Mar 1, 2019 3 min read

The problem with mixed nuts is not that they are so delicious and crunchy that you end up eating half the jar in one sitting. Although that’s been known to happen around here, the real problem with big jars of mixed nuts is the Brazil nuts.

They are the large white nuts that are shaped like orange sections. They have the texture of an old bar of soap; to me, they taste like soap, too. (Cilantro also tastes soapy to me, a phenomenon shared by those of us with certain genes; maybe the same genes are turning us against the Brazil nut.)

Because nuts are a healthy snack, I sometimes will ask the farmer to buy some when he goes to Costco. The mixed nuts there come in large plastic tubs with twist-off lids. The opening is wide enough that I can practically climb in there and dig around for the goodies.

I have a nut hunting-and-pecking order that goes like this: pecans are the best, followed by cashews, walnuts, peanuts, hazelnuts and then, yuck, the Brazil nuts. (To discover a macadamia is a rare delight.)

Our latest jar contained more Brazil nuts than I’d ever encountered. Each time I dove in there I had to work around them like potholes on a highway.

“Stop avoiding the Brazil nuts,” said the farmer, who suggested I might be fixing to throw them away as I happened upon them. And so I set about extracting them all, to save for him.

There’s a physical system called granular convection, which holds that large objects mixed among many smaller objects tend to rise to the top when the container is vibrated or jostled around. Physicists actually have named this the “Brazil nut effect,” which explains how I was able to shake those bitter little suckers to the top of the jar so I could pluck them out.

That jar of nuts cost as much as a couple of nice steaks. The label promised “less than 50 percent peanuts” – the suggestion being that peanuts are cheap and somehow less desirable than the other nuts. You ask me, the labels should say something more helpful, such as “contains only one Brazil nut.” Now that’s a jar that would be worth the investment.

Turns out the farmer joins me in his dislike of Brazil nuts.

“But I’ll eat them,” he said. “Even though they taste like soap.” He also blames me about the cilantro, which he decided began to taste soapy only after I pointed that out.

In researching Brazil nuts for this column, I learned that the nuts are actually seeds that grow nested inside a pod that looks like a coconut. Capuchin monkeys have been known to use rocks to break the pods open, to which I say, why aren’t they using that crafty intelligence to open actual coconuts?

That jar of mixed nuts contained 14 Brazil nuts. I plucked them out and put them in a coffee mug and set it aside for the farmer. Last I checked, all of them were still in there.

If that mug were full of pecans, they wouldn’t have lasted the day. Nor would cashews. Or peanuts.

It’s just a fact: the Brazil is an inferior nut. The biggest isn’t always the best.

Beth Dolinar can be reached at cootiej@aol.com.