Once I developed pine mouth (https://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/about-us/science/food-r...). It was was one of the weirdest experiences I've ever had; I thought I had stumbled on some strange genetic metabolic disorder that was starting to manifest before I eventually figured out what it was. Basically, everything with carbohydrates started tasting super metallic and bitter, a little like soap or something, and it lasted for days.
At first I thought it was all pine nuts. Eventually, after being in a study, and with more attention and study of it, people figured out it's linked to certain reactions some people have to certain species of pine trees in Asia.
So then I started becoming picky about where the pine nuts come from, and discovered the US was a major producer of pine nuts up through WWII. I started buying pine nuts from local producers, from which I learned a fair amount about them, that there's different varieties of different size and oil content, with different taste profiles, oil content, and shelf-life.
I love pine nuts and am happy in theory to buy them from whereever, but it did open my eyes a bit to possibilities that aren't really being realized. It seems like the US market is drying up due to lack of demand and/or competition, but it would be interesting to see local producers thrive, with an emphasize on varietal quality, sort of like apples etc.
This seems like a good way to reinforce a keto diet. If these pine nuts don't have any other side effect besides makings carbs taste bad this looks like a new health supplement idea!
When I found pine nuts for only $16/lb at Trader Joe's, I thought I'd hit the jackpot. I made pesto, and even snacked on the pine nuts while I cooked.
Then I had a terrible, 2-week long experience with 'pine mouth'.
Everything tasted awful: coffee, muffins, cereal, meat, vegetables – even water tasted bitter. And during the first few days, before I realized what was happening, I threw away tons of perfectly safe food that I thought had spoiled.
I never found out how common pine mouth was, but I was really upset that the risk wasn't better communicated.
Ditto. Mine was most noticeable with the taste coffee. I probably cleaned/rinsed the coffee machine three or four times in an effort to improve what was otherwise something I couldn't control.
After about a week of playing Dr. Google finally discovered pine mouth and realizing the home made pesto from last week had pine nuts in it.
Coffee frequently reveals anosmia/parosmia/the end of either. Doesn't surprise me that it would have a similar interaction with pinemouth. It's a strong flavor, early in the day, every day. Since I learned anosmia is common with covid I've paid extra attention to how my morning caffeine tastes.
I had the same thing happen about 10 years ago after buying a bag of pine nuts and eating them all in 3 hours. The strange metallic taste from everything had me worried until I read about it on the internet. It lasted about 3 days and went away. I still eat pine nuts in pesto and probably some other sauces but I never eat a lot by eating them directly from a bag.
I had pine mouth about 20 years ago. I switched over to using walnuts in my pesto after that. But something in that video got me wondering: The guy talks about how they let the cones ferment for a couple of weeks before they extract the nuts - but then later on says something about not letting them ferment too long. I wonder if this is an Asian method of processing the cones that isn't done in other areas of the world and if the fermentation goes on too long will the nuts be effected and give one pine mouth?
Oh wow, I think I ran into this once as well. It was such a strange experience. In my case my Shinramyun instant noodles started tasting metallic and soapy for a few days. I thought there was soap on the cutlery or something and couldn't work it out.
I'm so glad you mentioned this as it explains a lot.
On-topic, pine cones are really interesting! They are the female reproductive organs of the tree. The male cones produce pollen, which gets captured by the female cone and fertilized into seeds (pine nuts). The scales on the female cone open up slightly for pollination, remain closed for fertilization, then open up again once the seed is fully formed and ready to be released.
Off-topic, but I'm in a meeting so I watched the video with the "Automated Captions" turned on. I didn't realize that the captions will actually overlay on top of the subtitles when Chinese is being spoken--it results in some, eh, interesting sentences:
"Dr. She, the one you need to do that kitchen."
"Long time. Your cakehole, who is Jonathan Joseph?"
Tolo News, out of Kabul, reports that there's a glut of pine nuts in Afghanistan, but no way of getting them out of the country.[1] Opportunity there for someone.
Interestingly I've never seen type A sold in China and I've sure eaten my fair share of pine nuts. Seems like these are mostly exported to other countries then? Would be hilarious if the bad ones are sold off to foreigners.
they should just mix-in some poppy into it and it will magically find its way out of the country :) Seriously though i wonder whether any interaction with Taliban - they are government there, so say paying any custom fee, etc. would thus become a material interaction with an officially designated terrorist group - would make one a criminal in the most of the world.
