Worth the Work Pine Projects
Pine projects with quince jelly.
Prepping a meal of pine noodles with wild onion, violets, and daylilies.
If we had not had the fierce winter storms that blew through this year (I have not seen SO many downed trees since the tornados hit Appomattox!), I wouldn’t be wandering by a slew of horizontal pines along the pasture, still alive, thus leaving itty bitty pinecones in easy reach of collection. There are clouds of pollen, still-green catkins, and baby cones, so why not eat them?
Pine recipes are scarce, but the applications are diverse, often originating from Georgia, as in: the country. There’s pine honey, pine jam, spruce tips, catkins, pine pollen... Recipes also originate from Native Americans, Appalachia, and Turkey.
The spring temperatures rose then dove from an unseasonable 80 to frost. Rain was coming, so I collected ingredients to keep busy indoors. When I went up to toss hay, I gathered redbud and quince blossoms; when I looked for morels, I returned with pine cones, pollen, and buds. Now I could work on all sorts of pine projects on the cook stove, while also slinging some of the usual quince and redbud jellies. Now and then, I'd dash outside to grab daylilies, violets, and the first asparagus for a meal.
Pick pine cones the size of your pinkie nail. Make sure that when you pull them off, you see green where they break from the branch, and even if brown, that they are juicy and green under the brown exterior spikyness, and not dry. Add almost equal sugar, then ACV + water, a little salt, bring to a boil, then simmer until it’s reduced and dark.
A lot of people boil, take it off the stove, boil, cool, and boil, but I don’t see the point in that. It’s said it is done to create jam thickness without pectin, but why not just thicken with a long simmer? Somewhere, a food scientist will know. In the meantime, my jam is plenty thick. Many people also scoop off any resin that rises, but I don’t do that either, I want it to be pine tasting! It ends up tasting like… pine honey, hence its common name. I add ACV and would equate it to almost a balsamic vinegar maple-syrup-ish kind of experience. My pine cone jam is thick, dark, concentrated, rich, and delicious; I’m perfectly happy with it.
Pine Cone Pollen:
You can put this in sauces as you cook, think of it like nutritional yeast.
Fermented Pine Cones (also called mugolio):
Pine cones + sugar, shake the jar, keep in a sunny area and open it every now & then. Let it sit for months (shaking regularly) until it’s dark and ready. These cones don’t need to be so tiny since you’re not eating them, just the syrup, so they can be larger as long as they’re still green and juicy.
Pine Bud Capers:
Strip green buds from catkins + ACV/water. I even put a little pollen in it, why not?
Pine Soda:
THIS recipe is the easiest! Just add needles, a little sugar (honey, sugar, molasses…) and water, and let it sit 2-3 days (burp after 3, careful not to explode the bottle).
Pine Cone Pasta:
Into a pan with sizzling mayonnaise, I cooked chicken, and after I turned it and started to break it up with the spatula, I tossed in sliced wild onions, chopped daylillies, violet leaves, then soaked noodles, and after that sat with the lid on, dashed in hot sauce and soy before being stirred. I am really craving crispy, slightly greasy noodles with fresh veggies this week! As it’s sitting and sizzling in the pan, I liberally drizzled over some pine cone jam and stirred it to sit again before serving.
Further reading:
Conifers Phytochemicals: A Valuable Forest with Therapeutic Potential
GREAT all-things-pine overview: https://foragerchef.com/mugolio-pine-cone-syrup
https://georgianjournal.ge/georgian-cuisine/32745-georgian-pine-cone-jam-from-borjomi.html
https://biteintothis.substack.com/p/the-mysteries-and-science-of-jam
The spring temperatures rose then dove from an unseasonable 80 to frost. Rain was coming, so I collected ingredients to keep busy indoors. When I went up to toss hay, I gathered redbud and quince blossoms; when I looked for morels, I returned with pine cones, pollen, and buds. Now I could work on all sorts of pine projects on the cook stove, while also slinging some of the usual quince and redbud jellies. Now and then, I'd dash outside to grab daylilies, violets, and the first asparagus for a meal.
Pine Cone Jam (or Pine Honey):
A lot of people boil, take it off the stove, boil, cool, and boil, but I don’t see the point in that. It’s said it is done to create jam thickness without pectin, but why not just thicken with a long simmer? Somewhere, a food scientist will know. In the meantime, my jam is plenty thick. Many people also scoop off any resin that rises, but I don’t do that either, I want it to be pine tasting! It ends up tasting like… pine honey, hence its common name. I add ACV and would equate it to almost a balsamic vinegar maple-syrup-ish kind of experience. My pine cone jam is thick, dark, concentrated, rich, and delicious; I’m perfectly happy with it.
With the quince jelly and pine cone jam simmering on the cook stove, the house SMELLS AAAAAA-MAZING, like candy!
Quince and pine cone jam slowly simmering away...
You can put this in sauces as you cook, think of it like nutritional yeast.
Fermented Pine Cones (also called mugolio):
Pine cones + sugar, shake the jar, keep in a sunny area and open it every now & then. Let it sit for months (shaking regularly) until it’s dark and ready. These cones don’t need to be so tiny since you’re not eating them, just the syrup, so they can be larger as long as they’re still green and juicy.
Strip green buds from catkins + ACV/water. I even put a little pollen in it, why not?
Pine Soda:
THIS recipe is the easiest! Just add needles, a little sugar (honey, sugar, molasses…) and water, and let it sit 2-3 days (burp after 3, careful not to explode the bottle).
The next day, walking with a friend, we were talking about pine and I explained, “I grew up with a family farm, but we weren’t into so much foraging… we knew about pawpaws and nuts and berries, but the real reason I got into wild food was exhaustion. There I’d be, alone on this farm with two little kids, my husband in DC, and the closest grocery store a half hour away. I was SO tired, I just didn’t want to load up the kids and drive allllll that way into town just to get some salad. So I’d start looking around to see what was up and ask, “Can we eat that?” The next thing you know, I’m serving chicken pasta with sauteed daylillies, wild onions, violet leaves and pine cone jam for dinner!
Pine Cone Pasta:
Into a pan with sizzling mayonnaise, I cooked chicken, and after I turned it and started to break it up with the spatula, I tossed in sliced wild onions, chopped daylillies, violet leaves, then soaked noodles, and after that sat with the lid on, dashed in hot sauce and soy before being stirred. I am really craving crispy, slightly greasy noodles with fresh veggies this week! As it’s sitting and sizzling in the pan, I liberally drizzled over some pine cone jam and stirred it to sit again before serving.
Conifers Phytochemicals: A Valuable Forest with Therapeutic Potential
GREAT all-things-pine overview: https://foragerchef.com/mugolio-pine-cone-syrup
https://georgianjournal.ge/georgian-cuisine/32745-georgian-pine-cone-jam-from-borjomi.html
https://biteintothis.substack.com/p/the-mysteries-and-science-of-jam
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