Pine Bark Bacon: Natures Treat

Bacon doesn’t grow on trees. Right? Well maybe it does. I was reading a blog post on Survival Sherpa about uses for pine. It was a list of 13 things you can do with a pine tree. I got to the seventh one and my jaw hit the floor. Pine Bark Bacon. Wait what? Bacon from trees! Have I died and gone to heaven? How have I missed this fact? I knew that the pine tree has many edible parts. I enjoy drinking pine needle tea. I rely on it to keep me from getting colds every year. I also knew the inner bark was edible. I did not know about pine bark bacon though.

I knew the moment I read about pine bark bacon I would be eating it. Soon. Today Dave and I from Dual Homestead were debarking a pine tree. Using brush axes as bark spuds. No safety Sally’s I don’t want to hear about it. They did a great job as bark spuds. The whole time though I wanted a draw knife. Or my trusty Buck Hoodlum. With all the bark removed I peeled some of the inner bark off to bring home I came in the door kicked my boots off and starter frying the pine bark bacon. I was so excited to get to it.

Pine Bark Bacon

I didn’t bother to read how to make pine bark bacon. I knew it frying the inner bark of a pine tree. I over thought it at first. I wanted to brine it in salt and liquid smoke. Instead I decided to cut a bacon sized stip and fry in some bacon fat. While cutting it I noticed it looked like bacon. Kinda. I was hungry.

I fried it till it was golden brown on both sides. Then I took it out and placed it on a paper towel. I sprinkled it with some kosher salt while it was cooling down.

Taste

Sadly this is not as glorious as bacon. It is however damn tasty. It got crunchy. It was not stringy and tough. Instead it was salty and sweet. It had a mild pine flavor. Not pine sol flavor. It was actually very good. I expected this a horrible experiment. I mean I was eating tree bark. No it was not the weirdest thing I have ever eaten. Although considered a survival food, I could eat this regularly.