Book Talk--“Feed Us with Trees: Nuts and the Future of Food” by Elspeth Hay

The Vineyard Haven Public Library and the Chilmark Free Public Library are pleased to co-host Cape Cod author and journalist Elspeth Hay for a discussion about her new book, “Feed Us with Trees: Nuts and the Future of Food.” This event will be held at 12:00 PM on Thursday, July 16th, at the Chilmark Free Public Library, located at 522 State Road in Chilmark. Free and open to the public. No registration required, but space is limited. 

This collaborative program builds on two related initiatives: 

• Chilmark Library’s new Friends, Foraging and Fermenting club, which will hold its first official meeting in September. For more information, email Lynne McCormack at chil.programs@gmail.com or visit the Chilmark Library website;
• Vineyard Haven Library’s Science and Nature Book Club, which will read and discuss “Feed Us with Trees” at its July 1st meeting. For more information, email Liz Shick at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org or visit the Vineyard Haven Library website. 

About the book:

GOLD winner of the 2026 Nautilus Book Award for Restorative Earth Practices, “Feed Us with Trees” is a new and ancient story about perennial nut trees, our ecological role as humans, and the future of food. The day Elspeth Hay learned that we can eat acorns, stories she’d believed her whole life began to unravel. Until then she’d always believed we must grow our staple foods in farmed fields—the same fields wreaking havoc on our land, air, and water. But all over the Northern Hemisphere, Hay learned, humans once grew our staple foods in forest gardens centered on perennial nut trees: oaks, chestnuts, and hazelnuts. In “Feed Us with Trees,” Hay brings us along as she gets to know dozens of nut growers, scientists, Indigenous knowledge-keepers, researchers, and food professionals—and discovers that in tending these staple trees, we once played a vital environmental role as one of Earth’s keystone species.

“Feed Us with Trees” is Hay’s hopeful manifesto about a brighter, more abundant future—and a critical look at the long-held stories we’ll need to rewrite to build it. It will appeal to environmentalists, regenerative farmers, permaculture enthusiasts, agroforesters, locavores, and anyone hungry for a more holistic, nutrient-dense diet rooted in wild foods and ancient knowledge.

About the presenter: 

Elspeth Hay is a writer, public radio host, and creator of the Local Food Report, a weekly feature that has aired on CAI, the Cape & Islands NPR Station, since 2008. Deeply immersed in her own local food system, she writes and reports for print, radio, and online media with a focus on food and the environment. Elspeth’s work has been featured in the Boston Globe, NPR’s Kitchen Window, Heated with Mark Bittman, The Provincetown Independent, and numerous other publications. Through her conversations with growers, harvesters, processors, cooks, policy makers, Indigenous knowledge-keepers, scientists, researchers, and visionaries, she aims to rebuild our cultural store of culinary knowledge—and to reconnect us with the people, places, and ideas that feed us. Elspeth lives with her family on Cape Cod, MA

For more information, please contact the Chilmark Library at chil.programs@gmail.com / (508) 645-3360 or the Vineyard Haven Library at vhpl_programs@clamsnet.org / (508) 696-4211.