Behold the humble cashew nut. Turns out it isn’t so humble, or even a nut.
Dangling from the bottom of the cashew apple, a rare example of a seed that grows outside its own fruit, the cashew embodies globalization—and some of its discontents.
How global?
Cashew trees were transported to India by Portuguese explorers sailing from Brazil in the 16th century. The trees soon found their way to the city of Kollam, an Indian Ocean port on trade routes once plied by the Italian wanderer Marco Polo and the Muslim adventurer Ibn Battuta.
The crescent-shaped kernels made it into the
