Can you eat your Christmas Tree?

[dragnlaw]

Well, it turns out you can...

Ways to Eat Your Christmas Tree

 

[blissful]

Are you that hungry?

Sometimes my husband gets me pine needles from the big pine out back. I take all the needles off the branch. I make a tea, chopping needles finely with a scissors, and lots of them (otherwise it doesn't taste as 'piney'), add boiling water and steep. It's pleasant and almost but not quite minty leaving your mouth feeling very fresh.

 

[pepperhead212]

Though I've never done it, I've seen miniature Christmas trees made from shaped rosemary plants. They were about 3' tall, the ones I've seen. And one year I made my "tree" out of a red habanero pepper, that I had in a large pot, and I started shaping it well before bringing it in, and I kept it under a MH light, until about a week before Christmas, before bringing it downstairs, and decorated it a little, but the peppers and green leaves were the main decor. I never did that again, and that was before the days of taking photos of everything - it was in the mid/late 90s, sometime, I think. Never did it again - once was enough.

 

[taxlady]

The Saami use part of the bark of various conifers and of birch as flour for bread making. It is often supplemented with flour made from grain. Among non-indigenous Scandinavians it was usually considered a nasty tasting famine food. The Saami used it all the time, so they know how to use it in ways that apparently taste good. I have been wanting to try making some bark bread for a long time.

 

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

Buon appitite!

 

[Kathleen]

The Saami use part of the bark of various conifers and of birch as flour for bread making. It is often supplemented with flour made from grain. Among non-indigenous Scandinavians it was usually considered a nasty tasting famine food. The Saami used it all the time, so they know how to use it in ways that apparently taste good. I have been wanting to try making some bark bread for a long time.

Have you had it? What does it taste like?

 

[blissful]

Should you eat your Christmas tree? Will your Christmas guests come back next year?

 

[taxlady]

Buon appitite!

I don't think that one is certified organic.

 

[taxlady]

Have you had it? What does it taste like?

No, I haven't had it. That's one reason I want to make it. I don't live anywhere near Saepmie (the Saami homeland area). it is surprisingly hard to source the right kinds of bark when you live in a suburb, especially in a condo. While there are lots of conifers on the common grounds of our condo association, I don't know what kinds of trees they are. I also don't want people getting upset if I start cutting bark off of those trees.

 

[blissful]

I also don't want people getting upset if I start cutting bark off of those trees.

And it could kill the trees by making them susceptible to disease.
I've been waiting to drill holes in one of our pines--for resin. I will harvest the resin knowing that we are taking that tree down that year.

Imagine living in a time when 90% of your time is spent making/building your own home/furnishings/clothing and making things into edible food sources. It's tedious at best. I'm betting that in that time people were much more thankful for their bread!

 

[GotGarlic]

Imagine living in a time when 90% of your time is spent making/building your own home/furnishings/clothing and making things into edible food sources. It's tedious at best. I'm betting that in that time people were much more thankful for their bread!

No kidding. I've been reading the Outlander series this year and the author goes into a lot of detail about that. Here's an excerpt of Claire checking their winter stores. At this point, they're living in the sparsely occupied western mountains of North Carolina in 1770. Imagine the work that went into growing, foraging and preserving all of this by hand, and it's just the food:

The corncrib was more than three-quarters full, though there were worrying quantities of mouse droppings on the ground outside. Adso (kitten) was growing rapidly, but perhaps not fast enough; he was just about the size of an average rat. Flour—that was a little low, only eight sacks. There might be more at the mill, though; I must ask Jamie.

Sacks of rice and dried beans, bushels of hickory nuts, butternuts, and black walnuts. Heaps of dried squash, burlap bag of oatmeal and cornmeal, and gallon upon gallon of apple cider and cider vinegar. A crock of salted butter, another of fresh, and a basket of spherical goat cheeses, for which I had traded a bushel of blackberries and another of wild currants. The rest of the berries had been carefully dried, along with the wild grapes, or made up into jam or preserve, and were presently hidden in the pantry, safe—I hoped—from childish depredations.

The honey. I stopped, pursing my lips. I had nearly twenty gallons of purified honey, and four large stone jars of honeycomb, gleaned from my hives and waiting to be rendered and made into beeswax candles. It was all kept in the walled cave that served as a stable, in order to keep safe from bears. It wasn’t safe from the children who had been deputed to feed the cows and pigs in the stable, though. I hadn’t seen any telltale sticky fingers or faces yet, but it might be as well to take some preventative steps.

Between meat, grain, and the small dairy, it looked as though no one would starve this winter. My concern now was the lesser but still important threat of vitamin deficiency. I glanced at the chestnut grove, its branches now completely bare. It would be a good four months before we saw much of fresh greenery, though I did have plenty of turnips and cabbage still in the ground.

The root cellar was reassuringly well-stocked, heady with the earthy smell of potatoes, the tang of onions and garlic, and the wholesome, bland scent of turnips. Two large barrels of apples stood at the back—with the prints of several sets of childish feet leading up to them, I saw.

I glanced up. Enormous clusters of wild scuppernong grapes had been hung from the rafters, drying slowly into raisins. They were still there, but the lower, more reachable bunches had been reduced to sprays of bare stems. Perhaps I needn’t worry about outbreaks of scurvy, then.

 

[rodentraiser]

I never ate a Christmas tree, but my dog almost did.

This was decades ago when I was still celebrating the joys of Christmas (and my only day off in December). I had a little 3ft tree on a table and I spent hours and hours threading popcorn to put on the tree. Came back from work the next afternoon and the tree was on its side and ol' Craterface had eaten all the popcorn. Why he didn't eat the string and the tree is still a mystery.

 

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

Have you had it? What does it taste like?

Reynolds wrap!

 

[CharlieD]

Big deal, we eat lettuce, whine not pine tree? Both are green, both grow from the ground.

 

[Sir_Loin_of_Beef]

But lettuce doesn't make your whole house smell nice.

 

[rodentraiser]

An open box of donuts makes your house smell nice, too, though.

 

[devanichol87]

While it may be tempting to snack on a beautifully decorated Christmas tree, it's important to remember that these trees are often treated with chemicals that are not meant for human consumption. While some parts of the tree may technically be edible, they can be quite difficult for our bodies to digest and may even cause irritation. To ensure a safe and enjoyable holiday season, it's best to stick to obtaining edible pine products from reputable sources. Trust me, your stomach will thank you.