Pine nuts, everyone's favorite nuts and which they hardly ever buy because they're too expensive, grow naturally in the pine and juniper forests of the southwestern United States. If you've ever bought pine nuts, you probably know that they come at a high price. While all nuts tend to be expensive, pine nuts are at the top of the price scale. This is because they are not easy to harvest.
For one thing, pine trees are not necessarily densely populated trees. In addition, obtaining pine nuts from trees and pineapples is a labor-intensive process. Add to all this the fact that it takes more than a decade for a pine tree to start producing pineapples and pine nuts, and you'll have to face a long and arduous process that comes at an equal price. Pineapples are made up of superimposed scales and pine nuts are found inside each scale.
The scales break open when exposed to heat or dryness. If you leave the bag in a warm, dry and sunny place, the cones will release the nuts on their own. This saves time when harvesting pine nuts from pineapples. We know that pine nuts are one of the most expensive nuts on the market and are not easy to work with in the long term.
They are expensive because of the time required to grow the nuts and the effort to harvest the seeds from their protective shell. But pine nuts are free in nature, you just need to know the methods to search for them and spend some time breaking them patiently. These pine trees are native to the United States, although other pine trees with edible pine nuts are native to Europe and Asia, such as the European stone pine and the Asian Korean pine. Open pineapples indicate that the pine nuts are ripe, but you don't want these pineapples when it comes to harvesting pine nuts; they've already released their nuts.
Pineapples take many months to produce the seeds that turn into pine nuts, and yet pine nuts aren't ready to be harvested before the pineapples fully bloom. The easiest way to get the pine nuts out of the cone is to simply place the pine nuts and let them dry on their own. First, you'll need pine trees with low branches that contain open, unopened pineapples. But a colleague recently informed us about the origin of pine nuts (it turns out that's an adorable origin) and we realized that we don't know enough about our favorite small nut.
But are pine nuts really nuts and how exactly do they get into your kitchen? There's a lot to know about this mysterious food, from its surprising origins to why it's so expensive. Fortunately, this only lasts for a few days and is thought to be caused by specific pine species found mainly in China. If you're serious about harvesting your own pine nuts, you should look for some pine trees in early summer. The fact that it takes a lot of time and patience is an understatement and justifies the high price of pine nuts worldwide.
According to the campaign against anaphylaxis, people who are allergic to nuts are usually not allergic to pine nuts and vice versa, because they belong to different classifications. Since the pine nuts are ready to harvest about 10 days before the cone starts to open, they are very difficult to remove.