Listing description
The cashew tree (Anacardium occidentale) is a
tropical evergreen tree that produces the cashew seed and the cashew apple.
It can grow as high as 14
metres (46 ft), but the dwarf cashew, growing up to 6 metres (20 ft),
has proved more profitable, with earlier maturity and higher yields.
Detailed description
The cashew seed, often simply
called a cashew, is widely consumed. It is eaten on its own, used in recipes,
or processed into cashew cheese or cashew
butter. The cashew apple is a light reddish to yellow fruit, whose
pulp can be processed into a sweet, astringent fruit drink or distilled into liquor.
The shell of the cashew seed
yields derivatives that can be used in many applications from lubricants to
paints, and other parts of the tree have traditionally been used for
snake-bites and other folk remedies.
Originally native to
northeastern Brazil, the
tree is now widely cultivated in Vietnam, Nigeria and India as major production countries.[1]
Etymology
Its English name derives from
the Portuguese for the fruit of the cashew tree caju (Portuguese pronunciation: [kɐˈʒu]),
which itself is derived from the indigenous Tupian nameacajú, literally meaning
"nut that produces itself".[2] The name Anacardium, originally from the
Greek, refers to the unusual location of the seed outside the core or heart of
the fruit (ana means
"without" and -cardium means "heart").
Habitat and growth
The cashew tree is large and evergreen,
growing to 10-12 m (~32 ft) tall, with a short, often irregularly
shaped trunk. The leaves are spirally arranged, leathery textured,
elliptic to obovate, 4 to 22 cm long and 2 to 15 cm broad, with
smooth margins. The flowers are produced in a panicleor corymb up to 26 cm long; each flower is
small, pale green at first, then turning reddish, with five slender, acute petals 7 to 15 mm long. The largest cashew tree in the world covers an area of about 7,500 square metres
(81,000 sq ft); it is located in Natal, Rio Grande do Norte,
Brazil.
The fruit of the cashew tree is an accessory
fruit (sometimes
called a pseudocarp or false fruit). What appears to be the fruit is an oval or pear-shaped structure, a hypocarpium, that
develops from the pedicel and the
receptacle of the cashew flower.[3] Called the cashew apple, better known in
Central America as marañón,
it ripens into a yellow and/or red structure about 5–11 cm long. It is
edible, and has a strong "sweet" smell and a sweet taste. The pulp of
the cashew apple is very juicy, but the skin is fragile, making it unsuitable
for transport. In Latin America, a fruit drink is made from the cashew apple
pulp which has a very refreshing taste and tropical flavor that can be
described as having notes of mango, raw green pepper, and just a little hint of
grapefruit-like citrus.
The true fruit of the cashew
tree is a kidney or boxing-glove shaped drupe that grows at the end of the cashew apple.
The drupe develops first on the tree, and then the pedicel expands to become
the cashew apple. Within the true fruit is a single seed, which
is often considered a nut, in
the culinary sense. The seed is surrounded by a double shell containing an
allergenic phenolic resin, anacardic acid, a
potent skinirritant chemically
related to the better-known allergenic oil urushiol which is also a toxin found in the related poison ivy. Properly roasting cashews destroys the
toxin, but it must be done outdoors as the smoke (not unlike that from burning
poison ivy) contains urushiol droplets which can cause severe, sometimes
life-threatening, reactions by irritating the lungs. People who are allergic to
cashew (or poison ivy) urushiols may cross-react to mango or pistachio which are also in the Anacardiaceae family.
Some people are allergic to cashews, but cashews are a less frequentallergen than tree nuts or peanuts.[4]
While the cashew plant is
native to northeast Brazil, the Portuguese took it to Goa, India,
between 1560 and 1565. From there it spread throughout Southeast Asia and
eventually Africa.[5]
Cashew "nut"
Botanically speaking, cashew
are not actually nuts but merely seeds. Culinary uses for cashew
seeds are similar to uses for nuts, however, and the seeds are frequently
referred to as nuts. Cashews, unlike oily tree nuts, contain starch to about 10% of their weight. This makes
them more effective than nuts in thickening water-based dishes such as soups,
meat stews, and some Indian milk-based desserts. Many Southeast Asian
cuisines use cashews for this unusual characteristic, rather than other nuts.[6]
The shell of the cashew nut is
toxic, which is why the nut is never sold in the shell to consumers.[7]
Cashew nuts are commonly used
in Indian
cuisine, whole for garnishing sweets or curries, or ground into a paste
that forms a base of sauces for curries (e.g., korma), or
some sweets (e.g., kaju
barfi). It is also used in powdered form in the preparation of
several Indian sweets and desserts. In Goan
cuisine, both roasted and raw kernels are used whole for making curries
and sweets.
The cashew nut can also be
harvested in its tender form, when the shell has not hardened and is green in
color. The shell is soft and can be cut with a knife and the kernel extracted,
but it is already corrosive at this stage, so gloves are required. The kernel
can be soaked inturmeric water
to get rid of the corrosive material before use. Cashew nuts are also used in Thaiand Chinese
cuisine, generally in whole form.
In the Philippines, cashew is a
known product of Antipolo, and
is eaten with suman. Pampanga also has a sweet dessert called turrones de casuy, which
is cashew marzipan wrapped in white wafers.
In Indonesia,
roasted and salted cashew nut is called kacang
mete or kacang mede, while the cashew
apple is called jambu monyet (literally means monkey rose apple).
In Mozambique, bolo polana is a cake prepared using powdered
cashews and mashed potatoes as the main ingredients. This dessert is popular in
South Africa, too.[8]
South American countries have
developed their own specialties. In Brazil, the
cashew fruit juice is popular all across the country. In Panama, the
cashew fruit is cooked with water and sugar for a prolonged time to make a
sweet, brown, paste-like dessert called dulce
de marañón. Marañón is one of the Spanish names for
cashew.
PRICE
$32.97/KG OR
$14.99/IB
For more information:
mobile: +2348039721941
contact person: emeaba uche
e-mail: emeabau@yahoo.com
website: www.franchiseminerals.com
