You probably think a pine tree just stands there year after year, shedding a few needles, getting a little taller and not changing much at all. Most people don’t know that many parts of the white pine are edible. It would be a shame to find yourself in a survival situation and not know that white pine could save your life. You might be tempted to laugh off the possibility of ever finding yourself in a survival situation in this day and age with convenience stores on every other corner and cell phone towers ubiquitous in the landscape. But no matter how connected you are, Mother Nature always wins. People get lost, cars and snowmobiles break down, accidents happen, batteries die, severe weather occurs, GPS misdirects, power lines go down, terrorists attack. It could happen!
But I digress – back to the edibility of white pine. Three parts of the white pine tree are edible: the needles, the pollen and the inner bark. What is unique about white pine is that it provides food year round, while most foraged foods are available only in the warmer months.
The Native Americans depended on white pine to get them through long winters, boiling the needles in water for a nutritious tea high in vitamins A and C, and eating the inner bark to prevent starvation. Oddly, the name of the upstate New York Native American tribe “Adirondack,” is a derogatory term meaning “bark eaters” in the language of their sworn enemies the Iroquois who probably also depended on white pine to survive.
Eastern White Pine is the iconic long-needled evergreen tree of our northwoods. There are lots of evergreens – fir, spruce, juniper, arborvitae and pine – but only white pine has long needles held in bundles of five by a sheath called a fascicle. The cones on the white pine are long and slender, measuring up to 8” in length.
Eastern white pines are common in the entire eastern half of the United States. They are long lived – some specimens are estimated to be almost 500 years old. White pines grow fast and tall, commonly up to 100 feet and occasionally reaching 150 feet.
White pine needle tea is surprisingly tasty. It’s a combination of resinous, smooth, light and sweet. To avoid the resinous taste and retain the vitamin C, bring the water to a boil and then remove it from the heat to stop the boiling. Pour the hot water over finely chopped or snipped needles and steep about 10 minutes. The water will turn light yellow in color. Strain the needles from the water before drinking. Add a little honey if you wish.
White pine needles can be used like any herb to flavor salads, butters and vinegars for dressings. Clip or chop them into small pieces and add to potato, bean and pasta salads. Use in place of rosemary to flavor a rustic bread. Soak boughs and needles in water and wrap them around fish or other meats to roast or steam. Infuse needles in honey and drizzle it over ice cream or sharp cheeses.
Pine needles can also be candied and eaten out of hand or used to decorate cakes or other pastries. Syrup left over from candying process can be used as a soda base, to flavor alcoholic drinks, drizzled over ice cream, or as a glaze for poultry. If you let the syrup harden, you’ll get chunky, white pine infused sugar which can be eaten as a crunchy sweet candy or ground in a coffee grinder and used in any recipe. Here’s a tip – don’t let it harden in the pot or you’ll have a tough time getting it clean.
The easiest way to harvest pine needles is to collect boughs that fall to the ground after a windstorm. Otherwise, snip tips from growing branches. If the trees are young, snip from around the edges rather than from the top. Don’t harvest excessively from just one tree. If you don’t have time to use them immediately, the needles will keep a week or so in the refrigerator or stored in the freezer in vacuum sealed bags indefinitely.
Here’s the thing. Old pine needles have the most vitamin C, but younger, bright green needles have the best taste. So you decide. Also, the taste of needles varies from tree to tree depending on the soil and climate under which the pine has been growing. So if you don’t like your first try with pine needles, move on to another tree and try again.
The second edible gift from white pine, the pollen, is also relatively easy to collect. In spring small male pine cones appear. They look like tiny bunches of upturned bananas. You’ll know when they are producing pollen, first because of the strong pine smell, and second because when you brush against a bough, yellow ash will fly everywhere. Hold a paper bag or other container under the cones and shake the branch gently. This high protein pollen can be used as a substitute for or along with flour in any recipe, savory or sweet. The pollen can be stored in a glass jar for future use and will keep for several months.
