Pistachios used to be red? Are they poisonous?

In the green group, there are alder-leaf f, the unripe apple of p, and pistachio t.

In the green group there are alder leaf f, raw apple p and pistachio t.

——Nabokov, Speak, Memory

In the eyes of American writer Vladimir Nabokov, letters and their pronunciations all have unique colors. T is the color of pistachio and is classified in the green group like raw apples and alder leaves.

Unlike raw apples and alder leaves, pistachios are green only when they are "happy" | Carl Davies / wiki commons

The writer describes this acute synaesthesia for letters and colors in a whimsical and imaginative style in the essay collection Speak, Memory, which collected some of his articles from 1936 to 1951 and was finally published in 1951.

That was the era when the world was gradually changing, and it was also the early days of the pistachio industry in the U.S. At that time, the mother tree named Kerman, which later became all the commercial pistachio trees in California, was only planted 20 years ago, and it was still 25 years before the first commercial pistachio was harvested in the United States.

Pistachio shells, once red

For a 300-year-old pistachio tree, decades are not a long time, but for humans, this time span is enough to create unique memories for generations. Unlike the ivory-colored pistachio shells we often see today, the pistachios that Nabokov ate back then were most likely red in color .

The pistachio shell dyed red is what it once looked like | Boca Dorada / Flickr.com

There is a rumor that the origin of red pistachios is a vendor in Brooklyn, New York City, who dyed pistachios red so that the bright color would make his business more competitive.

Another more widely accepted version of the story is much more commercial: before California grew into the world's largest pistachio producing area, American pistachios came from Iran, Iraq and Turkey (mainly due to the Middle Eastern immigrants' obsession with this food in the late 18th century). At that time, there was no mechanized harvesting process, and Iranians used traditional methods to harvest pistachios, which resulted in the pistachios not being shelled and washed immediately after harvesting, and the remaining mesocarp would stain the shell with mottled marks . For consumers, vision determines their desire to buy, and such marks are obviously not welcome.

As a result, Middle Eastern exporters began dyeing pistachios red to cover up the problem , and American importers followed suit. For a time, all the pistachios available to Americans were dyed red, and many consumers even thought it was a natural color - after all, the red shell didn't look any less real than the emerald green kernel.

Many regions still harvest pistachios by hand using traditional methods | Orhan Erkılıç / wiki commons

When pistachio production in California rose and mechanized harvesting became popular, coupled with the pursuit of health, this disguise seemed unnecessary, and people stopped dyeing the shells. This Christmas-style red and green color was frozen in the era when Iran had not yet been sanctioned.

Pistachio kernels are really green

Let's talk about the green color of pistachio kernels. For most people, the green color of pistachio kernels is similar to the traditional Chinese color willow yellow, with a natural yellow hue. However, the color of pistachio paste on the market varies from dark green, emerald green to yellow-brown .

From the perspective of the modern food industry, you might think that the emerald green is caused by the addition of certain pigments, or that the yellow-brown color is a sign of oxidation or staleness. But even if you use purchased pistachios to grind the kernels into paste, it is difficult to restore the fascinating deep green color.

This is a relatively ordinary pistachio paste - yellow-brown and very delicious. But looking at the emerald green pistachio paste used by others in desserts, whether it tastes better or not, it is always a bit jealous and I want to know the difference | antares

If you want to solve the doubts about color, you can go back to Iran, its place of origin, and you will suddenly understand.

Generally speaking, the pistachio harvest season is from September to October, when clusters of fruits hang on the branches. The fully developed seeds will cause the hard shell - the pistachio's endocarp to crack, which will also lead to the cracking of the mesocarp. The kernels of the harvested pistachios will have a yellow hue , which means they are fully ripe.

A pistachio fruit that has begun to crack | Safa Daneshvar / wiki commons

Most producing areas in the world will wait until pistachios are fully ripe before harvesting, but in Iran, where pistachio nuts are produced , there is another way to harvest - pistachio farmers start a month in advance (July to August).

At this time, the pistachios are not fully ripe, the kernels are dark green or emerald green , and the peel is still closed, which needs to be processed and removed to obtain the kernels. Such dark green pistachios will be sold in the form of kernels or peeled kernels. The depth of green becomes their quality grade standard, and the darker the green, the higher the grade.

