Giving Thanks And Giving Back

Traditional Holiday Food Makes a Comeback

Licking, MO (PRWEB) November 5, 2004 -- Giving thanks for the bounties of the Earth -- is never more pertinent than at Thanksgiving. Family and friends gather together to celebrate old cultures, and past traditions. For Penny Frazier, giving thanks is her lifes work. Working with native forest plants, she has found a way to help Americans reconnect with their wild lands in a traditional way -- through their foods. Starting with the Piņon Pine nut, a food native to 58,000,000 acres of land in the United States, Penny has found a way to give something back to nature while protecting wild lands. She hopes that the growing popularity of reviving traditional Holiday food will inspire others to do the same.

Pine nuts are a gourmet, non-timber forest product with a $100 million U.S. market. Pine nuts are known throughout the world as a nutritious healthy snack (raw or roasted) and are an essential ingredient in many gourmet food dishes. Traditionally, the pine nut was a life-link food with gatherings and celebrations -- the Washo, the Shoshone, Paiutes, Hopi and their ancestors ate piņion nuts as a storable, multi-faceted food. In more recent times, consumers were introduced to the New Mexico Piņon -- during lean times many Native Americans harvested and sold these nuts as part of their livelihood. Blight and drought have severely impacted the availability of Indian Nuts (Piņons) -- making them unavailable in major markets for the last 5 - 7 years. This year marks the first harvest in 10 years in New Mexico.

While pine nuts are harvested in many regions of the world, their commercial value has been underestimated here in the US. As a result, over 99% of pine nuts consumed in the U.S. are imported. Natural stands of pine nut producing pinyon pines in the U.S. are not specifically managed for pine nut production. Millions of acres of land producing piņon pine trees have been cleared by the U.S. Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management to create grazing land for cattle and sheep. It is possible the New Mexico harvest may be the last for decades as experts theorize that we are seeing the "Apple tree" effect. Apple trees are known for giving one last bumper harvest before death.

Known as "Piņon Penny", Penny's advocacy work on behalf of wild lands for their food values began 10 years ago. This work has been noted by many environmental and land use organizations. Awarded the highly competitive S.A.R.E. for her work with Native plants, Penny has been actively involved in creating sustainable land use management on public lands for pine nuts. As a result, the large Nevada pine nut has become popular in New Mexico over the last few years. She has created the premier site on the internet to teach and advocate on behalf of the wild foods, (www.Pinenut.com).

Along with her husband, George, they own and operate Goods From The Woods. Goods offers both the Nevada Soft Shell Nuts, and the New Mexico Piņon, both of which are sold with the shells on. By contrast, commercial pine nuts have already had the shell removed and are preserved either by roasting, cooking, or spraying. Penny likes to explain the dramatic difference in this way, Imagine you never had eaten a fresh banana, but had only had dehydrated banana chips...well that is the difference between a pine nut processed and un-shelled. Roasted and preserved is not too bad, but dehydrated is cardboard by comparison." The Fraziers are hopeful that the recent revival of interest in Piņon Pine nuts will lead to increased domestic sales, and better land management.

Among the website features are a downloadable Pine nut Recipe Flyer, as well as a handy Roasting Guide. To find out more about the work that Goods From the Woods is doing, or to start your own pine nut tradition, visit them online at www.Pinenut.com.

Promo Boost, Ltd. -- on behalf of Goods From The Woods
http://www.PromoBoost.com.

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Contact: Penny Frazier            
Tel: 573-674-4567
Email: Penny@Pinenut.com