A few months ago there was buzz in the news about pine nuts with a metallic after taste. The early information was that it involved pine nuts from Asia and Russia. Further confusing the story was that some people weren’t able to detect the metallic after taste. I was concerned there was some sort of unidentified contamination.
According to this abstract the French safety agency among others, have tested the pine nuts for contaminants and chemical residues. So far the pine nuts have failed to test positive for either. As someone that is part Italian, and loves pine nuts, I will be following the news on this story. If I hear anything else I will post it here.
Update:
This article seems to suggest that one possibility for the metallic taste is rancid pine nuts. I buy my pine nutes from Italian stores with high turnover and then store them in the freezer. So far I haven't tasted the metallic flavor that they refer to, so maybe it is a freshness issue as the article suggests.
If I see anything else on this issue that seems to shed light on the situation I will blog about it.
Posts
Interesting, thanks for bringing this up; it would have completely passed over my radar.
ReplyDeleteI often wonder how they get the nuts out of their little shells in one piece.
yea i remember my mom telling me about this, i wonder how well and for what they tested.
ReplyDeletei think that's just a quality pine nuts have. i find they taste really unpleasant when over cooked, maybe that's what people are talking about
ReplyDeleteEveryone,
ReplyDeleteThere is a theory that the aftertaste may be due to a freshness issue. I updated the original post to link to that article as well.
Alicia