Want Hope? Look Up
Feed Us With Trees is a game-changer of a book.
In these days of uncertainty, with the specter of scarcity hanging over us, it helps to know there are generous giants in our midst. Prolific and productive, they stand ready to provide and nourish. I'm talking about trees. Oak trees, specifically. Also chestnuts. And hazelnuts, too.
Long before humans invented fences and plows, well before bread and corn, humans all over the planet were farming nut trees. The United States is no exception. Just two centuries ago, giant swaths of this country were oak savannas that provided food and fertile hunting grounds. The existence of these tree forests and their subsequent demise were no accident. Indigenous people used fire to manipulate the environment and maximize nut harvests for thousands of years. When European colonists arrived and began to move westward, they began turning what what we've been taught was unproductive wilderness into the tilled fields that today we call farms. Of the estimated 32 million acres that had once provided nutrient-dense food and habitat for humans, animals, birds and insects, fewer than 6,500 acres of oak savannas remain.
Is this surprising to you? It was to me. I have writer, ecologist and longtime friend Elspeth Hay to thank for helping me understand the colonial project that is still rearing its ugly head today and for upending the belief that we need to trade wilderness for farms in order to feed our growing population. Her book, Feed Us With Trees, is out and I recommend you get a copy today. It's a page-turner of a detective story that begins when she watches a TEDx talk about acorns. We can eat them, she learns. Suddenly, the forest around her — the one she thought was devoid of human food — looks different. She learns how to leach the tannins from tree nuts, drying and cracking and pulsing them into flour. How, she wonders, had she grown up thinking acorns were toxic and for the birds? And how did this knowledge of our not-so-ancient food system get lost?
With a recorder and a long list of questions, Elspeth travels across the country to meet the people who could help piece the puzzle together. She meets Ron Reed, a Karuk medicine man, cultural biologist and Indigenous activist who takes her to his ancestral home in Northern California where his grandparents once cultivated oaks. Just a few generations ago, there was an abundance of acorns. There was also an abundance of animals to hunt and salmon to catch. The cultural or prescribed fires the Karuk burned enhanced nut production, curtailed overgrowth in the river basin, prevented wildfires and contributed to the biodiversity of the area. Karuk homeland is now a National Forest, pristine wilderness governed by rules and regulations that prohibit fire. As a result, the salmon population was decimated and acorns are diminished. But, there’s hope for this once prolific tree forest, Elspeth learns. Reed and other indigenous activists have had some big wins recently. The river has been undammed and they’ve gotten fire back on the land.
The future for nut trees is bright elsewhere, too. Elspeth meets up with farmers in the Midwest who are getting exciting results in their efforts to increase productivity and resistance to blight. She runs the numbers on corn vs. tree nuts and learns that nuts are vastly superior by many measures, including calories and soil health. More importantly, she questions the story that she learned as a kid that humans must sacrifice habitable land to feed our growing population.
When Elspeth first told me about her obsession with tree nuts, I had no idea how big of a story they would tell. Feed Us With Trees is a game-changer of a book that will challenge many of your assumptions about scarcity and abundance. Given that all of us need to eat — several times a day — it's time to get the story right about how we grow our food.
If you are like me, you'll never look up in the same way again. It is an altered — and elevated — view of the world, a reclamation of lost knowledge that feels necessary and hopeful in this moment.
FROM THE INSTITUTE OF PLEASURE STUDIES
Elspeth and I have been in a decade-long conversation about how we can help create a culture that sustains humans and the environment we inhabit.
This is the central premise of the The Commons Keepers, the organization we co-founded this year. For hundreds of years, commoners have been stewards of collectively managed resources; today, we're remembering and reconnecting sacred and innovative approaches to caring for our shared land, water, and air—and to caring for one another.
We held our first gathering, WaterKeepers, last month in the woods of the Outer Cape near the National Seashore, our modern-day commons. We tended fire, created a water ceremony, foraged with local herbalist, learned about the largest salt marsh restoration project in North America and oystered with local women shell fishermen who make a living harvesting wild oysters in the bay of Cape Cod.
Under a canopy of oaks, we envisioned - and created - the world we want to inhabit. A world where humans take care of the land and waters and they in turn, provide for us. All of us.
The CommonsKeepers is just beginning. Join our mailing list to find out about future events.
If you are on Cape Cod on July 15th, Elspeth is hosting a book launch/tree nut extravaganza at the Truro Vineyard. Free. RSVP here.
Purchase a copy of Feed Us With Trees here. While you’re at it, get a copy for a friend so you can go out for a walk and talk about it!
Thank you Susanna!! I appreciate you reading and your encouragement -- and celebration!! You will love this book.
Congratulations to you, Elspeth and your team on an inspired, multifaceted project!