>* Harvesting pine nuts is extremely dangerous, and labor is expensive.
30+ years ago working summer construction jobs in Siberia we'd go into the forest to gather the nuts - i mean you'd climb up the pine tree to the very very top where most of the pines cones are, and the top of the pine is swaying in the wind, and there is around you like a beautiful sea of the pine tops moving like a kind of sea waves.
Locals though would just get a chainsaw and fall the pine trees and gather the pine cones that way.
Here in the mountain areas of California, we actually have quite a few wild and domesticated-gone-wild nut and fruit trees around.
There's the gray, one of the few pines who's nuts are edible, there's black walnut and ordinary walnut and the Chestnut as well as wild/feral plums, apples and pears. I have found just one unopened, fallen gray-pine cone so far and extracting the nuts is labor intensive indeed (to get the nuts, put pine cones in a burlap bag and hit is against a wall many time but then you have a bunch of nuts that require considerable cracking ).
Black walnut meat is very tasty (more like pine nuts than standard walnuts imo). And the tree spew out a whole lot of nuts. The only problem? The meat seems to be exactly as hard as the shells and the shells don't seem to every naturally open. Perhaps if you smash the things and used some centrifuge you could usable meat in quantity. Chestnuts are easy though, I collect enough for a modest snack each time I go through town lately.
Wild food is cool but there's a reason human domesticate and breed plants.
She used to collect the green walnuts and put them on trays to dry out: The "trays" were wood frames with small chicken wire bottoms (sturdy plus air flow). They seemed large, but I was a child. And then, she'd wait until they dry out.
When the fruit dries out, it is much easier to remove. It gets brittle and comes off. It will, however, stain everything dark. Wear gloves (they used leather), wear old clothes, and it might help to be outside. She generally got help with this.
Underneath, there was just the regular walnut shell, and it can be opened with nutcracker tools.
Sidenote: As a child, I hated these walnuts because I thought they were yucky. It actually made me swear off walnuts completely for some years because I didn't realize they were a different variety.
This information on black walnut is harmful. The fruits contain a toxic substance called jugalone which cannot be consumed. Every notice a black walnut tree and notice how there are no other plants in a circle around the trunk? That’s because of the jugalone.
Have you consumed any without any side effects because that’s interesting considering the number of black walnut trees I have on my property.
EDIT: I’m finding conflicting information online so I’m not sure. Apparently jugalone is poisonous to humans but I’m also seeing lots of black walnut recipes.
Black Walnut produce more jugalone than other walnuts but "Most members of the Walnut family (Juglandaceae) produce a chemical called "juglone" (5 hydroxy-alphanapthoquinone) which occurs naturally in all parts of these plants." [1]
I have no reference to juglone as being toxic humans despite many references to its toxicity to other plants.
I personally haven't consumed much 'cause they're a hassle to prepare but other comment to my post was from a person who with no apparent effects. And I've eaten lots of commercial walnuts, which supposedly also contain jugalone
And, there's toxicity to horses from juglone and to dog something else from but nothing related to humans mentioned here or anywhere I can find.
I grew up in New Mexico eating (unshelled) and occasionally collecting piñon seeds (pine nuts) though I didn’t realize they were all the same until much later because the taste was so different. You can still buy the unshelled version without paying too much, but it is a lot of work to break the shells.
Have any good tips for cracking? I have some local pine trees with large, tasty nuts. But it is such a hassle to separate the nut's meat from the shell.
Right now I am just using a hammer and the cement pavement to break the thick shells individually without smooshing the meat. I have heard of a technique where you do not care about smooshing the meat, you just crush the whole nut, shell and all, and place all the nuts in liquid. The shells supposedly float while the meat sinks. I have never tried that though.
I am open to any suggestions to make my foraging more efficient.
I would probably try to sort/bin by size (shake through progressively larger holes/screens, might need to fabricate something), then run it through the crusher, then again screen
To expand a bit more, probably dual steel plates with fixed spacers (based on bin size) in a hydraulic press would be best. Roasting/dehydrating/waiting makes the shells brittle and would make that process easier probably.
