Cashew: The Nut That's Hard to Crack

"Snacks" - a familiar and exciting word, especially among Jews in the land of Israel, and around the world. In Israel, it's nearly impossible to find a populated area without a store selling a variety of nuts and seeds. In this Jewish jurisdiction of the Middle East - a small state geographically that is large in food diversity and abundance of slang that has turned Hebrew into a barrage of relentless slang, the snacking culture has become so embedded that these stores have earned a unique moniker - "Pitzutzia," meaning snack shop.

Among the variety of nuts, seeds, almonds, and peanuts, there's a unique one, not really hard to crack, but quite rare to decipher. It's notable for its shape, its splendor, the respect both traders and buyers have for it, and especially the price we're willing to pay without complaint or effort to understand why it's so expensive.

You've guessed right, it's the tasty and delightful cashew nut, which holds a place of honor at Jewish events and celebrations around the world, particularly enjoying a special position on the seventh day. Jews savor it during the Shabbat meal.

What amazes more than anything else is that despite its uniqueness, prestige, and the affection humans have for it over any other nut or peanut, none have truly understood the real secret of the cashew nut and what makes it so wondrous and significantly expensive every time it appears on our tables.

Just as we do not always scrutinize most routine things in our lives, things that seem simple and uninteresting, had we pondered them, we'd marvel at their significance. Likewise, we regard this delightful-looking nut. The following lines will open a new and surprising window on the uniqueness of cashews, as you've never thought about it before.

The Tree and its Wonder

Cashew taste is mild and superior to other nuts, especially when salted. It's easy to digest when roasted and tough when fried in oil. Although it does not contain vitamins A or C, it's rich in fat, carbohydrates, and proteins, with fat content up to 48 grams per 100 grams, proteins to 17.5-18.5 grams, and carbohydrates up to 28 grams. Therefore, nutritionists advise against consuming it with other dense foods and recommend not eating it with sweet fruits and starchy vegetables but rather with acidic fruits and non-starch vegetables.

Combining cashew nuts with vegetables can give a complete protein, as cashews, unlike other nuts, contain isoleucine but not lysine, while other vegetables with a small amount of protein contain lysine but not isoleucine, resulting in complete protein. One thing is clear to all; cashew is a delicious and excellent nut, and it's worthwhile to get to know it more deeply.

The cashew tree grows in South America, originating from northeastern Brazil. The Portuguese called it "Caju," a slight alteration of its original name "Acaju" in the Tupi language. It grows on a strong tree with a beautiful trunk that can reach up to 12 meters or more. Cashew trees have a great spreading capacity, growing branches with numerous evergreen leaves, often intensively. In 1994, the Guinness Book of Records registered a cashew tree with a leaf spread of 500 meters.

The cashew tree is a wonder in itself: its large, fleshy leaves can reach 22 by 14 cm, pear-shaped, arranged spirally around the branches. The flowers bloom between the leaves in grouped clusters with a conical shape, each flower having five short petals.

Before telling the wonders of the fruit itself, remember that the Portuguese brought the cashew tree from Brazil to Africa and Southeast Asia, and today, it's cultivated commercially in 32 countries with climates similar to South America. The notable cashew exporters are Vietnam, Nigeria, Ghana, India, Brazil, and Indonesia.

More about the cashew tree's habitat, click here.

The Brazilian Stem

What you're about to read will surprise many: the cashew nut, which slightly resembles a moon or banana, is not actually a fruit, specifically not the fruit of the cashew tree we're discussing. From the calyx leaves of the cashew tree's flower, a large "pseudo" fruit forms, shaped like a pear, commonly called "cashew apple."

This fruit indeed grows from the flower but is only a base on which the real fruit grows - the cashew nut of the article. The fruit, reminiscing both a pear and bell pepper, is a genuine Brazilian delight with soft and sweet flesh surrounded by a delicate skin and containing no seeds. For Brazilians, it is very popular due to its unique and juicy taste, which they use to produce cashew juice across the country, similar to orange juice sold in our markets.

