Oh, Oh Pistachio

I just heard a rumor that pistachios aren’t nuts? Whiskey-Tango-Etc.

I know! Cashews, almonds, pecans, walnuts, peanuts nor pine nuts are nuts – the latter 3 have nuts in their freakin name. Acorns, chestnuts and filberts are true botanical nuts. The ones we eat and cook are thought of as culinary nuts – In the same way the tomato is a fruit that is treated like a veg, culinary nuts are drupes, seeds or kernels that are used like nuts in the kitchen.

Pistachios are kind of wacky in many ways. The pistachio tree is member of a family that produces mastic and another tree cousin, the terebinth, produces turpentine, while another tree produces mangoes and still another member of the family fruits the cashew. And just in case that wasn’t weirdly diverse enough, all are related to poison ivy. There are male and female trees – A dude tree gets planted near 8-12 chick trees and does his work with his harem, (in the US all the cultivar of choice is the appropriately named "Peters" pistachio). It takes about 20 years to reach peak harvest. The pistachio nut is actually a drupe; a fleshy fruit that contains a stone – like an olive, cherry or almond. The trees bear a fruit/nut harvest every year but it the tree produces a superior harvest only in alternate years.

The nut, the cotyledons are green due to the presence of chlorophyll – how would you feel about a green walnut or cashew? As freakish as green in a culinary nut is, it is that shade of green that makes them desirable contrast in Pates and Mortadella. The green color is desirable albeit a little more unnatural in pistachio flavored Jello-brand puddin and ice creams.

Pistachios are native to the Levant. Fittingly, they appear in Genesis – Jacob gave them along with honey, balm, spices and myrrh to the leader of Egypt – a little gift bag from Canaan. It seems their recorded history is a little more ancient; the faux nut has a recorded history with the Babylonians. The Romans brought the tree to Europe in the twilight of their empire. From there they went around the Mediterranean, before ending up in California. Our neighbors to the south are major producers of the world's crop - surprisingly pistachios weren't a major crop until the mid-70s, this despite the fact the nut that isn’t a nut has been popular in the States since the late 1880s. Callie's crops is good because Iran and Syria are 2 of the top exporters of the crop and I am not sure the US trades with them. And things have recently taken a turn for the diplomatic worse with one of the other top producers, Turkey.

Don’t worry about the nutlessness of being with pistachios, if you stuck to true botanical nuts, you’d be eating acorns right now.

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