There\u2019s never been a more exciting time to stock your kitchen\u2014just ask food writer Adam Roberts<\/a>, who\u2019ll be diving into all things groceries in The Food Haul<\/strong>. This post contains products independently chosen (and loved) by our editors and writers. Food52 earns an affiliate commission on qualifying purchases of the products we link to.<\/em><\/p>\n When it comes to nuts that are on trend, look no further than pistachios. Turn one way, and you\u2019ll see them on a salad; turn another, and you\u2019ll see them in a dessert. Even though they\u2019ve been around for, well, a while (since 6750 B.C. in fact), pistachios have reemerged as the \u201cit\u201d nut of the moment. A recent headline from Eater<\/em> staff writer Amy McCarthy, \u201cThe Pistachio Moment is Already My Favorite Food Trend of 2023<\/a>,\u201d makes it official: We\u2019re in our pistachio era.<\/p>\n So, how do you shop for them?<\/p>\n Well, it depends on what you want to do with them. If you\u2019re anything like my husband Craig, you\u2019ll want to pick them apart with your fingers, in which case Wonderful Pistachios<\/a> ($9.99 for a 16-ounce bag at Vons grocery store in Los Angeles) are the pistachios for you. Not only do they come in a variety of flavors (salt and pepper, sweet chili), they have an excellent work-to-reward ratio. Prying them apart is a cinch and the pistachios inside the shell are meaty and substantial.<\/p>\n For lazy folks like me, the same brand also sells pre-shelled, roasted pistachios ($12.99 for 12 ounces at Vons) in an even wider variety of flavors including chili roasted and BBQ. For research purposes, I focused on the unsalted, plain version and found them to check all the boxes of what I\u2019m looking for in a pistachio: They\u2019re crunchy, grassy, and a little bit creamy\u2014plus, they\u2019re generally easy to find at the grocery store or online.<\/p>\n By way of comparison, I also ordered some pre-shelled pistachios on the World Wide Interwebs. The no-shell raw pistachios from Oh! Nuts<\/a> ($9.99 for an 8-ounce bag) are substantial contenders. These nuts are slightly plumper than the pre-shelled option from Wonderful and taste just as good, but if you do the math (can you do the math? I\u2019m bad at math) it\u2019s kind of a wash from a price perspective. And then there\u2019s Zaiqa Raw Pistachios<\/a> ($17.99 for 12 ounces), which tasted a bit dusty to me and didn\u2019t have the same panache as the other pistachios.<\/p>\n Now for the prestigious pistachios: Pistacchi di Bronte DOP ($42 for 8.8 ounces on Gustiamo<\/a>). In Italy, they\u2019re called \u201cgreen gold,\u201d and according to the website these pistachios are grown in Northeastern Sicily near Mount Etna. More significantly, the farmers only harvest them every other year to give the trees a chance to rest (lucky trees). I couldn\u2019t wait to try such extravagant, carefully cultivated pistachios. So how did they taste?<\/p>\n Okay. Fine. Nice.<\/p>\n Look, I wanted to fall on the floor in fits of ecstasy, but when I popped a handful in my mouth, I closed my eyes and tasted the same sensations that I tasted with the others. Actually, the others offered meatier sensations; these were a bit smaller. It\u2019s entirely possible that I\u2019m not sophisticated enough to taste the difference between Sicilian sun-kissed pistachios and pistachios that you can find at an American gas station, but allow me to posit a theory: Pistachio the flavor and pistachio the nut are not necessarily one and the same.<\/p>\n I first came upon this conclusion when I made the Pistachio Bundt Cake from Christina Tosi\u2019s cookbook All About Cake<\/a><\/em>. In addition to fresh pistachios, as you\u2019d expect from an award-winning pastry chef, her recipe has a secret ingredient: Instant Pistachio Pudding Mix<\/a>. Now, okay, Christina Tosi is well-known for using everyday ingredients in her cooking; it\u2019s kind of her shtick (see the potato chips and pretzels in her compost cookies). So perhaps the pistachio pudding mix in her dessert doesn\u2019t mean much.<\/p>\n But then Priya Krishna wrote an article for The New York Times<\/em>, \u201cThe Power of Instant Pudding Mix<\/a>,\u201d in which Joshua Pinsky\u2014the pastry chef at Claud, a restaurant and wine bar in New York City\u2014reveals that he, too, uses pistachio pudding mix in his own version of a pistachio bundt cake. First he tried making it with just pistachios, but he says, \u201cIt didn\u2019t have the same, I hate to say it, artificialness to it.\u201d<\/p>\n And that\u2019s precisely it.<\/p>\n
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