Here's the fruit's weak point: though it's a popular delicacy in Brazil, it's not grown for export, which is why you've never seen or heard of this fruit. The reason is quite interesting: the juicy cashew fruit does not preserve well during travel and begins to ferment and sour 24 hours after picking. A tourist in Brazil quickly learns the instruction - "if you buy it, eat it immediately."

So if the cashew apple is a pseudo fruit, where or what is the real fruit?

Now we reach the icing on the cake: from where the fruit was - initially a flower - the real fruit of the tree develops. When the pseudo fruit's stem matures, it creates a seed resembling a small grey banana, encased in a tough grey shell that contains our esteemed acquaintance - the cashew nut itself... And yet, we haven't said everything.

Indeed, while we've reached discussing the real fruit - the cashew nut - botanically, it's not actually considered a nut but more akin to an almond. This hidden secret within that stem from which cashew emerges in a hard double shell, cannot be eaten without processing. To put it simply, a cashew nut without processing is inedible, period.

You might be interested to know that even those cashews sold in markets as "unprocessed" have undergone heating and peeling before being marketed; otherwise, they are dangerous. The fresh cashew nut, first picked from its cashew apple stem, has a double shell filled with a toxic plant liquid called "resin," which can cause unwanted reactions upon skin contact, even more so when ingested - it is poisonous. Therefore, to make the fresh cashew nut fit for human consumption, it must undergo precise treatment to remove its shell meticulously without spilling resin onto the nut itself. This involves a cleaning process where the shell is usually removed using intense heating, such as steaming or frying, and the seed extracted, cleaned, and individually examined.

In case anyone doubted the high price of cashews, here's a clear picture explaining cashews' valuable status. The detailed care to save each nut individually and meticulously is expensive compared to other nuts and is reflected in the price of cashews, which exceeds that of other nuts in the market.

Between the Tree and the Ground

The question naturally arises as to what blessing should be recited over cashews if they are not truly a fruit of the tree but rather a product of the tree's fruit stem - creator of tree fruit or perhaps fruit of the ground?

This question was discussed by the great halachic authorities of recent generations, reaching a consensus. This halachic understanding is attributed to Rabbi Tzion Cohen of blessed memory, Rabbi of Panama, a student of the "Porat Yosef" yeshiva and part of the genius Rabbi Ben Tzion Abba Shaul of blessed memory and others, who illuminated the halachic matter before the great light of Israel, our Rabbi Ovadia Yosef of blessed memory.

Several decades ago, the prevalent opinion among legal deciders was to bless "creator of the ground fruit" on cashews, since they are not actual fruits. Even the generation's legal decider, Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, initially held this view. However, about twenty years ago, the Rabbi of Panama revisited this halachic issue, revealing to Israel's greats that the primary fruit for which traders grow the cashew tree is the cashew nut, not the pseudo fruit growing on its branches. This detail received halachic reinforcement due to two known reasons: A. Because the cashew apple does not preserve beyond a day and is therefore not the main reason for growing. B. Due to the development of nut processing, cashew trees are now primarily grown only due to high demand for the nut, which traders use for sustenance and exports worldwide. Consequently, even those who initially believed the blessing for cashews was "fruit of the ground" agreed that the nut is now the tree's real fruit, so the blessing for it is "creator of the tree fruit" by all accounts.

Our first to Zion, the great Rabbi Yitzhak Yosef, in his book Yalkut Yosef (Blessings p. 339), indeed writes: "On the cashew nut, we bless creator of the tree fruit. Although years ago cashews were planted not for the nut but for the sour fruit growing on this tree, today the reality has changed, and cashews are also planted for the nut, so today its blessing is creator of the tree fruit."

On this occasion, it's worth mentioning and cautioning that during storage, cashews passing through warehouses and ships - hotbeds for insects - may be infested with larvae and warehouse insects, leaving traces in the fruit of crumbs, webs, dust, and more. As cashew nuts generally have a natural hole that opens into the nut's interior, larvae and insects infiltrate, often without leaving external signs.