"Siobhan Perricone" > wrote:
> I knew that the shells of cashews had toxins similiar to poison ivy. What
> I didn't know was that cashews have to be blanched or roasted to keep the
> nuts from also having those toxins and sometimes cashews aren't properly
> blanched and so the toxins remain.

I knew they had a toxic oil in the shells, but I didn't know it was related
to poison ivy until a couple of months ago. I get really bad reactions to
such stuff.

My parents used to have a cashew tree growing in their back yard (Miami,
FL). The fruit and nut are most interesting compared to normal fruit trees.
The fruit itself looks like an apple, but the pulp is not edible in the same
sense as an apple. You can either chew on the fruit to get the juice out, or
press the fruit to get the juice out. The juice is very good. The pulp is
very coarse and stringy and not to be eaten.

The nut or seed is not inside the fruit, like an apple or peach, but hangs
below the bottom of the fruit. This is the part with the shell containing
the toxic oil. We tried roasting them on a few occassions without any
success. The last time my father attempted it, the oil from the nuts burst
into flame. I'm glad I wasn't there on that occassion, as I am sure the
fumes from this would have given me "poison ivy" all over. My father was not
so sensitive to it.

I've got two cashew plants in my house now growing from seeds off that tree
my parents had. They are a few months old now. My parents tree is gone now,
as it was blown over in one of the hurricanes last fall. I've got a whole
big jar of cashew nuts in the shell... anyone want to try roasting them? ;-)