Dotori guksu are Korean noodles

Korean noodles

Korean noodles are noodles or noodle dishes in Korean cuisine and are collectively referred to as "guksu" in native Korean or "myeon" in hanja. Preparations and cooking with noodles are relatively simple, so the history is longer than that of bread, dating back around BCE 6000 to BCE 5000 in China...

 made from acorn

Acorn

The acorn, or oak nut, is the nut of the oaks and their close relatives . It usually contains a single seed , enclosed in a tough, leathery shell, and borne in a cup-shaped cupule. Acorns vary from 1–6 cm long and 0.8–4 cm broad...

 flour

Flour

Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...

 or starch

Starch

Starch or amylum is a carbohydrate consisting of a large number of glucose units joined together by glycosidic bonds. This polysaccharide is produced by all green plants as an energy store...

, salt

Salt

In chemistry, salts are ionic compounds that result from the neutralization reaction of an acid and a base. They are composed of cations and anions so that the product is electrically neutral...

, and a combination of grain

GRAIN

GRAIN is a small international non-profit organisation that works to support small farmers and social movements in their struggles for community-controlled and biodiversity-based food systems. Our support takes the form of independent research and analysis, networking at local, regional and...

-based flour (usually buckwheat

Buckwheat

Buckwheat refers to a variety of plants in the dicot family Polygonaceae: the Eurasian genus Fagopyrum, the North American genus Eriogonum, and the Northern Hemisphere genus Fallopia. Either of the latter two may be referred to as "wild buckwheat"...

 or wheat

Wheat

Wheat is a cereal grain, originally from the Levant region of the Near East, but now cultivated worldwide. In 2007 world production of wheat was 607 million tons, making it the third most-produced cereal after maize and rice...

).

Dotori guksu may be made from acorns collected from red or white oak

Oak

An oak is a tree or shrub in the genus Quercus , of which about 600 species exist. "Oak" may also appear in the names of species in related genera, notably Lithocarpus...

 species and each oak species gives a distinct flavour. Ingredient labels do not list from which type of tree acorns are gathered, most likely due to the large number of oak species and increasing oak hybridization (especially among white oak varieties), which makes it difficult to recognise and document each type of species.

Origins

Evidence at Neolithic

Neolithic

The Neolithic Age, Era, or Period, or New Stone Age, was a period in the development of human technology, beginning about 9500 BC in some parts of the Middle East, and later in other parts of the world. It is traditionally considered as the last part of the Stone Age...

 sites such as Amsa-dong

Amsa-dong

Amsa-dong is a dong, neighbourhood of Gangdong-gu in Seoul, South Korea. The dong is well-known for the Amsa-dong Preshistoric Settlement Site in which Neolithic remains were excavated after a large number of diagonal-line patterned earthenware underneath the earth were accidentally uncovered by a...

 in South Korea

South Korea

The Republic of Korea , , is a sovereign state in East Asia, located on the southern portion of the Korean Peninsula. It is neighbored by the People's Republic of China to the west, Japan to the east, North Korea to the north, and the East China Sea and Republic of China to the south...

 show acorns were part of the human diet. Acorns contain bitter tannins which would have been leached out to make the acorns edible. They were then ground into flour

Flour

Flour is a powder which is made by grinding cereal grains, other seeds or roots . It is the main ingredient of bread, which is a staple food for many cultures, making the availability of adequate supplies of flour a major economic and political issue at various times throughout history...

 using a saddle quern and milling stone

Millstone

Millstones or mill stones are used in windmills and watermills, including tide mills, for grinding wheat or other grains.The type of stone most suitable for making millstones is a siliceous rock called burrstone , an open-textured, porous but tough, fine-grained sandstone, or a silicified,...

.

It is unknown exactly where acorn noodles were first produced. However, Ogam village, Korea is well known for a long history of acorn cultivation. The village's location by the Namhangang River and its mountainous climate and landscape is conducive toward large-scale acorn cultivation. The village produces dozens of acorn-based foods, including dotori kalguksoo (acorn knife-cut noodles).

Varieties

There are two varieties of acorn noodles: flour-based soba and starch-based vermicelli.

Starch-based

Acorn vermicelli noodles or dotori naengmyeon (hangul: 냉면 도토리) are made from acorn starch and some combination of potato, rice, or arrowroot starch, wheat flour, and salt. The dried noodles resemble brown plastic threads about 1/10-1/8 cm in diameter. Cooked properly and typically eaten cold, acorn-based naengmyeon noodles have a high elasticity and chewy consistency.

Flour-based

Acorn soba noodles or in Korean, dotori guksu (hangul: 도토리국수) are made from acorn flour and a combination of grain-based flours; such as buckwheat

Buckwheat

Buckwheat refers to a variety of plants in the dicot family Polygonaceae: the Eurasian genus Fagopyrum, the North American genus Eriogonum, and the Northern Hemisphere genus Fallopia. Either of the latter two may be referred to as "wild buckwheat"...

 and corn, and salt. They are about as thick as spaghetti

Spaghetti

Spaghetti is a long, thin, cylindrical pasta of Italian origin. Spaghetti is made of semolina or flour and water. Italian dried spaghetti is made from durum wheat semolina, but outside of Italy it may be made with other kinds of flour...

 and are used in hot and cold dishes, such as Zaru Soba (boiled noodles are served cold with a dipping sauce.) Acorn soba noodles may be more healthy than the starch-based acorn vermicelli noodles. The Japanese version of these noodles, donguri-men (Japanese:どんぐり), typically has less acorn flour than the original Korean version.

Raw acorn noodles are slightly coarser in cut and texture and more brittle than standard buckwheat soba noodles. Cooked acorn soba noodles are nuttier in flavor, healthier, and slightly saltier than buckwheat noodles. In particular, they contain many antioxidants and may be considered an adaptogenic (anti-cancerous) food.

Differences between starch and flour bases

A common problem among Korean-manufactured products is that their ingredient labels are often not properly translated. Acorn starch is frequently mislabeled as acorn flour or acorn powder. In reality, acorn starch is essentially highly-refined acorn flour, devoid of fiber, fat, and almost all nutrition. While the acorn itself does indeed contain acorn starch, that starch is not highly-refined. Acorn starch, in contrast, is extracted from the meat of the kernel using a wet process and then dehydrated. The heart, or germ, of the kernel is removed and used for producing acorn oil, which is comparable in flavor and quality to olive oil. The hull is separated from the kernel meat, and the starch is extracted from the kernel meat. It might be more accurate to use the term “acorn meal”, although a meal is a coarser, less refined version of flour.

Both flour and starch-based acorn noodles are available in upscale

Luxury good

Luxury goods are products and services that are not considered essential and associated with affluence.The concept of luxury has been present in various forms since the beginning of civilization. Its role was just as important in ancient western and eastern empires as it is in modern societies...

Korean markets. A few Japanese markets also carry acorn soba noodles, but in general, acorn soba noodles are difficult to find.