About this episode

This episode explores the historical significance of acorns as a food source and the factors that led to their decline in modern diets.

I'm willing to bet that most of our listeners - like us - have traditionally seen acorns as food for squirrels, not people. But as Elspeth Hay [https://elspethhay.com/] points out in this conversation, that assumption says more about our food system than it does about the acorn. For much of human history, acorns were a staple. They fed communities across North America, Europe, North Africa, and Asia - and in some cases - still do. They were managed, processed, stored, and celebrated. So how did we go from acorns as everyday food to acorns as woodland debris? In her fantastic book Feed Us with Trees, Elspeth traces how enclosure, industrial agriculture, and a narrow definition of "real farming" pushed perennial forest foods to the margins of our imagination. In this episode, we dive into: • Why acorns were once reliable staple crops, not novelty ingredients • The myth that we can only feed ourselves with annual row crops • How the loss of commons reshaped our relationship to forests and food • What Indigenous land management, including fire, meant for food abundance • The false divide between farming and foraging • How pigs, oaks, and people once formed integrated food systems •…

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