Surviving winter. What to harvest and what to do with it. Conifer time!

Long time, no see! I’ve been away for a while, suffering from anxiety and exhaustion. I wanted to cook and write, but lacked the energy. I’m still not well by far, but seem to be having an energetic day today. Today is sunny but chilly here in Mid-Sweden. Still no real winter, thanks for that. I like winter, but life is a lot easier without the cold and snow. It is time for winter foraging in the wild anyway, summer is long gone.

 Needles from both spruce and pine are said to be very rich in vitamin C in the winter, and I really like how they taste so that’s the theme for today.

Last week I learned how to take down a tree. My first victim was a spruce (Norway spruce, Picea abies), and I brought some of it home with me. So far I’ve had it for tea, lovely but tends to be a bit strong and bitter, so today I wanted to try some other things. Google is my friend, and together with a book by the Swedish author and expert survivalist, Stefan Källman, Google shared lots of fun stuff with me.

Marinade

Making a marinade from spruce, salt, pepper (pink, black and white) and olive oil. Not easy to crush, though. I don’t know what to marinade it with, but it smells nice. How about fish..? I can imagine that working nicely. (from http://www.dagsattplocka.se/recept/?category=Seitan) In, Swedish, I’m sorry about that.

 Tea

Boiling tea from fresh pine needles (Scots pine, Pinus sylvestris) to put in an insulated bottle, boiling it the Stefan Källman way, for about 20 minutes.  Make sure that you don’t add the needles to the water before it’s boiling to retain the vitamins. Boil the brew carefully, I think simmering is best.

The sun is shining, I should be getting out.  

More pine needles, soon to be dried in the oven and turned into tea and/or green flour. I love pine neddle tea. But so far I have only tried it with fresh needles and a long boil, se above! I just read that you could try roasted needles and brew like normal tea. 

I roasted/dried them in 120 ͦ C oven till they were crispy dry, but not yet brown.  Result: It’s good but… harmless. The turpentine flavour gets less prominent and the tea is, well, more tea-ish. Tea from fresh needles tends to get very strong and bitter, which is ok if you want that, as a replacement for coffee rather than tea. You might even need to add some extra water to drink it. This, on the other hand, is tea. This is absolutely tea. From Henriette’s herbal: http://www.henriettes-herb.com/sv/sb-trad.html

(In the middle of the picture: a jar with sprouts-to-be. Fresh veggies all winter!)

According to Stefan Källman, you can boil young (outer) bark as well, and get yourself a nice beverage. I haven’t tried it, though. More about bark further below.

I managed to get out in the sun, eventually. As I walked around in the forest with my insulated bottle, sipping my tea in the cold sun, I felt that I could improve the brew. How about adding some chai spices..? Wouldn’t that blend smoothly with pine and/or spruce?

I just did.

Alexandra’s Spruce Chai

Yes, I just made something wonderful! And I made it up myself! And it’s the new love of my life! I give you  SPRUCE CHAI:

 I boiled spruce twigs in water with chai spices for 20 minutes:  one whole cardamon, one piece of cinnamon, some allspice and two star anises. I could have added clover as well, but forgot it this time. After boiling, I poured some in a mug, and topped up with milk. WOW! I was planning to add honey as well, but no. It’s perfect the way it is.

The taste is soft and lovely, at the same time as being intense and filling, so one (big) cup is enough.

Spruce chai. Yes, I know, the water should be boiling hot before adding the spruce, but this makes a better picture. ;)

Another tea tip: I tried mixing fresh needles with dried elderberry flowers one evening, producing a very nice evening tea.  I don’t remember if I used pine or spruce that time, but it’s probably ok with either.

Oil

 Would you like some spruce oil with your salad?

Yes, spruce oil, for use in cooking, soap and whatnot. I cut the twigs in small pieces (should I perhaps have tried using only the needles?), filled the jar to ¾ with them and then topped the jar up with a vegetable oil. I used rapeseed, but I think you can use whatever you want. Now it’s supposed to stand in a window for 2-3 weeks, and be turned daily. (Source: Shenet.se, a wonderful site! http://www.shenet.se/referens/eng.html)

Dessert

I must try this weird sorbet. Or, maybe not so weird, it actually sounds delicious:

http://www.recept.nu/gastrologik/efterratter_och_godis/_/mutzo_apple_tallbarrs_sorbet/

250 g sugar

250 g water

1 kg apples peeled, in pieces

20 g pine needles

Boil sugar and water, let it then cool down.  Add the apple pieces and the pine needles. Mix it thoroughly.  Remove bits and pieces with a sieve, then freeze. 

I'll get back to you on this. With a picure of the actual dish.

Another thing I would like to try: to make Flour

…but that harms the trees, ending the trees possibility of transporting solutes above the part which I have cut. So I don’t.

But if I would and could, I would use pine and remove the outer bark, aiming to harvest the inner bark, sweet and rich in nutrients. This I would dry and turn into flour. This kind of flour has been used through centuries in times of poverty and starvation in my part of the world. But some people used (are using?) it on a daily basis, like the Sami people, Native Americans,   people in Siberia, and Inuits (Source: Källman, again). There’s no gluten, so ideally you would mix it with at least half and half ordinary flour. But I want gluten-free flour, so it would suit me fine.

If you are interested in archaeology, and extremely lucky, you can find remains of bark-harvesting on really old trees.  But old trees are scarce these days.

More bark:

According to Källman, you can actually eat the bark- and now I believe that he means the outer bark- from really young pine trees, if you roast them first (150 ͦC, 20 minutes). Then they turn into something really sweet and nice. How about that?

(It is a wonderful book, it really ought to be translated into English. Stefan Källman, wild plants for food and medicine: http://www.bokus.com/bok/9789153426394/vilda-vaxter-som-mat-och-medicin/ I have only cited a little of all the valuable knowledge about pines and spruce in this book so far)

Alkoholic beverages

Swedish naturalist Linnaeus wrote of the pine trees in a certain part of Lapland; how they lay unused, apart from being used for distillation with Rowanberries. I don’t know how they did it though, I’m sorry.  He didn’t elaborate on that.

In my family we tried making spruce-flavoured mead a while ago, it turned out really nice. But it is still very young, not a year old yet, so we expect it to mature into something even nicer. 

Now, bye bye, and nighty night! Hope that we meet soon again!