Pistachio baklava

This article is about the culinary nut and the tree that bears it. Central Pistachio baklava and the Middle East.

The tree produces seeds that are widely consumed as food. Pistacia vera is often confused with other species in the genus Pistacia that are also known as pistachio. The pistachio tree is native to regions of Central Asia, including present-day Iran and Afghanistan. Pistachio trees were introduced from Asia to Europe in the first century AD by the Romans.

They are cultivated across Southern Europe and North Africa. Theophrastus described it as a terebinth-like tree with almond-like nuts from Bactria. Anthimus implies that pistacia remained well known in Europe in late antiquity. An article on pistachio tree cultivation is brought down in Ibn al-‘Awwam’s 12th-century agricultural work, Book on Agriculture. Archaeologists have found evidence from excavations at Jarmo in northeastern Iraq for the consumption of Atlantic pistachio. The Hanging Gardens of Babylon were said to have contained pistachio trees during the reign of King Merodach-Baladan about 700 BC. In the 19th century, the pistachio was cultivated commercially in parts of the English-speaking world, such as Australia and in the US in New Mexico and California, where it was introduced in 1854 as a garden tree.