What Ever Happened to Red Pistachios?
When I got home from Christmas vacation, my friends Loren and Debbie McManus picked me up at the airport and took me home. Upon arrival at the house they gave me a wonderful gift bag with all kinds of goodies in it including a big bag of pistachios, which I've been whittling down to near nothing over the last month.
I was munching on a handful of them and was remembering how much my Dad loved them, but when we were kids the pistachios were almost always red in color. Eating them back then would leave you red in color too! It was practically unavoidable.
I wondered why you never see red pistachios anymore? Now I know.
Up until the 1970s the United States imported most of its pistachios from the Middle East and Asia (where they are a native product), even though pistachio trees were planted here in the 1800s.
The history from there is a convoluted one due to (I know you won't find this hard to believe) political conflict.
The first Iranian pistachio embargo happened in 1979 because of the Iranian hostage crisis. It was then lifted in 1981, reinstated again from 1987 to 2000 and in 2011 in response to Iran's nuclear shenanigans, the president renewed it.
Which was actually good news for California pistachio farmers who now produce 98 percent of the tasty little nuts we consume here.
What happened to red pistachios is directly related to this tangled embargo history. When the majority of pistachios were imported prior to the 1980s, their shells were blotchy from not being hulled and washed in the traditional harvesting methods.
So to make them more attractive, Middle East producers took to dying them a bright red.
When the embargoes took hold and American producers filled the gap their harvesting systems eliminated the ugly staining of the shells by hulling and drying them right away.
The result? No need to dye the pistachios bright red anymore.
So now, we all know.