Spruce resin chewing gum

28.11.2012

It is the last moment* to take home large spruce branches to cover garden plants and for decoration. When looking for them in the forest, big transparent drops of resin on the trees catch the eye too. If you collect these you will get a much more wholesome chewing gum than the kinds that are sold in shops and contain xylitol that is harmful for the body.

 

In the whole of northern Eurasia tree resin has been the much more wholesome forerunner of modern chewing gum, used already during the Stone Age. Information in Estonia about chewing resin is rather scarce. The following information is recorded from Vändra: tuberculosis can be kept off and even healed if you chew spruce resin often. In Halliste  shepherds used to eat the inner bark or cambium of spruces in spring "it is young resin“, in addition to the inner bark of birch and alder.

In Finland resin chewing survived in places until the beginning of this century. Children and old women in particular chewed it as a pastime; it disinfected the mouth too and kept teeth white and strong and the gums healthy.

 

Resin was chewed as follows in Finland: "Spruce resin was most common, pine resin can be used too although it is not as good. For chewing only dry, hard and translucent resin that has been oozing out for several years from damage on the tree will do. The resin is pried from the tree with a knife so that bark and fresh resin do not come along. When resin for a suitable mouthful has been collected the picker puts the bits in his mouth and slowly begins to chew. The pieces fall apart  in the mouth into a bitter-tasting mush. At the same time liquid is liberally produced from the saliva glands. When the mouth is packed full with resin mush and saliva, the chewer gently begins to press out saliva between the teeth while manipulating the floury resin mass with the tongue so that it will not spurt out with the saliva. As chewing and working the mass with the tongue proceeds, the resin mass eventually coalesces into a coherent viscous gum. The chewing gum produced so is brightly red and resin-smelling. It tastes pleasantly and causes a continuous saliva flow although not as free-flowing as in the beginning. A good resin clump stands several hours of chewing until it again crumbles into a flour-like mass, and must be spit out.“

 

Resin-collectors who handled "harvesting" of spruce resin during the Soviet period have become familiar again in Estonia from the TV series „Süvahavva“ by Indrek Hargla (Kanal 2 - Channel 2). In a forest area scheduled for clearing they made V-shaped cuts in the trees and the resin that oozed out was collected in special tin cones.

 

_{*was, in November / Late translator}