Pine bark bread tradition revived in Inari

A forgotten survival food from Finland’s lean years is finding new life as a forest delicacy, reports Yle. In Inari, a recent course taught the traditional harvesting of pettu—the inner bark of the pine tree—once a vital staple for the Inari and Skolt Sámi.

Instructor Irja Jefremoff explained that pettu must be gathered in early summer, when the inner bark separates easily from the trunk. The process demands care: the layer is fragile and should be removed in whole sheets, then dried in the wind before roasting to a light brown. Over-roasting ruins the flavour.

Historically, the bark was ground into flour using a reindeer antler tool, though modern mills now do the job. The resulting coarse meal was a year-round dietary cornerstone for Sámi communities in the north, where agriculture was limited. Mountain Sámi, who lacked pine forests, often received pettu flour as a valued gift from their forest-dwelling kin.

The Sámi Education Centre and the MÁHTTUT project organised the course to preserve these skills. Among the two dozen participants was a defence forces trainer—identified only as Jussi for professional reasons—who plans to teach conscripts how to forage pine bark as part of wilderness survival training.

Once a necessity, pettu is now a cultural link to resourceful traditions where nothing from nature went to waste.