For generations, my family harvested mountain piñones (pine nuts) between the seasons of late summer and early fall. My great uncle Raymond Sailas said that the best Pinyon pine trees are in the Rockies bordering New Mexico and Colorado. Uncle Raymond loved the mountains, and he was the last of the Sailas family to lead the pine nut harvest. The Sailas family and several other families migrated together from New Mexico to Colorado during the Great Depression and settled in Wattenberg (Watte), a village just outside of Brighton in Weld County. Uncle Raymond and his siblings Joe, Manuel, Barbara, Guillerma, and Pete were among the teens that made the journey and eventually worked on the nearby farms in Weld County. For decades, until Uncle Raymond died, they went to the mountains, set up camp, and collected pine nuts to sell and store for wintertime snacks.
Uncle Raymond and Tia Melinda...
University of California Press