Nut Fest pie

Baking up an arboreal diet for the Midwest

Trees provided the refreshments at this year’s Nut Fest in Madison, Wisconsin. The food table at our host, Alex Tanke’s, house featured acorns, pecans, hickories, black walnuts, hazelnuts, and chestnuts—all nuts that grow abundantly in the Midwest.

This might sound like a giant trail mix for squirrels, but the array of nut-based cakes, breads, cheeses, soup, pudding, pies, and cookies contributed by participants was proof that local trees can feed humans too—if we learn how to eat their nuts.