Are macadamia nuts one of your favorite treats?? Did you know: The trees were brought to Hawaii in 1887….. from??? The Mauna Loa farm has 2500 acres with 250,000 trees. The trees grow and produce year round but only in Hawaii. Macadamia nuts cannot be picked; “when the sugar is just right they fall” and must be hand gathered or (when possible) vacuumed by a small truck. Mauna Loa processes 40 million pounds of raw nuts annually. This yields 8 million pounds of useable product and 4 million pounds of “really good nuts.” The gathered nuts are dried for ten days…then sorted and then cracked. Macadamias “are the hardest nuts in the world to crack… it takes 300 pounds of pressure and we use steel rollers to do the job.” Some 8000 pounds can be processed every hour. They are also separated by color category (same as the grade). Mauna Loa macadamias are all (large to tiny) packaged with some nitrogen gas inside “to protect the delicate oils.” Finally, flavoring is added and they have many but chocolate coating is the favorite. They have a “state of the art computer coating machine” and they use one million pounds of chocolate annually. Another big favorite is Macadamia Shortbread Cookies. And their new product is Macadamia Nut Oil for cooking……which is offered under Oils of Aloha.
You might be thinking, “what do macadamia nuts have to do with the Christmas tour?” Well, many times, as we unwrap our gifts, I’ve seen Chocolate Covered Macadamia Nuts be greeted with squeals of delight. So thought I’d tell you more about them…….. the “rest of the story,” as it were.
Donna, aka Mother Hen, until next week.