In the 1930s when pistachios first became a fashionable snack food in the U.S., they dyed

imported nuts red to hide the surface stains on the shell that resulted from poor harvesting

practices. Red pistachios are no longer common, but avoid them if you find them for sale. We

don't need any more red food dye in our bodies, and when cracking the shell by hand, you are apt

to consume some of the dye along with the nut meat.

Pine nuts or piñion nuts are also native to North America. They have a close

Mediterranean relative called pignolias. The two look similar but have a different taste and

nutritional content. Pine nuts have excellent flavor with a hint of resin (after all, they grow on a

resinous pine tree). Pine nuts are not cultivated and harvesting in the wild is costly, so their price

is always high. The New Mexican piñion pine tree variety grows only above 7000 feet (2100 m),

and bumper crops occur only every seven years. Anyone can collect up to 25 pounds (11.4 kg) in

the National Forests of the Southwest, but you need a free permit.

Piñion nuts were an important source of high-protein, high-fat food for the Piute Indians,

natives of the southwestern U.S., who used them in soups and in ground-up form in a mush-like

preparation.

Macadamia nuts grow on an evergreen tree from the rain forests of subtropical southeast

Queensland and northeast New South Wales of Australia. Like everyone else, they fell in love

with Hawaii once they reached the islands in 1882. They thrived on the volcanic soils, and the

climate was also perfect for them. Hawaii has become a major producer, growing 70 percent of

the world's macadamias.

The nuts are subtle-flavored, crunchy-textured, cream-colored luxury nuts with matching

luxury prices because the demand far exceeds the supply. They have a very hard shell that few

consumers would enjoy fighting, so in retail you always find them shelled, either raw or roasted.

Roasting further accents the heavenly flavor. We enjoy macadamias almost entirely as snacks,

either by themselves or incorporated into candy bars. Trendy American chefs in the 1990s have

taken them up as an "in" ingredient in various concoctions, justifying the exorbitant menu prices.

Two of the three macadamia species are edible, but growers only cultivate one. The

second edible species grows a nut with too high a sugar content that caramelizes excessively

when roasted, giving the nut a bitter taste.

TASTINGS How macadamia got its name?

The name macadamia came from an Australian, John MacAdam, but his

connection to these nuts is a little hazy. One source says he introduced the nut

himself in the 1850s, but another insists that a botanist named the tree after his

friend John MacAdam. Whatever the truth is, the name macadamia has an exotic,

elegant, even romantic connotation.

Hazelnuts and filberts are closely related and you can use them interchangeably in your

kitchen. Filberts are larger and grow on small trees in the Mediterranean and Western Europe,

including England. The name comes from St. Philibert Day, August 22, when the nuts are ready

for harvest in southern England. Hazelnuts are native to North America but are not nearly as

popular, as filberts are in Germany, England, France and Central Europe, where they are cooks'

top favorites. Turkey grows most of the world's filberts.

The American hazelnut tree is related to the birch. It is actually a small shrub which

grows in the Northeast and upper Midwest, but the most extensive hazelnut orchards are in the

Northwest in Oregon. Freshly roasted hazelnuts are worth dying for—few flavors can match

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