Pine nuts are expensive. It kinda feels like cooking with money. And if you make pesto, one of the most common uses for pine nuts, it even looks a little like cooking with money – green like US currency!
I’ve certainly given my share of unsolicited commentary about the price of pine nuts and you better believe I use every last pine nut when I buy them, but I’ve never put any thought into why they are so expensive. Or, into where they come from (hint: the answer is in their name).
Yesterday, I learned the answers on a little date-day hike in the Laguna Mountains area in east San Diego county. Here’s the deal:
Why Pine Nuts Are So Damn Expensive
short answer: labor intensive + time intensive + high demand
Pine nuts, as their name suggests, come from pine cones. They are nestled in between cone scales and the edible portion is inside a protective outer shell that needs to be cracked open (think: sunflower seeds). That’s a lot of freaking work for a few teenie-tiny nuts!
In addition to being a pain-in-the-bum to get the nuts out, it takes a long time for pine nuts to come to fruition. According to the internet (source), It takes years (6 – 8) for a tree to mature and then it takes another 2 – 3 years before the cones are ready to be picked for nuts.
Most of us don’t have to grow and harvest pine nut trees so we experience a nut that is tasty, healthy, and easy to incorporate into meals and snacks and we want more of it!! In other words, pine nut demand goes up. And, when demand goes up and supply is not easy to increase, price goes up. #economics101
How to Save Money on Pine Nuts
If you want to save a few dollars, you can try to harvest pine nuts on your own, but I’ll let you read How to Harvest Pine Nuts in the Wild (bonus: there is a pine nut vodka recipe in the article) or this video on the process and decide whether you want to:
If spending hours in the forest trying to beat the critters to the pine cones and pine nuts sounds as unappealing to you as it does to me, you can still preserve a few dollars by using all the pine nuts you buy and trying out some pine nut substitutes in recipes.
Refrigerating extends the life of pine nuts by weeks. Freezing extends it by months. The internet is full of pine nut free recipes including these pine nut free pesto recipes: spinach basil pesto, pistachio pesto, and chickpea basil pesto. Or, you can go all in, and buy The Pesto Cookbook with 116 pesto recipes!
Personally, I just appreciate the price of pine nuts a little more. A few dollars is money well paid to avoid foraging for them.
