Pistachio
Channel: 宇宙のすべての知識 プリンシピア
Date: 13/03/2019

Pistachio, by Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki?curid=40584 / CC BY SA 3.0

#IUCN_Red_List_near_threatened_species
#Pistacia
#Edible_nuts_and_seeds
#Flora_of_Central_Asia
#Flora_of_Western_Asia
#Trees_of_Mediterranean_climate
#Italian_cuisine
#Plants_described_in_1753
#Drupes
Pistachio

The pistachio (, "Pistacia vera"), a member of the cashew family, is a small tree originating from Central Asia and the Middle East. The tree produces seeds that are widely consumed as food.

"Pistacia vera" often is confused with other species in the genus "Pistacia" that are also known as pistachio. These other species can be distinguished by their geographic distributions (in the wild) and their seeds which are much smaller and have a soft shell.

Pistachio is from late Middle English "pistace", from Old French, superseded in the 16th century by forms from Italian "pistacchio", via Latin from Greek "pistakion", from Persian "pesteh".

Archaeology shows that pistachio seeds were a common food as early as 6750 BC. Pliny the Elder writes in his "Natural History" that "pistacia", "well known among us", was one of the trees unique to Syria, and that the seed was introduced into Italy by the Roman Proconsul in Syria, Lucius Vitellius the Elder (in office in 35 AD) and into Hispania at the same time by Flaccus Pompeius. The early sixth-century manuscript "De observatione ciborum" ("On the observance of foods") by Anthimus implies that "pistacia" remained well known in Europe in Late Antiquity. Archaeologists have found evidence from excavations at Jarmo in northeastern Iraq for the consumption of Atlantic pistachio. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were said to have contained pistachio trees during the reign of King Merodach-Baladan about 700 BC.

The modern pistachio "P. vera" was first cultivated in Bronze Age Central Asia, where the earliest example is from Djarkutan, modern Uzbekistan. It appears in Dioscurides as "pistakia" πιστάκια, recognizable as "P. vera" by its comparison t...