My experience is you need to find the right amount of force in order to crack the shell without smashing it.
As a child I found that the right tool helped: too big a rock and everything is smashed, too small and it's not cracked at all, but you can find the right one that nicely crack the shell by taping it on the nut.
I learned from the local Nde how to gather, (traditionally a female activity while the males hunted) and what they do is do a light cracking of many nuts at once on a mill stone usually after toasting, more in a long pull across the surface than a smash, then toss the pile around letting the wind or manual blowing to get rid of the husks. Of course in hurry just use your teeth.
Similar situation here. When I was younger, there was plenty of these specific pine trees close to a local cinema (back in France). We wouldn't go often, but before / after the movie we would pick the shelled nuts off the ground and crack them open. I got surprised to see how expensive these are the first time I found them in a shop given that, as kids, we would just pick these off the ground.
Just a little aside. Your comment confused me a bit because ‘shelled’ in this context means the shells have already been removed from the nuts not that they are things in thier shells. As in ‘I’m shelling these nuts, but I’ve shelled those ones already’. It can also be used in the other sense, but usually only when describing the properties of the shell e.g ‘a hard-shelled crab’. Apologies in advance if you didn’t want the pedantic nut police!
I have a side dish recipe I love for cooking pearl couscous that uses pine nuts toasted in butter. The last time I made it, I bought too more pine nuts than I needed for the recipe. I just went and fried them all up in butter. Then I took the leftovers, added some salt, and ate them like a snack.
My God, I have never had a more decadent, hedonistic snack in my life. They are like eating angel's tears. If they weren't so expensive, I'd eat my weight in them.
You can harvest your own (Pinus monophylla) pine nuts in Great Basin National Park: https://www.nps.gov/grba/planyourvisit/pinenutgathering.htm -- I highly recommend it, it's a great park and you'll really get a sense for the labor involved (and some pine nuts). If you're in the Bay Area the drive out across Route 50 (the Loneliest Road In America) is beautiful as well.
Readit News
At first I thought it was all pine nuts. Eventually, after being in a study, and with more attention and study of it, people figured out it's linked to certain reactions some people have to certain species of pine trees in Asia.
So then I started becoming picky about where the pine nuts come from, and discovered the US was a major producer of pine nuts up through WWII. I started buying pine nuts from local producers, from which I learned a fair amount about them, that there's different varieties of different size and oil content, with different taste profiles, oil content, and shelf-life.
I love pine nuts and am happy in theory to buy them from whereever, but it did open my eyes a bit to possibilities that aren't really being realized. It seems like the US market is drying up due to lack of demand and/or competition, but it would be interesting to see local producers thrive, with an emphasize on varietal quality, sort of like apples etc.
"It's so weird, my mouth just tastes metallic all the time no matter what I eat."
"Been stealing pine nuts from the line?"
"Yup."
https://www.britbuyer.co.uk/chinese-vs-italian-pine-nuts/
Also Australia's NSW Food Authority's post about pine mouth:
https://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/about-us/science/food-r...
Then I had a terrible, 2-week long experience with 'pine mouth'.
Everything tasted awful: coffee, muffins, cereal, meat, vegetables – even water tasted bitter. And during the first few days, before I realized what was happening, I threw away tons of perfectly safe food that I thought had spoiled.
I never found out how common pine mouth was, but I was really upset that the risk wasn't better communicated.
After about a week of playing Dr. Google finally discovered pine mouth and realizing the home made pesto from last week had pine nuts in it.
This is HN. I though you developed an app called "pine mouth"
https://www.pine64.org/pinenut/
It was unpleasant enough that I often substitute walnuts.
I'm so glad you mentioned this as it explains a lot.
Off-topic, but I'm in a meeting so I watched the video with the "Automated Captions" turned on. I didn't realize that the captions will actually overlay on top of the subtitles when Chinese is being spoken--it results in some, eh, interesting sentences:
"Dr. She, the one you need to do that kitchen."
"Long time. Your cakehole, who is Jonathan Joseph?"
[1] https://tolonews.com/index.php/business-175138
You can easily distinguish them. Long ones are from Afghanistan, short from China, Norko, Russia
Interestingly I've never seen type A sold in China and I've sure eaten my fair share of pine nuts. Seems like these are mostly exported to other countries then? Would be hilarious if the bad ones are sold off to foreigners.
>* Harvesting pine nuts is extremely dangerous, and labor is expensive.
30+ years ago working summer construction jobs in Siberia we'd go into the forest to gather the nuts - i mean you'd climb up the pine tree to the very very top where most of the pines cones are, and the top of the pine is swaying in the wind, and there is around you like a beautiful sea of the pine tops moving like a kind of sea waves.
Locals though would just get a chainsaw and fall the pine trees and gather the pine cones that way.
There's the gray, one of the few pines who's nuts are edible, there's black walnut and ordinary walnut and the Chestnut as well as wild/feral plums, apples and pears. I have found just one unopened, fallen gray-pine cone so far and extracting the nuts is labor intensive indeed (to get the nuts, put pine cones in a burlap bag and hit is against a wall many time but then you have a bunch of nuts that require considerable cracking ).
Black walnut meat is very tasty (more like pine nuts than standard walnuts imo). And the tree spew out a whole lot of nuts. The only problem? The meat seems to be exactly as hard as the shells and the shells don't seem to every naturally open. Perhaps if you smash the things and used some centrifuge you could usable meat in quantity. Chestnuts are easy though, I collect enough for a modest snack each time I go through town lately.
Wild food is cool but there's a reason human domesticate and breed plants.
She used to collect the green walnuts and put them on trays to dry out: The "trays" were wood frames with small chicken wire bottoms (sturdy plus air flow). They seemed large, but I was a child. And then, she'd wait until they dry out.
When the fruit dries out, it is much easier to remove. It gets brittle and comes off. It will, however, stain everything dark. Wear gloves (they used leather), wear old clothes, and it might help to be outside. She generally got help with this.
Underneath, there was just the regular walnut shell, and it can be opened with nutcracker tools.
Sidenote: As a child, I hated these walnuts because I thought they were yucky. It actually made me swear off walnuts completely for some years because I didn't realize they were a different variety.
Have you consumed any without any side effects because that’s interesting considering the number of black walnut trees I have on my property.
EDIT: I’m finding conflicting information online so I’m not sure. Apparently jugalone is poisonous to humans but I’m also seeing lots of black walnut recipes.
Black Walnut produce more jugalone than other walnuts but "Most members of the Walnut family (Juglandaceae) produce a chemical called "juglone" (5 hydroxy-alphanapthoquinone) which occurs naturally in all parts of these plants." [1]
I have no reference to juglone as being toxic humans despite many references to its toxicity to other plants.
I personally haven't consumed much 'cause they're a hassle to prepare but other comment to my post was from a person who with no apparent effects. And I've eaten lots of commercial walnuts, which supposedly also contain jugalone
And, there's toxicity to horses from juglone and to dog something else from but nothing related to humans mentioned here or anywhere I can find.
http://www.omafra.gov.on.ca/english/crops/facts/info_walnut_...
Right now I am just using a hammer and the cement pavement to break the thick shells individually without smooshing the meat. I have heard of a technique where you do not care about smooshing the meat, you just crush the whole nut, shell and all, and place all the nuts in liquid. The shells supposedly float while the meat sinks. I have never tried that though.
I am open to any suggestions to make my foraging more efficient.
This guy has a de-sheller/crusher, if you want to see: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S_Si67R1BjY
I would probably try to sort/bin by size (shake through progressively larger holes/screens, might need to fabricate something), then run it through the crusher, then again screen
To expand a bit more, probably dual steel plates with fixed spacers (based on bin size) in a hydraulic press would be best. Roasting/dehydrating/waiting makes the shells brittle and would make that process easier probably.
As a child I found that the right tool helped: too big a rock and everything is smashed, too small and it's not cracked at all, but you can find the right one that nicely crack the shell by taping it on the nut.
My God, I have never had a more decadent, hedonistic snack in my life. They are like eating angel's tears. If they weren't so expensive, I'd eat my weight in them.
[1] https://www.pine64.org/pinenut/
[2] https://pine64.com/product/pinenut-model01s-wifi-ble5-module...
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