Joan Montserrat

Where are you from?

I was born and raised in Esparreguera, close to Barcelona in Catalonia, north-eastern Spain.

What is your professional background?

I graduated in Economics and worked on quite a few non-oak related jobs afterwards; accountancy, Chinese language translation, industrial machinery, and others—always, though, enjoying the technical side much more than the business fuss.

How did your interest in oaks start?

My oak calling came quite late. I lived for 6 years in China, in the spicy and cloudy town of Chengdu. There, although very close to the western Himalayas and surrounded by the stunning landscapes of the Sichuan province, the busy life in such a huge and densely populated city made me feel far away from nature. It was then that my interest in trees and agriculture took hold.

Once back home, I listened one day to my grandmother explaining that when she was a kid they would go to the forest to pick the acorns of two particular trees which were sweet and that they used to eat them roasted on the wood stove, without any processing. That triggered my sweet-acorn obsession and my “quest” began to find the trees that bore sweet acorns.

As befits any good epic quest, the beginnings were difficult and disappointing; sweetness is of course a very relative concept, especially when linked to post-Spanish Civil War childhood memories. While traveling up and down the Iberian Peninsula, too often when people said “sweet acorns," they actually meant “not-that-bitter acorns” as in: “I can eat a whole one when feeling brave.” I guess all oak enthusiasts know the feeling.

I started to think that I was after a chimera, but again, like any good quest story requires, I persisted stubbornly in my efforts. Later on, we (at this point my obsession had already spread . . .) found acorns that were not bitter at all but tasteless as a piece of cork. This dullness proved to us that very-low-tannin acorns exist, but that this characteristic is not enough to make it a tasty acorn. Meanwhile we had to overcome some serious drawbacks, like the Xilella fastidiosa outbreak in Mallorca and the subsequent quarantine for plant material, including the genus Quercus—ouch! Our plans of harvesting scions on the island for grafting were ruined and we had to focus our search on the dehesa zones of south-eastern Spain.

But finally—yes, here comes the happy ending—we found them and they are amazing!

As counter intuitive as it may sound, sweet acorns, when eaten straight from the tree, are a little bitter, but the rich flavor is already there hiding behind the astringency. After about three or four weeks at room temperature, the bitterness goes away and they become delicious, either raw or cooked. The naughty tannins work in mysterious ways, but definitely not always against us.

Currently we continue with our search for the best sweet-acorn-bearing trees and we are also setting up a tree nursery with the goal of developing the sweet acorn as a human food crop. You can find more at: www.balanotrees.org

How did you come to join IOS?

I found about the IOS surfing the web and I immediately knew I needed to be part of it.

Which is your favorite oak?

The ones with the sweet nuts! I know them as Quercus ilex subsp. rotundifolia (or ballota), but there is probably some serious taxonomic discussion going on about the name.[1]

I live in a dry Mediterranean climate zone with alkaline soil and there is not much oak variety around here, just plenty of Q. ilex and Q. coccifera with the occasional Q. faginea or Q. pubescens. I don't know much about oak species from other places of the world and this is also a reason for me to join the IOS.

An oak anecdote you would like to share?

In Mallorca, I had the honor to learn how to graft oak trees from Simó dels Horts, the traditional way. Simó is 90 years old and after a life spent on the fields he has accumulated an encyclopedic knowledge on nature and agriculture. Once each graft is carefully completed he recites a sentence in Catalan, “Jo t’afic, Déu t’aferr!” which translates to something like this: “I put you in, God makes you take!” Afterwards he would jokingly add that this very same principle works for making kids.

Anything else you would like to add?

Just to thank all the people behind the IOS, wonderful job. I hope I'll have the chance to meet some of you in person soon.

Photos © Joan Montserrat