Pistachios are the new trend, soon everything will be made of pistachios. Our author doesn't really know if he thinks this is good or bad.

Is everything made with pistachios now? Photo: Hermann J. Knippertz/ap

When I was a kid, there were four standard flavors of ice cream in my mind: Vanilla (of course). Chocolate (also clear). Strawberry (I didn't like it, but I knew it was important). And my favorite: pistachio. It wasn't until many years later that I understood the importance of pistachio as an ice cream flavor. It's not as exotic as “sweet potato semolina porridge” or “powder”, but it's definitely not in the top 4, or even necessarily in the top 10.

So my love for pistachios started early and continues to this day. For a long time I had no idea to what extent that love was, because in Germany there were almost no things with pistachios or made with pistachios, apart from ice cream, bagged toasted pistachios and slices of bologna.

Little by little I discovered its diversity: in the Arab pastry shops that I can visit on Berlin's Sonnenallee, pistachios are served in baklava and in many other pastries. When I travel to Italy, cannoli and cornetti generously filled with pistachio cream are standard fare, and I also got a great recipe for ricotta and pistachio cookies from there.

Or let's think about pistachio pesto! One of the advantages of pistachios is that they can be sweet and salty, which also makes them a great dip.

Optics are king in social networks

But still: hardly in Germany. We simply don't have a pistachio culture. But that could change! Recently the owner Vienna standard: “Now everything is made with pistachio?” Stuttgart newspaper He knows it: “Currently the pistachios are overflowing.” The trend was likely fueled, once again, by Instagram and Tiktok.

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Which makes sense, because looks are king when it comes to food trends on social media, and the bright, poisonous green of pistachios or cream just looks great. In this sense, pistachios are the ideal and almost compressed successor to the avocado, whose hype cycle is slowly coming to an end and which is also under observation due to its high water consumption.

Soon everything can be made with pistachios, but does that make me happy? Don't know. Pistachios are expensive and increased demand should not improve the situation. And if Iran (the world's third largest producer of pistachios) is now subject to tougher sanctions, prices will rise even more. In addition, growing pistachios also consumes a lot of water, 11,000 liters per kilo, which is more than seven times more than avocados and a hundred times more than tomatoes (although it must be recognized that many fewer pistachios are also needed per use).

So pistachios will probably remain a sweet and exclusive luxury for me in the future. Sometimes that's exactly why it tastes good.