Cashews come from a tropical tree formally known as Anacardium occidentale.
The tree produces a fleshy, pear-shaped stalk called a cashew apple on its branches. Yet, this part of the plant isn’t the fruit.
Instead, the true fruit is a smaller, kidney-shaped structure that grows underneath the cashew apple, also known as a drupe. Inside the fruit is where you find the edible seed that most people know as a cashew nut.
Thus, because of the plant’s structural configuration, the edible portion of a cashew is botanically classified as a drupe seed.
The seed and its outer shell are technically considered both the nut and the fruit, but the shell is inedible due to the presence of a toxic substance. This is why you only ever see shelled cashews at your local market.
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