The pistachio (Pistacia vera), a member of the cashew family, is a small tree originating from an area that includes Afghanistan, Central Asia, and Iran. The tree produces seeds that are widely consumed as food.
The name pistachio is from late Middle English pistace, from Old French, superseded in the 16th century by forms from Italian pistacchio, via Latin from Greek πιστάκιον pistákion. And all this, of course, from Middle Persian pistakē.
The pistachio tree is native to regions of Central Asia, including present-day Iran and Afghanistan. Archeology shows that pistachio seeds were a common food as early as 6750 BCE. The earliest evidence of pistachio consumption goes back to the Bronze Age Central Asia and comes from Djarkutan, modern Uzbekistan.
Armed with this knowledge, myself and five elderly ladies, led by Masoud, head to the market in Yazd to buy pistachios. When the ladies negotiate with the local seller, Masoud and I disinterestedly observe life on the street. It’s noon, the heat is oppressive, the vendors are shouting, the women are getting upset about the price.
When our girls almost close the deal, Masoud feels it’s time to intervene. He takes ten pistachios, puts them on the scale, weighs them and says, these are not good. He repeats the process with the pistachios from the other bag. The same. He repeats for the third time and is finally satisfied. The shopkeeper looks at him unkindly, the ladies negotiate the price, buy the pistachios that Masoud picked, pay and we go out into the street in the sun.
Later, Masoud explains what the trick is. If the weight is too low, it means that there are empty shells in between. When he was still a student, he also made a living by selling pistachios.
A few years later, I arranged with the Iranian Embassy in Ljubljana for an occasional exhibition on their national holiday. They would exhibit my photographs of Iranian classical architecture. As a sign of goodwill, they gave me a bag of pistachios. Without Masoud, I knew they were of great quality…