Food Trees: The Riches of Trees to Feed People and Animals

There is an essential connivance that has always united the life of trees with that of human and non-human animals. For wild animals, well-being often comes from the cover of the trees' foliage, the food they provide, the resources and protection of their branches and trunks.

Blackthorn, beech, Scots pine, spruce, hawthorn, elderberry, black locust, dog rose, lime, wild cherry, ash, bramble, hazel, barberry, sea buckthorn, oak, chestnut, dogwood, rowan, service tree, service tree… throughout the seasons, Pascal Gérold allows us to observe the magnificence of the different species. For each species of tree and shrub, he gives us harvesting tips, cooking recipes, wild remedies from their bark, fruit or leaves, and their taste characteristics.

This book, richly illustrated with live photographs, reminds us how essential trees are to our existence and the benefits that humanity has derived from them since its appearance: even dead, trees are conducive to the profusion of life!

“Thank you, a fabulous trip.” Axel KAHN

The author: A naturalist and nature guide by profession, Pascal Gérold has been passionate about trees and their links with humans and animals for many years. As such, during guided outings or screenings, he takes the general public to discover local species along hedges, country groves or forest edges.

His favorite field of discovery: the sandstone Vosges and other natural environments of northern Alsace. His latest book, "Le Crépuscule des blaireaux" (special jury prize at the 2017 nature book fair in Strasbourg), allowed him to evoke the relationship between plants and animals, through its twilight hero. A nutritional relationship that benefits both parties and, by extension, all the wild fauna of which you will find many examples in this book. A fan of wild cuisine, he is also interested in the vast culinary and medicinal potential that beeches, rose hips, lime trees, hawthorns and other service trees can provide us, by conducting his little investigation among the herbalists, cooks and distillers of the region.

The preface: Doctor of medicine and doctor of science, Axel Kahn is notably a research director at INSERM. His scientific work focuses in particular on gene control, genetic diseases, cancer and nutrition. In 2013 and 2014, he crossed France on foot by two large diagonals of approximately two thousand kilometers each: from Givet in the Ardennes to the Belgian border to the Spanish border in the Pyrenees, then the Basque coast the first year. From the Pointe du Raz to the Italian border in the Alps, then Menton the second. Since 2014, he has been asked to present his observations on rurality and the state of real France. Axel Kahn is a Knight of Arts and Letters, Officer of the Legion of Honor and Agricultural Merit, Commander of the National Order of Merit. He is the author of many works to discover on http://axelkahn.fr.