Hetuck is an edible and nutritious gruel made by Midwestern Indians by blanching, roasting and crushing the buckeye, a large nut from the buckeye tree related to the horse chestnut. Raw the buckeye is bitter and poisonous due to its tannic acid content. "Hetuck" is the Indian word for "eye of the buck deer".
Hetuck is what I found on a poetry site. It is about the Iroquois and the He-tuck or Buck-eye. Hetuck is what I found on a poetry site. It is about the Iroquois and the He-tuck or Buck-eye.
The seeds and bark are slightly poisonous and bitter tasting. The properties can be eliminated by heating and leaching. The Native Americans roasted, peeled and mashed the buckeye nut, which they called "Hetuck," into a nutritional meal.