Pine Nuts origin stretches back to the roots of the Mediterranean region. The evidence of its foundation was focused in the area of Pompeii, which was an Italian town. Pine Nuts were part of the everyday diet of the people of Pompeii, as it was shown in the ruins of the town which was destroyed by a volcano. Facts show that it has been used in Italy in cooking ingredients for over 2000 years. As of now the trees containing these seeds grow mostly in Europe such as Pinus Pinea. In United States pine nuts are mostly reaped by American Indians, who traditionally have expertise in this area. They also have guarded boundaries in order to protect their area for harvesting pine nuts. It is the law that assures the Native American’s to rule over certain territories for producing pine nuts, so that no other tribe can play part reaping them.
Although pine nuts are long bearing nuts from the pine trees, they were nevertheless preserved in different ways in various regions. In early times, when pine nuts were just a novelty, these nuts were preserved in honey and could be kept for as long as 8-9 months before going bad. Even though regular toasted pine nuts can easily last for more than 6 months, older times did not have the knowledge to toast these nuts, hence the need to preserve them.
Pine nuts, like many other nuts can be harmful for people with nut allergies. These allergies are a kind of hypersensitivity of the body and cause an overreaction to the immune system. Although, a proper record of pine nut allergy is not kept, but certain symptoms may indicate the problems, such as choking, breathing difficulty and zits.
In counties such as Pakistan, Turkey, China and Korea; other valid species of pine nuts are also found readily. Many say that the Bedouin tribes in these countries have been consuming this as major food item for many years.
There are variety of name by which Pine nuts are popularly known such as, Indian nuts, pinon, pignon, pignolia, pignoli, pinolos, pinhao, and pigno. Different countries, different cultures hence they have different names for their pine nuts