Native Nut · Brittle & Candy
Pili Nut Candy
Photo: Shubert Ciencia / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY 2.0
Pili trees grow wild in Bicol's mountains and are barely cultivated as a commercial crop at all — most nuts sold on the street are still gathered from natural stands rather than planted orchards.
Pili nuts are roasted and set into brittle with sugar and margarine, or coated whole in caramelized sugar, sold in small paper packets from roadside stalls throughout Albay, Camarines Sur, and Sorsogon. The nut's high fat content gives the candy a richness closer to macadamia than peanut brittle.
Why it's made this way: The pili tree needs warm, frost-free conditions found almost nowhere else in the Philippines, making Bicol's nut trade a genuinely regional monopoly rather than a specialty that spread from elsewhere.
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