... Which pops up a question, what are pine nuts?
Welll...that's a hard question to answer...in the cones from the PINION tree here, there little hard-shelled seeds that are delicious when eaten roasted, although I have eaten them raw. These are sold OTC here as "pinion nuts" but, and don't hold me to this, I think I have seen the same seeds called "pine nuts". The nuts from the tall pines I recall are not good.
The danger in sitting by the fire eating a handful of pinion nuts in the shell is, there sometimes have been sheep in the area and you might bite into a nut that isn't a "nut"...YUK!
From Wikipedia; In United States and Mexico, the main species are three of the pinyon pines: Colorado Pinyon (Pinus edulis), Single-leaf Pinyon (Pinus monophylla) and Mexican Pinyon (Pinus cembroides). The other eight pinyon species are used to a small extent, as are Gray Pine (Pinus sabineana), Torrey Pine (Pinus torreyana) and Sugar Pine (Pinus lambertiana). In the United States, pine nuts are mainly harvested by Native American tribes; in many areas, they have exclusive rights to the harvest.
"We used to spread sheets under the trees and shake the trees to get the cones to drop down. The Natives didn't have rights to the harvest in our area."