Welcome to the summary page for FabulousFusionFood's Wild Food guide to Italian Stone Pine along with all the Italian Stone Pine containing recipes presented on this site, with 130 recipes in total.

These recipes, all contain Italian Stone Pine as a major wild food ingredient.

Italian Stone Pine, Pinus pinea (also known as Umbrella Pine, Stone Pine, Parasol Pine) is a flowering plant from the Pinaceae (pine) family. It is native to Southern Europe, North Africa and the Levant (the areas around the Mediterranean). It's typical habitat are maritime sands and alluvial soils below 1700m. It is also naturalized in North Africa, the Canary Islands, South Africa and New South Wales. Stone pines have been used and cultivated for their edible pine nuts since prehistoric times. They are widespread in horticultural cultivation as ornamental trees, planted in gardens and parks around the world.

The stone pine is a coniferous evergreen tree that can exceed 25m in height, but 12–20m is more typical. In youth, it is a bushy globe, in mid-age an umbrella canopy on a thick trunk, and, in maturity, a broad and flat crown over 8m in width. The bark is thick, red-brown and deeply fissured into broad vertical plates.

The flexible mid-green leaves are needle-like, in bundles of two, and are 10–20cm long (exceptionally up to 30cm). Young trees up to 5–10 years old bear juvenile leaves, which are very different, single (not paired), 2–4cm long, glaucous blue-green; the adult leaves appear mixed with juvenile leaves from the fourth or fifth year on, replacing it fully by around the tenth year. Juvenile leaves are also produced in regrowth following injury, such as a broken shoot, on older trees.

The cones are broad, ovoid, 8–15cm) long, and take 36 months to mature, longer than any other pine. The seeds (pine nuts, piñones, pinhões, pinoli, or pignons) are large, 2cm long, and pale brown with a powdery black coating that rubs off easily, and have a rudimentary 4–8mm wing that falls off very easily. The wing is ineffective for wind dispersal, and the seeds are animal-dispersed, originally mainly by the azure-winged magpie, but in recent history, very largely by humans.

It is the inner kernel of the plant's seeds which are edible. These, once shelled, can be eaten either raw or cooked. It is tasty eaten out of hand, but is even better if soaked in salted water over night and then oven toasted. The kernels (known as pine kernels or pine nuts) can also be ground and used as a thickener or flavouring in soups and stews. The stone pine is also a major source of commercial pine nuts.

In the UK, the stone pine grows in areas south of southern Scotland. It is not a native, but an introduced species. I was lucky to live where several trees had been planted in the 18th century. The Romans also probably brought both pine kernels and stone pine trees to the UK, but I do not know of any stands of trees that remain from this first introduction.

Though the seeds of all pine tree species are edible, most are too small and fiddly to be worth harvesting. Even then, the process of harvesting pine kernels is a lengthy one.

In this article, I am mostly talking about the European stone pine, Pinus pinea, however other pine species are used commercially to obtain pine kernels (most notably: Korean Pine (Korea), Chilgoza Pine (Himalaya), as well as Siberian Pine, Siberian Dwarf Pine, Chinese White Pine and Lacebark Pine). Though not harvested commercially, the following pines are used for pine kernel preparation in the US: Colorado Pinyon, Single-Leaf Pinyon, and Mexican Piñon. Other species, such as Gray Pine, Torrey Pine, and Sugar Pine are also harvested, but less frequently.

For the European stone pine, mature pine cones should be harvested between late summer and late autumn. The pine cones, when ripe, should be brown and the tree chosen should have a mix of open and closed pine cones. Either choose a tree with easily accessible branches, or bring a ladder. Harvest brown pine cones that are both open and closed. Pick the pine cones on the tree by twisting them until they come off then pack in a hessian or burlap sack.

When you have a sack full of pine cones, place the bag in the sun and leave it for three or four days so that all the pine cones inside dry out and open. Each and every day turn the bag over so that the cones can dry out evenly. Once all the pine cones are dry, hold the bag closed and shake it. This will cause the pine nuts to dislodge from their cones.

Now take out each pine cone and look inside. Use tweezers to remove any pine nuts that have not shaken loose. If you have any unopened pine cones, dry these in the sun again. Turn the pine nuts in the bag out onto a screen and shake to remove the chaff.

In Lebanon, for the European pine, the nut is extracted from its shell either by picking with hands or by cracking with a hammer and passing through a screen again. This yields a black pine nut. The nut is soaked in lightly salted water over night and the following day the black outer husk is peeled away. The pine nut can now be eaten as is, or it can be toasted to improve its flavour and keeping qualities.

Pine nut harvesting is very labour intensive, hence the premium price of pine kernels.

As well as the pine nuts, the young, immature, pine cones can also be dried and ground into a powder which is used as a flavouring or as a flour adulterant.

References:

[1]. David Evans Notes from field observations, tastings and cookery experiments.
[2]. Huxley, A. The New RHS Dictionary of Gardening. 1999
[3]. Tanaka, T. Tanaka's Cyclopaedia of Edible Plants of the World.
[4]. Lim T.K. Edible Medicinal And Non-Medicinal Plants, Vols 1–12.
[5]. Thomas, G. S. Perennial Garden Plants, 2004
[6]. Milner, E. Trees of Britain and Ireland, 2011
[7]. Rose, F. & O'Reilly, C. The Wild Flower Key (Revised Edition) — How to identify wild plants, trees and shrubs in Britain and Ireland, 2006
[8]. Streeter, D. & Garrard, I. The Wild Flowers of the British Isles, 1983
[9]. Clapham, A.R.; Tutin, T.G. & Moore, D.M. Flora of the British Isles, 1987
[10]. Phillips, R. Mushrooms, 2006
[11]. Jordan, P. & Wheeler, S. The Complete Book of Mushrooms: An Illustrated Encyclopedia of Edible Mushrooms, 2011
[12]. Bunker, F. Seaweeds of Britain and Ireland, Second Edition, 2017
[13]. Facciola, S. Cornucopia II — A Source Book of Edible Plants, 1998
[14]. Hartford, R. Edible and Medicinal Wild Plants of Britain and Ireland: A Foraging and Photographic Identification Guide
(Note that the above book links are Amazon Affiliate links)