I was sitting at my desk here in Calgary the other day, and I had a curious thought. Could I get pine nuts from the fir tree outside my window? It’s a Douglas fir, I think, and it has billions of cones, so I should be able to harvest my own pine nuts, right? I love pine nuts, and not only would this be a back-to-nature adventure; it could save me a few bucks. After a quick investigation, I found out that edible pine nuts come from a different genus of fir tree all together. Nuts!

            I will always remember the first time I ate pine nuts. It was Thanksgiving, and my Aunt Marg was doing the turkey. She had always been a bit of a front-runner in the kitchen and she seemed to me to be far more sophisticated than her relatives from the small town of St. Thomas. Perhaps this was because she lived in a very upscale suburb of Detroit (she even had a built-in pool) or maybe it was because she was probably a lifetime subscriber to Gourmet. She was the first person I knew who would bury a chunk of cheddar inside a burger patty before grilling it and she often served breads, cheeses and meats that required special trips to obscure and out-of-the-way speciality shops. But I’ll also never forget that time when I was about 13, that she asked me to clear the “condiments” from the table. I was mortified because I had no idea what she was talking about. She couldn’t just ask me to clear the HP sauce and butter? Despite that incident, I would always admire her sense of style.

            At this particular Thanksgiving dinner, Marg had stuffed the bird with a typically non-traditional filling that included pine nuts. Of course my Dad (her brother) made a big show of picking around each one. But it was my brother Pete who made a big to-do about the “maggots” in the turkey. He went on and on and on about it until I’m sure that my Dad must have given him a backhand across the head.

Marg told me that she had picked up these nuts in a small Greek grocery store in Windsor, and It was one of the few places she had been able to find them. She was the first person I ever knew who treated cooking as an artistic adventure, and not just something you did because it was a necessity and a chore.

            Pine nuts come from the genus of pine called Pinus. The trees are native to many parts of the world including Mexico, China, New Zealand and Australia, but the Mediterranean is home of the Stone Pine, which produces the most delicately flavoured and sweet of these nuts. These cone-shaped ivory nuts are properly called Pignolia. The Pignolia is the nuts prized by Mediterranean cooks, and is an integral ingredient in Italian, Greek and Arabic cuisine. Pesto, biscotti, pasta sauces, ravioli stuffing and baklava are all traditionally made with this nut, either whole or ground. The Pignolia is the nut that we find commonly sold in North America.

 Mexican pine nuts are called Pinyon, and are not as delicately flavoured. They are not generally commercially available, but since prehistoric times, these nuts, which are a rich source of fats and proteins, have been a major source of nutrition for Southwest American and Mexican Indians.

            Pine nuts were once considered quite expensive, and not always easy to find, certainly not in a traditional grocery store. This is due to the difficulty of harvesting them, which must all be done by hand. Also, the trees are not easily cultivated, preferring their arid and stony natural environment to any highly maintained orchard. For this reason, walnuts are often used as a substitute for the pine nut in pesto or in desserts such as baklava. In recent years, I haven’t had a difficult time finding the nut, and in comparison to the cost of other ingredients, I can’t say that I find them prohibitively expensive. I generally don’t go to the bother of making my own pesto (I find that a substantial source of fresh basil is hard to find off-island), but I do like the nut lightly toasted and used as a garnish in a fruit and greens salad, perhaps with roasted chicken pieces and shredded smoked gruyere. The lightly nutty and sweet flavour is a perfect companion to the fruit. Toasted and ground pine nuts also make a tasty topping on pasta, but remember that it is high in fat, so should be treated as a, well, treat!

When I mentioned my memory of that Thanksgiving to my brother, he wrote back, “You’re dreaming!” A memory by its very nature is biased and each person’s memory of an event will be different, unless we are all standing in the same shoes. We are each looking at a specific scene from a different angle, and will have a slightly different perspective. I can’t help it if my brother’s memories are diagonally opposed to mine! Also, I should say that I never intended to imply that my Aunt Marg fell from the same tree as my brother, who obviously fell on his head!