Some things may go without saying, but Belgium’s food agency issued a public health warning as the festive season wrapped up: don’t eat your Christmas tree.
The unusual message came after the city of Ghent, an environmentalist stronghold in the country’s northern Flanders region, raised eyebrows by posting tips for recycling the conifers on the dinner table.
Pointing with enthusiasm to examples from Scandinavia, the town website suggested needles could be stripped, blanched and dried - for use in making flavoured butter, for instance.
Asked what they thought of the idea, the reply from Belgium’s federal agency for food chain security, AFSCA, was a resounding “No”.
“Christmas trees are not destined to enter the food chain,” it said in a statement.
One assumes there’s Belgian reasons for that one. I drink beers made out of pine needles, I could see such a flavor going well with pork or chicken. However, for the beers at least, they use the very very tip of the branch as it’s growing. I don’t actually know but there might be food safety reasons for that, regardless, don’t eat your Christmas tree, and don’t assume public announcements and warnings are a sign of people getting stupider.
Pine beer actually sounds delicious.
Edit: I presume this is home brew. Do you leave them in during fermentation or during the boil?
I used to add crushed berries to cider during fermentation then remove the bits at the end. It was amazing. I’ll get back to it some day.
Unfortunately not a home brew. My local place does a saison with spruce tips and if I recall correctly there’s a place down by the interstate that does an IPA.