Pine Nuts

Has anyone purchased pine nuts lately? I love them. I've always bought a 1 pound bag and keep in my fridge for salads, pesto and other dishes. Plus, they are very good for you. The 1 pound bag generally lasts me a long while. I had used that bag and picked another up at the grocery and about fainted into my shopping cart. What I normally paid $11.99 for was jacked up to $23.99. Needless to say, I sat them back on the shelf. No pine nuts topping my salad at this time! I just found out why prices have about doubled:


Pine nuts get pricier as poor crop can't keep up with booming demand

12:00 AM CDT on Wednesday, September 29, 2010





If you haven't bought pine nuts lately, brace yourself for sticker shock. Prices have more than doubled over the past year or so. Chalk it up to supply and demand, says Deborah Hines, who works at her brother's Hines Nut Co., a Dallas wholesaler.

The pine nut supply hasn't kept pace with high demand. "Cooking shows ... have created demand," she says. The supply hasn't kept pace.

"The good ones only come from China and Portugal," she says, and the Chinese crops have been poor lately. This is complicated by pine nuts' slow growth cycle: They require 18 months to mature.

In the meantime, what's a cook to do when it's time to make pesto or other recipes calling for pine nuts? Try substituting toasted walnuts.

"That's what I use," Hines says. "I started making pesto with toasted walnuts, and it's quite good."

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/fea/lifetravel/stories/DN-nf_inseason_0929gd.State.Edition1.33f9960.html