Friday, February 17, 2006
Answer time!
Why, oh why, do they charge more for plain pistachios than for dyed ones?
(Thanks Linda!)
Well, I phoned two stores that carry good-quality nuts in bulk: Sunsource foods in Westmount and the glorious Marche Akhavan on Sherbrooke West in good old ND of G. At the first store the red pistachios were actually more expensive than the plain ones, and at the second store they didn't carry red pistachios but the very helpful man on the line told me that the size of pistachios is what determines the price, and that in general red pistachios are lower quality nuts, and should be sold at a lower price.
So that answers the question why you sometimes (but not always) find red pistachios at a lower price than plain. They're poor quality, smaller nuts.
It also leads to the question of why some pistachios are dyed red at all:
Now, most experts agree with my Akhavan friend that pistachios are dyed red because of poor quality. In the past the shells were dyed because they had blemishes on them (no longer a problem with machine-picking), and when they were sold in vending machines the red colour helped them to stand out among the other colourful candies. Because of this sales advantage, the market for red pistachios remained, but largely for vending machines. My own research seems to bear this out, as most of the distributors selling red ones were targeting the vending machine market.
I did find another plausible theory on Zenobianut.com:
In the Middle East, pistachios were often left in their reddish husks and were brined before roasting. This gave the shells a pink cast. When pistachios were first imported into the U.S., processors attempted imitating the color by using red dye. They found that the coloring made the nuts more noticeable in retail displays and made the nuts even redder! (Middle Eastern people, who until recently were the biggest pistachio consumers, were accustomed to eating nuts with blemished shells and wouldn't care whether or not the nuts were dyed.)
Amidst current trends toward more “natural” foods, consumption of dyed red pistachios has declined dramatically in recent years.
So if you buy pistachios, stick to the big, healthy plain ones. They may be more expensive, but they won't leave your hands all red and you'll get fewer of those ghastly rotten nuts that taste like death.
Question the Second:
Who was the guitarist who played the solo on the tune "Play That Funky Music" by the group Wild Cherry?
(Thank you Lyle!)
I couldn't find a credit for the solo itself, but it seems logical to assume that the solo was by the lead guitarist and singer Rob Parissi, who also wrote the song.
From http://www.artistdirect.com/nad/music/artist/bio/0,,509717,00.html#bio
"The group was still mostly rock-based and with the public's attention shifting to more dance-oriented styles (namely disco), the group was accosted nightly between sets by fans who wanted them to "Play that funky music." It wasn't long before Parissi took heed and penned a song under the same title, an infectious ditty that merged funk and rock together. The quintet entered a studio shortly thereafter to record the track (although they felt that a cover of the Commodores song "I Feel Sanctified" stood more of a chance of becoming a hit). A friend of an engineer at the studio overheard the track, eventually bringing it to the attention of Epic Records, which in turn signed the group."
Oh, and Parissi says that the name Wild Cherry was inspired by a throat lozenge.
