Hi Carol,

>The parent website of that one on Euell looked pretty interesting too.  Wild
>food outings sound like fun.
I agree! I didn't know much about pinetree eating until now. I got out my
Plants of Coastal British Columbia including Washington, Oregon, and Alaska
and found that the many Indian Tribes made full use of the coniferous
trees. Some things I found:

The Grand Fir bark was mixed with stinging nettles and used to bathe in and
as a tonic by the Kwakwaka'wakw and other peoples. The Lushootseed boiled
its needles to make a medicinal tea for colds. There are a lot of uses I
haven't listed.
The Alpine fir was known as the 'medicine plant' in Secwepmc using the
pitch and bark of the tree.
The Sitka spruce's needles were believed to give special powers for
protection against evil thoughts! Many tribes ate the inner bark fresh or
dried into cakes and eaten with berries. The Makah were said to eat the
young shoots raw for Vitamin C. Pitch was used as a medicine for burns,
boils, slivers, gonorrhoea, syphilis, colds, sore throats, internal
swellings, rheumatism and toothaches.
The Shore Pine gum was applied to cuts or used as a poultice and for tea
for tuberculosis.
The birch gum was chewed by Athabascan Indians just as the Andean people
chew coca leaves because of the terpenes which provided a buzz!
I think I'll take my knife and fork (and teapot) and take a walk in the yard!

Thanks to the Euell Gibbons replies, I got inspired to read up. Muchas
gracias to all! His books look fascinating.

>Yeah!  But it does seem like raw foodism is getting more and more attention
>lately.  At least here in wacky California, we hear about it fairly often
>now.

BC is the California of Canada-just a little behind....

Raw wishes and caviar dreams!

Susan