Piñon Nuts: The Manna of the Mountains

By Florence Blanchard
Published on July 1, 1977
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Map of areas in the United States where piñon nuts grow.
Map of areas in the United States where piñon nuts grow.
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Piñon nuts can be gathered from four varieties of native pine trees.
Piñon nuts can be gathered from four varieties of native pine trees.

Learn about piñon nuts, aka pine nuts, their history, how to harvest and store them and recipes using these delicious nuts.

Piñon Nut Recipes

Herbed Barley Casserole With Piñon Nuts Recipe
Sierra Stew With Piñon Nuts Recipe

All pine trees bear edible nuts, but only four varieties of the piñon produce nuts large enough to be “worth the harvesting”. These piñon trees thrive in mountain deserts and on mesas at elevations of 3,500 to 9,000 feet as far north as Idaho and south Nevada foothills on the west and ranging as far east as the eastern slopes of the rocky Mountains. Florence Blanchard, who wrote this article, recommends that you read Donald Culross Peatie’s A Natural History of Western Trees if you want further information about piñon nuts.

Take a lazy fall afternoon in the great U.S. Southwest, add the delightful aroma of a thick pine mountain forest, top with a generous helping of the stickiest sap imaginable . . . and what have you got? Piñon nutting, that’s what!

I doubt if anyone really knows just when the earliest human inhabitants settled in the U.S. Southwest. But it’s a cinch that those Native Americans would have found it a great deal more difficult to live in this region if the piñon pines hadn’t gotten here first.

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