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RE: First forest foraging this year
Wonderful landscape! I love Scandinavia, Norway in particular still feels really unspoilt. Damn, it's been another four years since I was there...
It's great that you used this beautiful day for a hike - it really recharges the soul in the snow-covered spring... :-))
What do you do with the birch juice?
Four years? It's about time to visit Norway again. You're more than welcomed to use our guest bedroom if you will be visiting north of the Agder region ;)
Birch juice is the best when drank directly, a couple of days after harvesting. It can be frozen or fermented though (the taste of fermented juice is less sweet, more acidic). I know some people make the syrup out of it, but I never tried. It would require plenty of juice, I can imagine. Others do some creams, drugs, healing shampoos and stuff like that, but I'm very bad at herbal medicine. Not my thing - I'm focusing exclusively on getting food from the wild.
Oh, how exciting - an invitation to Norway... 😉
Well, who knows? One day. If I ever get to Norway again, I'll definitely let you know. At the moment, though, the signs aren't pointing to holidays, but sheep... 😁
Thanks for the clarification about the birch juice. I've read a lot about it (including that it's supposed to be relatively easy to harvest), but I've never tried it or drunk the juice. I also have absolutely no idea of the quantities that can be harvested. Years ago I ‘accidentally’ sawed a fairly strong branch from a birch tree in spring. It dripped for weeks! For weeks I had a guilty conscience that I might have killed the tree! It survived, but I didn't try the juice... 🫣
You just make the hole in a tree and put the straw inside, and the tree starts leaking drop by drop. You can leave the jar attached by rope to the tree right below and come back after couple of hours.
What probably not every source is saying, it's important to cover the hole later, so the tree does not get easily infected. In a long term it may hurt the tree.
Drill would be perfect for that. All I have is not-so-sharp knife, so I would sweat more liquid, than I could possibly collect :D
Difficult to tap the branch, but I'm sure the tree was fine. If it would be so fragile, it would extinct with all those animals into the wild :)
Can't promise that I will try it, but if, I will give you a note... ;-)
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