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How to Use Pine Trees for Food

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Jonathon Engels, a long-time vegetarian turned vegan, is currently on a trip from Guatemala to... Read More

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Getting into foraging is an endlessly interesting and incredibly self-empowering experience. Some things are easy forage: blueberries, blackberries, raspberries, acorns, etc. Some things require some knowledge to avoid toxic mistakes: fungi, weeds, flowers, etc. And, then, there are common plants we never guessed would be food.

Pine trees aren’t usually something found on menus, even wild food menus. However, the over 2000 species of pine trees have many edible parts and a lot of potential nutrients to tap into. The pine tree family encompasses spruces, larches, firs, and hemlocks (the trees, not the poisonous plants).

All that said, it’s still very important to do your due diligence to properly identify the tree you’ll be tasting. Foraging is not a time to make mistakes because sometimes those mistakes can be fatal. So, please use the following information only as a starting point for exploring these possibilities. Then, learn more.

Gathering and Eating Pine Nuts

The one part of the pine trees that commonly appear on menus is the pine nut. These are beloved treats that often feature toasted in salads, incorporated in dips, or rounding out pesto sauces. They show up in desserts, too.

However, most pine trees don’t have the tiny pine nuts we are accustomed to. They have even tinier ones that wouldn’t work for eating.

To find out if the pine trees you are dealing with have pine nuts worth the trouble, you need to collect unopened browning pine cones and put them in a paper bag. After that bag has sat in a warm, dry place for a while, check the bottom of it. In all likelihood, it’ll be tiny black seeds, but if they are sizable. They are edible!

With sizable pine nuts, roll them over with a rolling pin to separate the hull from the seed.

Brew Pine Needles for Medicinal Tea

Pine needles are available year-round, and while they aren’t so great for eating (a bit too chewy and tough), they make great tea. Using green pine needles, you can make a medicinal tea that’s high in vitamin C and good for respiratory issues. Plus, with a bit of lemon and sweetener, it tastes pretty darn good.

In a pinch, pine needles can be chewed for several minutes to extract nutrient-rich juices. Then, just spit the needles out and get a few more to chew on.

How to Cook Pine Cones

Male pine cones are the smaller, soft ones clustered around the ends of pine branches. They are what produce the pine pollen (also edible) and can be eaten raw, baked, or boiled. The trick is to look for them in the spring when they are young and green.

That pollen is a good source of several B vitamins, vitamin C, and vitamin E.

Often pine cones are used to make syrup by candying the pine cones and letting them steep in a jar of sugary juices. This can be drizzled on toast, yogurt, or pancakes similarly to honey.

Can You Find Pine Cambium to Eat It?

Cambium is the inner bark of a tree. It’s not the hard, nobly outer bark that we recognize as bark. It’s also not the wood of the tree. It’s the thin layers that separate the outer bark from the wood. And, it’s edible.

Pine cambium can be shaved off the tree, dried, and ground into flour. It works well in cookies, such as substituting half the oats in oatmeal cookie recipes with pine flour.

The other way to try pine cambium is to make “pine bacon”. This is thin slivers of pine cambium fried in a bit of butter or oil. It makes a crunchy bacon-like treat.

Tap That Pine for Sap to Drink

There are tons of trees, not just maples, that can be tapped for their sap. Birch, black walnut, and butternut all make notably tasty syrup. Pine trees, too, can be tapped for sap, and it’s got some medicinal prowess.

To tap a pine tree, or any tree for that matter, you’ll need a tree that’s at least 18 inches in diameter. It requires cutting a v-shaped gash in the tree and drilling a hole two inches deep at the base of the cut. Insert a spile and fix a bucket beneath it to catch the sap.

The nice thing about pine sap—used for all sorts of things besides eating—is that it can often be gathered by cutting the tree.

Pine sap can be put into tea for quick use, or it can be boiled down a la maple syrup to make pine syrup. Making syrup is an adventure for those with time and patience.

Pine trees are beautiful, aromatic trees that provide green loveliness all year, and now, it turns out, they can provide something to eat, too. Who knew?

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