The pointy tip is the style from the female flower whose ovary became the the acorn.Īcorns are loaded with nutrition appreciated by weevils, by birds especially jays, and by rodents, especially squirrels.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |