Do you have to ride a hydrogen balloon to pick pine nuts? Can't you just wait for the pine cones to fall down by themselves?

Autumn is not only the season for harvesting agricultural products, but also the best time to harvest wild mountain products in the northeast forest area. However, in recent years, news about "workers flying high into the sky by using hydrogen balloons to hit pine cones (pine cones)" has appeared in the public eye more than once. Some were lucky enough to be rescued, while others were unfortunately injured or even lost contact.

Photo: @The Paper

While paying attention to the safety of the injured, everyone has also become more curious about pine nuts: In the past, they just complained about their high price, with a small bag costing more than a large bag of melon seeds. But they didn't expect that they are so hard to come by, and that they need to be brought down by hydrogen balloons? Pine cones can often be found under the pine trees planted in the park, so why can't pine nuts be found?

01

Not all pine nuts are delicious

/ Can I eat the pine cones I picked up in the park? /

The pine nuts we eat are actually the seeds of the pine family . The juicy and tender taste, natural sweetness without sugar, and special aroma make pine nuts popular everywhere. Only a very small number of people will have a bitter metallic taste in their mouths within 12 to 48 hours after eating pine nuts, but the reason is still unclear.

Pine Nuts丨TuChong Creative

Pine trees are one of the most widely distributed trees in the world, but most of their seeds are too small to be eaten. For example, the most common Chinese pine (Pinus tabuliformis) in parks across China has many fruits on its branches, but its seeds are only 6 to 8 mm long. Each seed has a lanceolate wing about 1 cm long, wrapped in the seed scales of the pine cone. When the pine cone matures, the seed scales split open, and the winged seeds fly away with the wind. The empty pine cones that fall to the ground often become the subject of speculation about whether there are edible pine nuts.

Pinus tabulaeformis needles and cones | Martin Withers / FLPA / mindenpictures

According to statistics, among the 126 species of pine plants in the world, only 29 species have seeds that are suitable for consumption, and only a handful of them have commercial value and can be harvested and traded on a large scale.

It usually takes about 15 to 25 years for a pine tree to start bearing fruit, and the tree age that reaches the peak of fruit production is over 45 years old. The yield of pine nuts is greatly affected by factors such as climate and pests, and the picking and processing of pine nuts is a typical labor-intensive industry. These factors make pine nuts expensive worldwide. The more common edible pine nuts on the market in my country mainly come from red pine (Pinus koraiensis), Chinese pine (Pinus armandii), and the Tibetan white pine (Pinus gerardiana), which has emerged in recent years.

Red pine nuts: thick brown shells, delicious but difficult to pick

The nuts of red pine are mainly produced in Changbai Mountain, Lesser Khingan Mountains and other places in Northeast my country. They were called sea pine nuts in ancient times. From the Tang Dynasty to the Ming Dynasty, they were one of the local products that the northeastern ethnic minorities and the Korean Peninsula regimes paid tribute to the central dynasty.

The lifespan of Korean pine is as long as 500 years, the tree height can reach more than 40 meters, and it grows slowly . The number of virgin forests in Northeast China was once sharply reduced due to deforestation. Now the natural Korean pine forests are protected, and the pine nut resources are mostly artificially planted Korean pine . The fruit of the younger Korean pine is "single hanging" type, mostly on the top branches and top side branches, while the pine cones of old trees are often "one nest", and some nests have dozens of them.

The cones of red pine are larger than corn cobs and cannot be held in one hand. A pine cone weighs about 1 kg, and each seed scale has one or two wingless brown shelled seeds at the bottom. A complete pine cone can be peeled out of about 100 seeds, and the pine nuts are slightly triangular.

Korean pine cones丨Wikipedia /ILoveAllTrees

When the cones of red pine mature, the seed scales do not open and the seeds do not fall off. The only way to get the seeds is by animals such as squirrels and nutcrackers. The pine nuts germinate during their transportation and storage. The oil content of red pine nuts is 65-78% , higher than other pine nuts. This is the secret of their extra mellow taste - of course, the calories are not low. The unsaturated fatty acid content in red pine nuts is also high, and they are easily oxidized. Once they are not properly stored and deteriorate, they will produce an unpleasant "rancid" smell.

The outer skin of red pine nuts is thick and hard. For the sake of tooth health, it is not recommended to bite them open like melon seeds unless cracks are created.

Squirrels are more familiar with picking pine nuts丨nhptv.org

The current processing technology allows it to "open" , making it much easier to eat. This is certainly not the result of hiring an old lady to crack it, but rather the use of a machine to stir-fry and heat it, and then rinse it with water to crack the shell through the principle of thermal expansion and contraction. There is also a method of soaking it in an alkaline solution first to dissolve the outer fiber, then adding acidic substances to neutralize it after rinsing, making the shell thinner and easier to crack.

Red pine nuts that open after stir-frying丨TuChong Creative

Pine cones grow in the tree crowns 10 meters above the ground. The traditional way of picking them is for people to tie a special tool with iron nails on the bottom to their feet. When climbing the tree, the iron nails are driven into the trunk to provide leverage. When they reach the top of the tree, they use long poles to knock down the immature pine cones. People on the ground pick them up and carry them out of the mountain. There are basically no protective measures for manual tree climbing, and accidents happen from time to time.

The practice of climbing pine cones in a hydrogen balloon basket has become increasingly popular in recent years, with others holding ropes to control the process. Although there are still risks, the probability of accidents is much lower than that of tree climbing. However, the establishment of rules and regulations for safe operations is still in a state of absence, which is worrying .

