Cashews

Cashews have never been fully rec­og­nized as they ought – as the noblest of nuts. Often only added, it seems, as an after­thought to trail mixes and nut com­pi­la­tions alike, their rare taste and sur­pris­ing nutri­tional verac­ity remains unob­tru­sive along­side such aris­to­cratic titans as peanuts and raisins. Of that afore­men­tioned verac­ity: The oblong and, nor­mally, obtuse cashew man­ages, amaz­ingly, to con­tain a prodi­gious 100¹ parts of daily cal­cium intake per serv­ing, along­side its 100² parts of iron intake per serv­ing; it is, indeed, a won­der that the lovely and pos­si­bly buoy­ant, lit­tle fruit does not enjoy a wider fol­low­ing among nux­ophiles. Another note wor­thy of con­sid­er­a­tion regards the cashew’s hum­ble ori­gins, first ingested by Brazil­ian tribes­men, the “nut” rose to its par­tial promi­nence atop rang­ing dis­sem­i­na­tion by the Por­tuguese impe­ri­al­ists. Now the largest exporter of cashews is across the globe and Brazil has fallen to a dis­mal forth of all the world’s major pro­duc­ers.³ That largest exporter is, in fact, Viet­nam: a coun­try, which, inci­den­tally, is also the largest recip­i­ent of United States aerially-dispatched com­bustibles to date. The pro­duc­tion of cashews in Viet­nam is a recent phe­nom­e­non, the net pro­duc­tion has tripled since 2000⁴; the small com­mu­nist repub­lic now pro­duces and exports almost three tonnes of cashews per square kilo­me­ter of ter­ri­tory — or about forty-two tonnes of cashews per square kilo­me­ter of per­ma­nent crops.⁵ The Social­ist Repub­lic of Viet­nam has, in this respect, sur­passed the West­ern nations which have, for so long, trod it under their heav­ily armed boots – it has real­ized the impor­tance of the dupe of the Anac­ardium occi­den­tale: the cashew.

• Photo by Karen Houle / Used with Per­mis­sion

1. 

   Roanne Quiozon says:

   May 31, 2009 at 2:22 PM

   I don’t think I’ve actu­ally had cashews before…

   reply
2. 

   Carlos Ventura says:

   May 20, 2009 at 9:44 PM

   Cashews are my favorite (=

   reply