Christmas Tree Jelly (Sort of)

As I was putting up my Christmas tree last week, inhaling its gorgeous piney fragrance (actually the smell of the natural antifreeze that allows evergreens to remain, well, ever green), a thought hit me: jelly.

To put everyone’s mind at ease, no, I don’t plan to make my Christmas tree into jelly. Heaven knows what they spray on commercial Christmas trees, and for all I know my particular variety of tree is actively poisonous. Besides, why would I try to make my tree into jelly, when professionals have made other Christmas trees into jelly?

I originally discovered that people had decided to start eating Christmas trees—spruce trees, specifically—a few years back on my honeymoon in Alaska. (What, you didn’t honeymoon in Alaska?) While taking a break from hiking and spying for salmon, my husband and I popped into a little shop to buy some gifts for the folks back home. That was when I first saw it, glistening yellowish in a little glass jar.

Spruce tip jelly.

Now I don’t know about you, but I assumed “spruce tip jelly” was a cutesy, tongue-in-cheek name for some other kind of jelly, perhaps one of the many Alaskan berries. Au contraire, dear reader, it turns out that spruce tip jelly really is just what it sounds like: jelly made from the tender young branch tips of spruce trees. As it turns, spruce tips are a rich source of vitamin C; indeed, sailors used to brew them into beer to help prevent scurvy. (Probably more fun than eating limes.) Apparently spruce tips were also used to make tea and, eventually, jelly.

Of course, hubby and I had to have a jar. (We aren’t terribly adventurous in most ways, but we’ll taste almost anything.) In honor of this blog post, I even bought a couple more jars and had them shipped from Alaska, just to refresh my memory.

For being made out of spruce tips, the jelly was incongruously peach-amber in color. And the flavor? Well. Heh. A little…piney, as you would expect. Citrusy even, with a finish that was reminiscent—there is no other way to put this—of turpentine. Not an overpowering flavor, and not entirely unpleasant, but there. (I even had my parents try some when they came over for an early Christmas dinner, and they concurred on this flavor note.)

Needless to say, I won’t be having spruce tip jelly on my breakfast toast anytime soon. But I sure will be bringing a jar to my in-laws’ house over Christmas. (To amuse my nieces at Christmas dinner, of course. Why else?) Like almost anything on the planet, you can even buy spruce tip jelly online; I got mine from the nice people at Simple Pleasures of Alaska.

So please, don’t eat your Christmas tree! Or make it into jelly, or tea, or beer. Or a smoothie. Because even if your tree’s not poisonous, ironically, spruce tips are out of season right now. You won’t find these tender morsels on wintertime trees; they are a singular spring pleasure. What’s more, I haven’t got the time or money to fend off frivolous Christmas-tree-eating lawsuits. So put the bough down.

But do order a jar of spruce tip jelly for your in-laws, and let me know how it goes! (I am eagerly awaiting your entertaining anecdotes.)