Pine Nuts丨TuChong Creative

Huashan pine nut: small black shell, mainly produced in southwest China

Armand pine, also known as white pine and five-bearded pine, is mainly distributed in the mountains with an altitude of 1,000-3,300 meters in central and southwestern China. In recent years, it has been widely used in the practice of returning farmland to forest in the southwest and is also an important economic crop. Most of the "Yunnan pine nuts" on the market are pine nuts from Armand pine .

The grains of Huashan pine nuts are smaller than those of red pine nuts, about 1 cm long, pointed at both ends and bulging in the middle, with a dark brown shell, a bit like watermelon seeds. Its shell is thinner and easier to eat than red pine nuts. After peeling, the pine nuts are small and round, so some places also call it "Kesong".

Huashan pine nuts丨TuChong Creative

In Yunnan, people put pine nuts in salted water to select the plump nuts that can sink to the bottom for sale, which also removes some of the rosin on the surface. Therefore, they are also called "water-fallen pine nuts". It has to be said that Huashan pine nuts have a lower oil content than red pine nuts, and the taste may be slightly inferior, but many people prefer this less oily taste.

Yunnan people call pine cones "pine buds"丨Flickr / nekonoir

Brazilian pine nuts: Actually, they have nothing to do with South America

Pine nut lovers will certainly not miss the "Brazilian pine nut" which has been introduced to e-commerce in recent years and is very shell-friendly. It has a slender shape and a very thin skin, which can be peeled without much effort. There is also a yellow core inside the sweet seed kernel, which has a unique taste, so it is also called "paper-skin pine nut". It is the seed of Tibetan white pine, mainly produced in the high mountain valley area northwest of the Himalayas, including Tibet, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and other places in my country.

Brazilian pine nuts | Tuchong Creative

The Tibetan white pine in China is a protected plant and its nuts cannot be picked . The ones available on the market mainly come from Pakistan and Afghanistan. The name "Brazilian pine nut" comes not from Brazil, the country of football, but from northwestern Pakistan , because the main production area of ​​this pine nut is in northwestern Pakistan.

However, in recent years, the Tibetan white pine in these countries has been affected by excessive logging, intensive harvesting and grazing that destroys vegetation, hindering the natural regeneration of the population. The number has decreased by 30%, and the outlook is not optimistic .

Brazilian pine nuts | Tuchong Creative

There is indeed a plant in Brazil with the Chinese name "Brazilian pine" , but it is actually the Araucaria angustifolia, also known as Parana pine , which is a plant of the Araucariaceae family. It produces large cones with a diameter of about 30 cm, and each cone can be taken out of 20 to 120 seeds. The seeds of Araucaria angustifolia look like large pine nuts and can be cooked or roasted. In the last century, the Araucaria angustifolia forest in Brazil was reduced by 97% due to deforestation, and is now listed as a critically endangered species .

Cones of Parana pine | wikipedia / Deyvid Setti

Behind the small pine nuts, there are many problems. For example, in Northeast China, the over-harvesting of red pine nuts has caused a decrease in the population of animals that feed on them, such as squirrels and chipmunks, and has had a subtle impact on the ecosystem. While enjoying the delicious food, we also hope that we can make breakthroughs in improving specialized cultivars and strengthening the standardized management of harvesting as soon as possible .

02

Use limited pine nuts

/ Create infinite deliciousness/

Pine nuts have been a legendary food since ancient times. Because of their rich nutrition and hard-earned value, they were listed as food for the gods by the ancients. In addition to being eaten directly as a snack, pine nuts can also play a finishing touch in dishes and desserts, and can also be put in drinks.

Due to cost considerations, desserts filled with pine nuts are rare, and are mainly paired with other ingredients to form "assorted dishes". Of course, although the amount of pine nuts is not much, the fragrance cannot be ignored. In the Qing Dynasty, there was a kind of "pine nut stuffed hawthorn", which was a small dessert made by stuffing pine nuts into pitted hawthorns and adding sugar. Today's candied haws inherit this method, but the pine nuts are replaced with cheaper melon seeds.

Pine Nut Milk Crisp丨item.jd

The Suzhou snack "pine nut candy" is shaped like a miniature rice dumpling, with small pine nuts solidified in the crystal sugar. This method is said to have originated in the Northern Song Dynasty, when it was called "sugar pine plum". Pine nuts and green plums were placed layer by layer in a container and pickled with sugar. It was an expensive dessert at the time.

Pine nut candy丨item.jd

The "pine nut corn" fried with pine nuts and tender corn kernels is sweet and delicious, fresh and tender, somewhere between a dish and a dessert. The "eight-treasure tofu" in Huaiyang cuisine is made by stewing tender tofu cubes with chopped mushrooms, pine nuts, chopped ham and other ingredients in chicken soup. It is eaten with a spoon and is a great dish to eat with rice. It is said to have come from the imperial court, and the recipe alone cost 1,000 taels of silver.

Corn with pine nuts | Tuchong Creative

The Northeastern cooked food "Song Nut Dumpling" is shaped like a ball. In fact, the raw materials are similar to luncheon meat, mainly minced meat and starch, with a small amount of pine nuts dotted in it, which makes people feel pleasantly surprised when eating it. Although sesame or crushed peanuts can also enhance the flavor with the help of the oil they contain, pine nuts are larger in size than sesame seeds and are not as hard on the teeth as peanuts. Apart from the high cost, there are almost no disadvantages.

Pine Nut Tripe丨TuChong Creative

Author: Yaohua

This article is authorized to be reproduced from Food Lab (ID: Food_Lab)

If you need to reprint, please contact the original author

Welcome to forward to your circle of friends