This kind of "green kernel pistachio" is the best color | iran-pistachios.com

And when you buy the green pistachio-flavored ice cream in an Italian ice cream shop, you no longer have to wonder whether coloring has been added. This is just the unique color that pistachios provide to the food industry .

Today, pistachios have become an important commodity for many countries in the world. Italian pistachio paste and pistachio ice cream have become iconic flavors, popular in countries around the world.

If you see green pistachio ice cream like this in Florence, you must try it | Sphilbrick / wiki commons

The Greek island of Aegina is even more famous, where the Aegina Fistiki Fest is held every September to celebrate the harvest of local pistachios. By the way, the pistachio variety 'Aegina' produced on the island is considered by the Greeks to be the most delicious pistachio in the world .

Pistachio Festival, of course, is not complete without a pistachio feast | visitgreece.gr

Of course, the Turks may not agree with the above conclusion, because they think their own 'Uzun' variety is better. In the Central Valley of California, the 'Kerman' variety of pistachios has created an agricultural industry worth billions of dollars . The pistachio tree is known as the most successful plant introduced to the United States in the 20th century, and the United States has thus become the world's largest pistachio exporter.

'Kerman' pistachio tree in winter dormancy in an orchard, California | PAC55 / wiki commons

But both 'Aegina' and 'Kerman' are just a single commercial variety. In its native Iran, the diversity of pistachios is unparalleled , with more than 50 cultivated varieties and countless wild pistachio species thriving in the arid Middle Eastern climate, providing the war-torn country with its largest source of income after oil and textiles.

In Hamedan, Iran today, people still gather at stalls selling different varieties of pistachios | Behzad Alipour / wiki commons

The happy fruit that returns to the starting point

As early as 4,000 years ago , when Iran was not even called Persia, people had already begun to cultivate pistachios here. Later, it appeared in the story of the Queen of Sheba and the Bible, and spread from the Middle East to the Mediterranean with the spears of Roman knights, and then was stuffed into the bags of travelers on the ancient Silk Road and transported to China with spices.

Claude Lorrain's The Landing of the Queen of Sheba (1648) | Claude Lorrain / wiki commons

In China, it has long been called " Ayue Pistachio " - a name that gives phonologists a headache. Instead, the name "Bisida" during the Yuan Dynasty is more similar in pronunciation to the current English name of pistachio, pistachio.

More than a dozen centuries later, the era of sail and trade arrived, and the distance between the world was further reduced. In the early 18th century, a pistachio from China was planted in the Paris Botanical Garden, where it sprouted and grew; but botanist Sébastien Vaillant noticed that this lonely tree bloomed every year but never bore fruit. He thus discovered that plants also have genders and figured out the pollination mechanism between male and female plants.

Portrait of Sébastien Vaillant | Vaillant, Sébastien.

This discovery also has far-reaching impact. In today's commercial pistachio cultivation, it is necessary to accurately find male plant varieties whose pollen production period completely overlaps with the flowering period of female trees, and control the ratio of male and female plants to about 1:8 to ensure the highest yield in the orchard. This pursuit of precise industrial selection ideas has been carried forward in California, but it has also caused new problems: the industry is unable to resist risks due to the excessive singleness of varieties, and people must return to Iran to breed more varieties.

4,000 years have passed, and the pistachio that has traveled around the world has to return to its place of origin to find a new direction. However, the place of origin filled with the crisp crackling sound of pistachios, the area that should have been full of laughter, is now shrouded in dark clouds, completely losing its glory thousands of years ago.

Do pistachios really bring happiness? | pixabay.com

There, people describe the sound of pistachios popping as خندان, which means " smile "; hearing the sound of pistachios popping means good luck is coming. The Persian poet Rudaki (858-941) once wrote:

منم خو کرده بر بوسش، چنان چون باز بر مسته

چنان بانگ آرم از بوسش، چنان چون بشکنی پسته

I linger on her kisses, like a hawk drawn to bait,

The kiss was so loud, like the sound of a pistachio popping.

Hope the nutshell cracks before dawn, hoping that people will finally get what they desire most.

Author:antares

Editor: Old Cat