Cashew Fruit
I can’t say I’d wondered how cashews grew. If I had to guess, I would have said they grew like walnuts or pecans; from a tree and inside a hard shell. While those things are true, the cashew nut also grows inside a fruit.
The cashew fruit looks like a bell pepper. I thought it was, at first. It’s yellow-ish red in color and shaped like a bell pepper but upon closer look, what I thought was the stem, is actually the cashew nut. The fruit is edible in its raw form, however the nut is not.
To eat the fruit, use the nut as a handle and bite into the flesh like an apple. It’s juicy and has a texture similar to a mango although, it tastes nothing like a mango. I have no way to describe the taste. It’s more sweet than sour but it leaves a strange after-taste and drying effect in your mouth. I could only handle two small bites.
Another thing I didn’t know is that the cashew nut is encased in a double shell that contains a chemical resin closely related to poison ivy. The toxins are destroyed by properly roasting the nut – if you eat it before it’s roasted, it could kill you.
Overall Thoughts: I’ll stick to store-bought cashews. The raw fruit and nut are not worth the trouble.