Go ahead and recycle your Christmas tree. But please, Belgian authorities say, don’t try to eat it.
The Food and Agriculture Organization of the United States issued that unusual warning this week after a proposal from the climate friendly city of Ghent.
If you’re trying to reduce food waste during the holidays, the city recently said on its website’s environmental page, why not make “delicious spruce needle butter” from the needles left over from your holiday tree?
“It’s windy,” reads the town sign. “That way your Christmas tree isn’t 100 percent ruined.”
The city has acknowledged that there may be health risks from the green branches. Yew, an evergreen, can be poisonous. Trees treated with pesticides and fire retardants are also dangerous.
Ghent credited Scandinavian chefs with the idea of picking needles, boiling and drying them, and turning them into clarified butter. “In Scandinavia,” the city wrote, “they’ve been doing it for a long time.”
That’s not quite true – Scandinavian food historians said it was far from a widespread culture. And the Belgian food agency was quick to urge the public to fight against such gastronomic experiments.
“Christmas trees are not meant to end up in grocery stores,” said Hélène Bonte, a spokeswoman for the organization, in an email Wednesday.
A consumer may not know their tree has flame retardants, he said. Pesticides are a threat, as Christmas trees are “generally treated aggressively.” Misdiagnosis can be fatal, as eating yew “can have serious, even fatal, consequences,” Ms Bonte said.
And even if parts of evergreen plants are sometimes used in cooking, he said, not all of them are edible: “There is a difference between using the needles of pure nature and the needles of trees grown especially for Christmas and decorated at home.”
Ghent later edited the post on his website, adding information about pesticides and changing “Eat your Christmas tree” to “Scandinavians eat Christmas trees.”
This assertion surprised some of those who know the food of this region better. “We don’t eat our own Christmas trees,” said Bettina Buhl, a keeper Food historian at the Green Museum in Auning, Denmark.
“I have a lot of old cookbooks published in Denmark,” she added, laughing, “and I haven’t seen this. It’s really new.”
In response to questions, the weather team of Ghent said that it has been urging that food that is always green be warned and that the city focuses more on planting policies.
“Social media posts about the use of Christmas tree needles tap into the broader realm of reuse, recycling, and the circular economy,” the email said Wednesday.
Ghent’s proposal isn’t the only creative way to try to revive the holiday tree. While the corpses of many evergreen trees are thrown away with the garbage bags, others often find a useful, sustainable second life.
In Britain and Germany, discarded trees have been used as toys for zoo animals. In New York City, they are turned into wood chips and mulch to feed trees in parks. Gardeners all over the world have replanted them. Birds use them for feeding. Artists make sachets and coasters.
But snacking doesn’t seem like a normal thing. And the Scandinavian connection is far from simple, food historians say.
“There’s kind of this idea all over the world that we in Scandinavia, we eat everything green,” said Nina Bauer, an expert. Danish food historian. “We walk in the woods and eat everything.”
Yes, he said, many people eat supplements. Some people may use evergreens to infuse spirits or smoke other ingredients. And the top chefs at restaurants like Noma, where diners are served venison heart grilled on a bed of fresh pine, use green trees to make ingredients.
But Ms. Bauer had only heard of home cooks in Denmark eating their own holiday trees during difficult times, such as during World War II. Cookbooks of the time suggested that people sometimes used Christmas trees for tea during food shortages, he said.
And he had no doubts about regional food: “It’s not a tradition to eat your Christmas tree in Scandinavia.”
Because Ryckert reporting contributed.
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