We used to get the red ones around Christmas. I just thought they were decorative for the holidays, like Hersey’s kisses changed to Christmas color wrapping
Was this a regional thing? In my memory, they were all dyed green.
Pistachios are native to Iran, and until the 1970s Iran was the world’s largest exporter. They dyed their exports with a food safe red.
They were dyed because they were hand picked and oils from the pickers hand would cause discoloration. The red dye covered that up.
Machine harvested pistachios didn’t have that problem.
IF you’re actually curious, it was because we used to import them, and the importers would dye them red due to discoloration in how they were harvested. Domestic production ramped up in the US and since pistachios didn’t have to travel as far, and because modern harvesting was more mechanized. It was easier to wash, dry, roast and salt them in a shorter time period avoiding the discoloration that required the dye in the first place.
Wait, this is real? I thought this was a joke…
Like “Back in my day, bananas were bright purple, but that breed died out.”
There are bananas that are dark red to dark purple, those varieties barely get imported to the US. For some reason the import market is 1-variety-of-bananas-at-a-time-until-it-goes-extinct.
Because most banana varieties aren’t very transport stable.
The real answer is that yes, they were red, but no it wasn’t because they were poor quality.
It’s because the world’s largest exporter was Iran, and Iran had a blanket policy of dying their pistachios red.
I also figured this was just a “let’s screw with the youth”-type post. We used to eat pistachios all the time when I was a kid (I’m 35) and I don’t think I’ve ever seen a red one before today. They were always beige/greenish.
We over-60s remember when pistachios were red, airplane security was non-existent and everywhere smelled like cigarettes.
I’m also 35, and I remember the red ones. But my mom ate a lot of pistachios and sunflower seeds when she quit smoking in the mid 90s
Yeah, I’m 38 and remember red pistachios. Also remember finding some sort of worm thing burrowed into one of those red pistachios, while I was sitting at my grandfather’s kitchen table eating pistachios. Didn’t stop me. Well, it stopped me from eating that one. But I’m always leery if a pistachio has a hole in it.
Now smoking is much more financially responsible than eating pistachios
It’s absolutely real; there’s a joke about it in The Naked Gun.
It’s not that there used to be a red variety of pistashio, they were sold coated in this oily red gunk that would stain your fingers pink. That stopped at some point in the late 90’s early 2000s.
I see, so that’s why they have never been red outside the US
Ok that makes sense because I (a 30+ yo canadian) was so confused.
It’s also about ten years out of date, 25 year olds today probably wouldn’t recognize this
Was pistachio ice cream also red?
Good question, no and it confused me as a child in the 60s
No, pistachio flavored ice cream and puddings and such have always been green.
Takes me back. The Naked Gun | Red pistachios scene
I know it’s common for actors to not really eat when filming a scene in which the character is eating but it almost adds to the joke that we never really see them eating the pistachios. They’re just fidgeting with the bags and chewing on nothing.
Warwick Davis (best known for his roles as Wicket the Ewok or Willow) told this story from when he was an extra at the pod race in Star Wars Episode 1.
He had an awesome looking cocktail and he made the fatal mistake of taking three large sips in the first take. And of course he had to repeat that action every take. And they had to do many takes. Trouble was (apart from the enormous amount of liquid) that the cocktail tasted absolutely awful. But as a professional he stuck to his role of course.
Those takes never made it into the movie. They aren’t even available as cut scenes or still photos.
Care to tke dinghy, Frank? No, I took care of that at the press conference.
The shell of the pistachio is naturally a beige color, but it may be dyed red or green in commercial pistachios. Originally, dye was applied to hide stains on the shells caused when the nuts were picked by hand.[51] In the 21st century, most pistachios are harvested by machine and the shells remain unstained.[51] Wikipedia
Well now I’m wondering what those stains were. Did they dye them red because the people picking them had their hands bleeding? We were all just ingesting small amounts of laborer’s blood?
Blood oxidizes to a dark brown/black pretty quickly so a red dye wouldn’t really hide it.
Another commenter said it was the oil on people’s hands
They tasted better this way. I wish they could bring this pistachio back from extinction.
They still exist. They’re just from Iran.
You could always add red food coloring if you have some old bottles from before they took out the toxic
The Red Pistachio mold plague spread with surprising speed. Horticulturalists were caught flatfooted, but pulled a rabbit out of their hat with the current strain of green pistachios, saving the sector. It was quite a wild ride.
I guess you had to be there.
Pistachio Green!
Say what you will about becoming Pistachio Green, but it’s one of the few jobs that didn’t require you to use AI.
Fun fact, the ketchup chips in Canada were inspired by these
Where did you get that from?
His ass
Lmfao
