Pine nut season

[jyoutz]

Is there a favored method to crack the nuts?

I harvest our grey pine cones for nuts, but we don't have enough to do much with them.

All the best,

Peter

The shells are fairly soft in pinyons and I just use pliers. They crack easily after being roasted. The commercial processors have some kind of machinery to do the job.

 

[ruffdog]

Interesting....we don't have pine nuts here and I always wondered what they were.

 

[jyoutz]

Interesting....we don't have pine nuts here and I always wondered what they were.

All pines have nutty seeds, but some are very small, and most aren’t very tasty. A few species of pines have larger tasty seeds. Italy has the Italian stone pines, the U.S. has the pinyon pines and a few others that are tasty.

 

[ruffdog]

All pines have nutty seeds, but some are very small, and most aren’t very tasty. A few species of pines have larger tasty seeds. Italy has the Italian stone pines, the U.S. has the pinyon pines and a few others that are tasty.

Our pines have smaller seeds that have like a small wing attached so they helicopter to the ground. Small birds like nuthatch and chickadee eat them.

 

[oosik]

I've often watched the chipmunks as they harvest and eat the Ponderosa pine nuts/seeds. I tried a couple. ICK - bitter and tasted like pine sap.

 

[jyoutz]

I've often watched the chipmunks as they harvest and eat the Ponderosa pine nuts/seeds. I tried a couple. ICK - bitter and tasted like pine sap.

Yeah ponderosa pine seeds aren’t good tasting.

 

[oosik]

Ha, ha A chipmunk on the porch this am. He had consumed so many pine nut seeds - looked like a tan tennis ball with dark stripes. That fellow had really laid on the winter fat.

Hope this isn't a forecast of the coming winter.