Bark bread
Published on the blog Sacred Homeland in 2012
Last weekend when we visited Urnatur we tried to make bread out of bark flour. But first we had to make a fire without using matches, just some bark from a juniper tree and a bow drill. It was a little sweaty but we made it.
You could say that it was the bark from pine trees that kept our ancestors alive. In famine times the inner bark from chiefly pine trees was a substitute to replace grain that was not available to harvest.
In Sápmi land in north Sweden, bark has been used for food for at least 3000 years. The inner bark of pine tree was harvested in the spring, dried, roasted and stored for use as staple a food resource.
To make Urnaturs bark bread you need:
1 dl bark flour
3 dl wheat flour
50 g melted butter
½ tsp salt
water
Mix all the ingredients to a smooth dough. Divide into 8 pieces and roll them out as thin as possible. Fry them in a pan (without butter) on both sides until they get some colour.
Source:
Forskning & Framsteg, Bark – nyttigt och gott! 5/2007 http://www.fof.se/tidning/2007/5/bark-nyttigt-och-gott