Savoring Summer
Exploring with curious eyes—for unique pebbles, an unusual twig, or the key ingredient for a new treat to eat—heightens forays into nature. With summer here, sun syrup season is back, meaning the hunt for green pine cones is on. Once you’ve tasted your own homemade batch of sun syrup, you too will begin to measure your seasons by the cones of evergreen trees.
Sun syrup is elegantly simple—the only two ingredients are your sugar of choice and the cones available in the forest or your backyard. Look for juvenile, green ones; size doesn’t matter so long as they aren’t yet brown and woody. You can harvest from a variety of evergreens—cones from hardy, drought-tolerant mugo pines have been used for centuries in traditional Italian Mugolio sun syrup. Here in the West, piñon is popular, as are Douglas fir and ponderosa pine cones. As for sugar, experiment with raw or brown sugars like turbinado and piloncillo. The recipe here uses dark brown sugar. Refined white sugar lacks the complexity to marry the multitude of subtleties held within the species at hand. Since you’ll be waiting a month for the cones to release and sugars to liquify, don’t cut corners on the only other ingredient.
Warning: Pine cone sun syrup is most certainly the gateway drug into foraging. As nature changes around us in wrenching ways, foraging is a tangible experience and an expression of reverence for our changing planet. It connects us to seasons and places in a way that epic vistas and views do not. So, please, forage with restraint: Bone up on the code of ethics before you go. Take only what you need. Leave far more than you take. Leave singular stashes alone to proliferate. A light hand ensures that a
species will continue to thrive and provide.
