A few months ago, I was listening to the LA Theatreworks production of Once in a Lifetime on my local public radio station. A Chekhov’s Gun-type plot point from Act One made reference to one of the characters’ fondness for a snack called “Indian nuts.” The character, who is kind of dim eats Indian nuts between gigs with his vaudeville act, eats them on the train while he and his partners travel to Hollywood to become elocution instructors for the nascent Talking Pictures industry, and when he (improbably) becomes a movie director, he eats them on the soundstage during filming.
It’s made clear that cracking the shells of Indian nuts can be very loud and distracting. What’s not made clear is what the hell Indian nuts actually are.
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Wikipedia is not helpful in providing an answer to this mystery. And so I turn to the Dope. Anyone know the answer (I figure it will probably be Eve, since the play was written by Moss Hart and George S. Kaufman)?
This is all I could find… apparently similar to Pine Nuts, but not identical. Claim is that they’re form the American Southwest and no longer being harvested for some reason…
Ah, I’ve wondered about that ever since I read about them in an old comic book. Never encountered them in real life, and always was curious what they were.
Pinon is Spanish for pine. Aren’t pine nuts the usual nut to go in pesto? When you use them in cooking you normally get them shelled, but if you’re just eating them as a snack, roasted and salted, they come in the shells.
The pine nuts used in pesto would usually be from the Stone Pine Pinus pinea. Pinon nuts come from several different species of pines in the Southwestern US.
