The Pistachio- Nut. 279 



and in the preparation of entremets such as epicures love. 

 Broken up, and put into wine, especially old Madeira, 

 roasted cashew-nuts impart to it a recherche and lingering 

 aroma ; the fumes produced by the roasting, it must be 

 remembered, are dense and acrid, painfully affecting the 

 nose and eyes, so that it must be managed by special 

 process and with due precautions. The pear-like pedicel, 

 never seen in England, is eaten, both fresh and when 

 stewed. Candied and preserved, it is better still. 



THE PISTACHIO-NUT (Pis facia vera). 



THE nut called the Pistachio is the first of which 

 mention occurs in history. When, after the detention 

 of Benjamin by Joseph at the court of the Egyptian 

 monarch, Jacob despatches his elder sons to beg that the 

 lad may be released, " Take," he says, " of the best fruit 

 in the land, .... and carry the man a present, a little 

 balm, and a little honey, spices, and myrrh, botnlm, and 

 almonds" (Gen. xliii. 2). The A.V., as in the case of 

 'eghoz (the walnut), contents itself with "nuts." The 

 Revised allows the marginal alternative "pistachio-nuts," 

 and in so doing is right. The tree producing them is of 

 the same genus as the terebinth and the lentisk. It 

 grows twenty feet high ; is well clothed with pinnate 

 leaves, two or three inches in length, the three or five 

 leaflets oval and entire ; and produces abundance of little 

 racemes of minute and brownish-green flowers. The fruit 