Finally, pine bark. Collecting this takes more effort than just picking up downed branches or shaking them to collect pollen.
It’s not the warty outer bark that you can eat, it’s the soft inner white bark. Use a rock or sturdy stick to drive the point of a sharp knife through the outer bark and then score downward. Make a parallel line an inch or two away and then connect the lines along the bottom, making a tall thin rectangle. Pry the top of the strip away and peel the entire strip off the tree. Carving just a thin rectangle allows the tree to recover from the injury. Never cut more than 1/10th the diameter of any one tree and spread your harvest around to several trees. Older trees have much thicker layers of inner bark than younger trees and the thickest area is nearest the ground.
Use the knife or other sharp object to scrape any remaining inner bark still stuck to the tree and from the inside of the piece you’ve peeled off the tree. This is the sweetest and most tender part of the bark. The inner bark has the consistency of wet pasta, being limp, light in color and slippery.
There are four ways to eat white pine’s inner bark. The first is raw, something you’d only do in an absolute survival situation. It will provide nutrients but it takes a lot of chewing and may result in stomach cramps. Secondly, bark can be boiled. Again, not too tasty, but boiling will eliminate the stomach cramps.
The third method, frying, is the one that makes it all worthwhile. Cut or tear the bark strips into thin pasta-like pieces. Put them in a frying pan with oil, butter or animal fat over low heat. Stir to prevent burning and add salt to taste. These taste good – like potato chips!
Finally, the bark can be dried in a dehydrator, oven, over a fire, or in sunlight, and ground into flour. When completely dry, pound the strips between two rocks, use a mortar and pestle, or easiest of all, a food processor, until if forms a fine powder. Use as you’d use flour in any recipe.
You probably won’t be drinking pine needle tea alongside pine pollen pancakes with a side of deep fried pine bark regularly, but it’s fun to try once and good to know just in case one day you find yourself in a survival situation surrounded by a forest of edible white pine.
CAUTIONS
- The resin in white pine, which is found in every part of the tree, could cause an itchy rash in some people so try small quantities at first.
- Not that you’d even be tempted, but do not eat the outer bark of white pine, which is not edible.
- Be certain to identify the tree as white pine. Norfolk Island pine, yews, ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine and others are poisonous.
CANDIED PINE NEEDLES
Several bunches of white pine needles still attached to small branches
2 c. sugar
Rinse the needles and put them in a saucepan of water. Bring the water to a boil and then lower to simmer for 5 minutes. In another saucepan, stir the sugar into one cup of water. Bring to a boil and lower to a simmer for 5 minutes. Remove the needles from the first pot and immerse them in the sugar mixture. Simmer for 20 minutes. Use tongs to remove the needles from the syrup and gently spread them to dry on parchment paper or a silicone sheet. Let dry 24 hours. Tip: drink the water from the first pot in which the needles were simmered – it is high in Vitamin C and it tastes like liquid butterscotch!
MAKE GLUE!
The pitchy sap of white pine can be used to make a good strong glue, dependable enough to attach tools to their handles or an arrowhead to a shaft. Sap will ooze from an injury to the trunk or broken branches of pines. Collect as much sap as you can and put it in a metal can. Set the can in the coals of a dying fire and allow the turpentine and other volatiles to bubble away. If your can is small, remove it from the heat after a few minutes. Larger containers can stay on the heat for 20 to 30 minutes. The sap should be shiny and wet looking, and hard as a rock once it cools. If it’s still sticky when cool, put it back over the coals and cook it a little longer.
The glue can be blended with an aggregate material while it’s still hot to help prevent cracking. Use powdered charcoal, crushed eggshells, plant fibers, stone dust, or sand. To use the glue, reheat it to a molten state and also heat the two surfaces that you wish to glue together. Work quickly to apply the hot glue to the two heated pieces and attach them together. Let the glue cool. The bond will be slightly brittle, but secure and waterproof.
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