Have you ever wondered where cashews come from?  Or maybe why you never see a cashew inside it’s shell like other typical nuts?  Well here’s why.  Cashews grow on a cashew fruit tree.  The Cashew tree actually produces both fruit and a nut.  Here’s a picture of a cashew fruit with the nut inside the shell attached to the underside of the fruit.  The fruit is pretty typical and can be used for jellies, juices, etc.  But the nut is a little unusual.  In its raw state, the shell is leathery, not brittle, and it contains a thick oil, CNSL (Cashew Nut Shell Liquid), within a sponge-like interior.  This CNSL is a valuable raw material for producing things such as paints, varnishes, and glue to name a few.  And here’s where it gets dicey.  The cashew tree is a relative of the Poison Oak/Poison Ivy plants, and it’s outer shell contains the skin irritant urushiol.  So handling a raw cashew nut could be very dangerous, and eating a raw cashew could even be fatal to someone allergic to poison ivy.  The cashews that you see in the store labeled as “raw” are not really raw.  They are at least boiled and/or steamed to remove the urushiol before being offered to the public.  Cashew processing facilities are a very dangerous place, and you probably would not want to work at one.  There are a lot of ways to get the nut safely out of the shell.  Most involve roasting, boiling, and/or steaming before cracking the shell open.  If any part of the shell is not removed from the finished product, it can be very dangerous.

There you have it.  Now you probably know more than you ever needed to about Cashews.