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What sorts of nuts are common in (real) Italian cooking?

Looking online it seems that walnuts, almonds and hazelnuts figure heavily but do Italians use cashew nuts, peanuts, pistachio or other nuts?

Simd
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    How do you define "real Italian cooking"... Do you mean Italian cooking from 100 years ago or are you willing to include modern Italian cooking. I would guess that, in the case of the latter, any nuts commonly available may be used on a regular basis. – Catija Aug 11 '15 at 19:22
  • @Catija I just meant Italian food that you would get in Italy as opposed to Italian food from the US or another non-Italian country. – Simd Aug 11 '15 at 19:24
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    pignoli (pine nuts), at the very least. – Joe Aug 11 '15 at 19:31
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    I was merely trying to point out that, with the greater availability of foods around the world, the "Italian food" you see in restaurants now may be different than what you would have seen a century ago. For example (not nut related) but Italy is the [biggest producer](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kiwifruit#Production) of Kiwi fruit... which is certainly a new introduction to their culture. – Catija Aug 11 '15 at 19:32
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    @Joe Technically, they're not nuts, they're seeds for all they're called that... though, cashews and peanuts aren't technically "nuts" either by the same definition so... yeah. But they certainly use pistachios, too... I saw pistachio *gelato* all over the place. – Catija Aug 11 '15 at 19:36
  • @Catija Pistachio is very helpful thank you. How about peanuts or cashew nuts for example? – Simd Aug 11 '15 at 19:45
  • I'm a bit tempted to close this as unclear, for basically the same reasons as Catija mentioned. Is this just an idle curiosity question, or is there something practical you're trying to find out? You have one answer about traditional Italian food, which might not exactly apply to modern Italian food (even in Italy) - is that what you want? – Cascabel Aug 11 '15 at 20:45
  • @Catija : and let's not forget that tomatoes aren't Italian, either, or peppers. They're New World imports. Also corn, so therefore polenta isn't Italian. – Joe Aug 12 '15 at 02:13

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I would say cashews and peanuts are not traditional Italian. Pistachios and hazelnuts are commonly used for desserts, think nutella for example. Pine nuts (pesto) and chestnuts are also traditional. It might not what you are looking for, but nutmeg is a common Italian spice.

MelanzanaRipiena
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  • Pine nuts are almost ubiquitous in ligurian food. Walnuts are also used in sweet food or in genoese salsa di noci. Just to complement the answer. – Alchimista Feb 27 '19 at 14:03
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Traditional "continental" Italian cuisine only use locally grown produce.

This includes depending on the area: Almonds, Walnuts, Pine nuts, chestnuts, hazelnuts, pistachio (maybe some other less known nuts)

Peanuts and Cashew (and others exotic nuts) came in later in Italian cooking; they were probably introduced with the advance of food transportation technologies (cargo ships, refrigerated containers...)

Max
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