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favorite in western cuisines. They are particularly favored in England (that is where the name
English walnut comes from), where they even pickle them and serve in their pubs along with
stout or ale.
Black walnuts have a hard shell that is difficult to crack and have small kernels that don't
readily separate from the shell, so they are not much sold in the stores in the shell, except locally.
Food processors use them mostly for flavoring ice creams and some other sweet food items.
Peanuts, as I mentioned before, are not nuts at all but close cousins to the pea. They
came originally from Brazil and, luckily for us, are easy to cultivate. Botanically they are odd
little plants. The peanut seeds grow into a small bush 12 to 18 inches (30 to 45 cm) in height
with delicate yellow flowers. After flowering they develop a strange structure called "pegs" that
drop on the ground, become incorporated in the soil and mature into peanuts in four months.
It is a major commercial crop in the southeastern U.S. and there are few Americans who
don't like peanuts, though many unfortunate people are allergic to it.
Known as ground nuts in some countries, most of the world grow peanuts, but India and
China together grow half of the world's supply. U.S. production is substantial, but we only
contribute 10 percent to total world production.
The U.S. and Canada are the only countries where people eat peanuts whole, crushed, and
ground into peanut butter. Elsewhere the bulk of the crop goes into peanut oil. About half of
American peanuts end up as peanut butter and 25 to 30 percent as roasted nuts.
TASTINGS The truly American peanut butter
Only three countries produce peanut butter, the U.S., Canada and Holland,
with the U.S. the only country that both grows and grinds them into peanut
butter. To be called peanut butter, at least 90 percent must be peanuts. The
rest is sweetener, salt for flavor and hydrogenated vegetable oil to prevent
the oil from separating out.
The U.S. grows three different varieties of peanuts, each for a different purpose. Virginia
peanuts, that are best roasted in the shell for snacks, runner peanuts, having a particularly sweet
flavor, are great for peanut butter and the third variety, Spanish peanuts, for candies and canned
snacks. They also use Spanish peanuts for peanut oil.
Pecan is a true Native American nut, a close relative of the hickory nut. Native
Americans used wild pecans for thousands of years as a staple food. Eastern, southeastern U.S.
and northern Mexico are the prime pecan orchard areas. Currently cultivated varieties are
superior to the wild ones because they have larger kernels and thinner shells. There are over 300
kinds of pecan trees, but the ones favored by growers have the thinnest shell for ease of cracking
without damage to the kernel.
Pistachio is a warm climate nut originally from Iran, Afghanistan, adjacent Turkestan
and parts of India. These nuts grow on a small tree that thrives in the warm Mediterranean
climate, the southwestern U.S. and California. Today the U.S., Iran and Turkey supply the whole
world with pistachios.
A gummy husk surrounds the pistachio nut that soaking helps to remove. As they mature,
the shell opens naturally. Because the shell is partly opened, it is easy to remove the kernel, so
you find most pistachio in the shell. Pistachios are a great snack. People on a diet can eat more,
using the rationale that it takes energy to pry the shells open and extract the nuts, energy that
needs to be replenished by eating more nuts.
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