288 OTJE COMMON FRUITS. 



cious frown of fashion rather than to their being really 

 deficient in merit. The green-kernelled Pistachio Nut, 

 for instance, in Sicily, where it is largely cultivated, is 

 preferred by many to the Hazel or even the Almond ; and 

 though hardly considered wholesome when raw, is much 

 eaten on the Continent, either roasted or in comfits and 

 confectionery. It is also used in ragouts and to make 

 ratafias ; and most readers of the Arabian Nights will re- 

 member that a kid stuffed with Pistachios seems to have 

 possessed great attractions for an Oriental palate. The 

 tree is recorded to have been introduced into Rome by 

 Vitellius, a fact which of itself may almost be taken as a 

 gastronomic certificate. 



The male and female blossoms of the Pistachio grow not 

 only separately, but on distinct trees, so that in forming 

 a plantation care must be taken to select a proper pro- 

 portion of both ; and to ensure fertilization, the Sicilian 

 cultivators usually gather the male blossoms and suspend 

 them on the female plants. The nuts grow in clusters of 

 little dry oval drupes,* of a green hue, but tinged with red, 

 with a thin rind, and brittle two-valved shell containing a 

 single green seed or kernel covered with a violet coloured 

 pellicle. This tree abounds in Syria, and thrives generally 

 in the same soil and climate as the olive, but, naturalized 

 in the south of Prance, will bear fruit even as far north 

 as Paris. 



It is another member of the same family which produces 

 the kidney-shaped Cashew Nut, a native of the West In- 

 dies. This tree, the Anacardium Occidentale, bears sweet- 

 scented blossoms, followed by what looks like a fruit of 

 the apple kind,t but which is, in reality, simply the pe- 

 duncle, or flower-stalk, swollen and become succulent. 

 Hed or yellow in colour, and of a very agreeable sub-acid 

 flavour, this is not only eaten, but its fermented juice is 

 made into a kind of spirit. Prom the end of this quasi fruit 

 protrudes the rightful owner of thefructal title, our Cashew 

 Nut, which is of the size and shape of a hare's kidney, but 

 larger at the end by which it is attached to its apple-like 



* See Plate I., fig. 3. t See Plate I., fig. 4. 



