Marcona Almonds - Inedible?
I purchased some marcona almonds from Trader Joe's that are salted and have bits of rosemary. I was so excited to try a new almond for a snack. I rushed home and opened them up, popped the first couple in my mouth and proceeded to spit them out and gag. They were the most bitter thing I've ever put in my mouth. I can't even describe the level of bitterness because it is unlike anything I've ever tasted. Revolting.
So, is this usual? What's the deal with marcona almonds? Everything I've read online doesn't mention bitterness once - and this isn't rancidity - that I know. It's just bitter like the bitterest greens you've ever tried. Like broccoli rabe. But more bitter.
OK, you get it - they were bitter. My husband thought the rosemary? But I don't think so, I eat rosemary all the time - in all forms and have never encountered bitter.
Thoughts? I'm afraid to open the other bag to see if it's a fluke.
krissywats
Aug 20, 2007 07:13PM
Really? These are like crack in our house! I can only buy them when we're having company otherwise we'll eat the whole bag in one sitting.
They were off the shelves in here in AZ for a bit and just came back a couple weeks ago. I haven't bought any since they've come abck(need to invite some people over! LOL)...hope they haven't changed the recipe!
Trader Joe's is so good about returns. Open the other bag too to see how they are and if they're both bad take them back for a refund.
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hahaha! They are like crack in my house too, ziggylu!
Personally, I find TJ's oversalts their marcona almonds. If you have Whole Foods nearby - definitely try theirs. Marcona's are absolutely delicious...
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I eat marcona almonds with every meal -- I usually get them at Costco, $6.99/lb. When I get to the bottom of the can they sometimes turn bitter but that should never happen with new ones.
I'd return the bag to TJ's and try the other bag you have.
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At your behest, I ventured forth. Well, first I had my husband venture forth. He tried the already open bag and said they weren't bitter at all to him.
Hmmm. I know i have a lower tolerance for bitter than he does, but most anyone with tastebuds would've had trouble with what i tasted.
So, I took two more out of the original bag and first i licked it, then nibbled, and yep, no bitterness. I'm guessing from all of your reports and from my second try, unfortunately the first one's i pulled out of the bag were bad. I've eaten a dozen or so now and they have all been fine.
Thanks everyone for your help (and encouragement!)
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Take the first bag back to TJs- or at least tell them this story. They will refund your money.
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Agree with other posters. Try them from Whole Foods, they are delicious! And TJ's will take yours back
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Also, in Manhattan, you can get them at DiPalo's for $9.99 a pound - much cheaper than WF - and many other places.
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Whole Foods marconas are what got me hooked on this devilish treat. They are like crack dipped in crack. (Not that I would really know what crack tastes like, of course.) But, once they hooked me, they jacked the price up to $14.99/lb. For that I can get two pounds at Costco -- they aren't slathered in oil like WF's but they are still delectable.
And since I can incorporate them into my Zone-ish diet, so much the better. I used to eat marconas at home and TJ's crunchy blister peanuts at work but the peanuts have been displaced and now it's all marconas all the time.
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Maybe it's the rosemary flavor. Plain ones from Costco seem to have less almond flavor and a light crunch, to me at least.
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In Minnesota we get them from Lund's. They are never bitter, always wonderful. I like Lund's because they are not overly salted or drenched in oil, like some that I've had.
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Something had to be wrong with them. I find them to be almost buttery, crispy and deeply addictive!
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They sound like they are rancid. Marcona almonds have such a high oil content that I've found they don't keep as long as other nuts. I've had a bag of TJ's rosemary marcona almonds that I opened and then didn't finish for a few weeks. They had the same bitter/rancid flavor when I tried them after several weeks. I'd take them back and try a new bag. Marcona's are usually delightful.
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Crack?.... Oh yeah. I am totally addicted. I do prefer Whole Foods, but TJ's used to be serviceable. But what happened to them? All but gone suddenly. Anyone have an explanation?
btw krissywats, don't buy another package. We don't need competition for this delicacy.
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I couldn't find the Rosemary ones at the Newport Coast location the other day. :( I laughed at the person who thought they were too salty - I ADD more Maldon salt and rosemary to the bag & shake it up really good...
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They are definitely bad. There shouldn't be any bitterness. They are much creamier and milder than regular almonds and they turn quickly.
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Marcona almonds are bitter when they are raw. Absolutely terrible. But I buy them raw and dry roast them on the stove top over low-medium heat in a stainless steel frying pan.
Is it possible that a batch of raw almonds slipped passed their QC ...?
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That's strange. I eat raw marcona almonds all the time (practically every day!)... they shouldn't be bitter. Here in Spain the raw ones are used all the time in baking and sweets with no accompanying bitterness.
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Never had a bitter experience w/ the plain. I've been hesitant to try the rosemary ones and your experience suggests that I stay w/ the plain ones. Take 'em back... something was wrong, girl! Get you some of the plain ones! :-)
P.S. As the other posted suggested they are a bit like crack!
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I eat the one's with rosemary now all the time. However, I figured out it WAS rancidity and it was just one nut in that whole bag.
However - I opened a bag a while back of the rosemary and salt variety and forgot about it. About a month later they had the EXACT same bitter flavor as that unfortunate very first one I tried.
Seriously - do not be afraid of the rosemary variety. They are fantastic!! I've gotten all my friends now addicted and we go through many bags per week.
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Oh, well thanks for that info. I will try the rosemary ones now then. I was just recently introduced to these little gems and I'm a total addict now too!
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Marcona Almonds are one of my favorite guilty pleasures. and I've never noticed a bitter flavor!
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I've had problems with rancid nuts at TJs, so I will no longer buy them there. The marcona almonds I've bought from WF have been great, but sometimes you have to dig to find a container that's not just dripping in oil.
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I'm sorry to have to be a "thread bumper" but I want to re-open this.
I've had a similar experience w/TJ's Marcona Almonds. 2 in the bag were impossibly bitter. However, I have a theory that I'm surprised nobody else has postulated. There is such a thing as a bitter almond that contain much higher levels of benzaldehyde (almond odor) and a glycoside that yields cyanide on hydrolysis. Therefore they are poisonous in large quantities and their sale is illegal in the US but not in Europe. <<sarcasm>>Our state looks out for us - yeah!<</sarcasm>> Cf. the wiki article on almonds for a detailed write-up.
I know rancidity very well, I'm quite sensitive to it. Peroxides have a very distinctive taste and I've had freshly opened packs of Planter's peanuts I found inedible. This was definitely NOT a rancid flavor. It also had a strangely ethereal quality which I would expect from the release of gaseous cyanide (a very small amt., not lethal) or more likely, the easily volatilized benzaldehyde. It seems to spread out into my entire mouth from the meat of the nut. Few flavors can do that at room temperature. LIke menthol from a mint.
I think what is going on is one of these 3 possibilities:
some true bitter almonds are slipping into the Marcona almonds during harvesting
a Marcona almond is being pollinated by a nearby bitter almond tree leading to a hybrid seed with bitter characteristics. (quite unlikely, but possible)
a Marcona almond is really a bitter almond after all, that has somehow been prepared for consumption by high heat frying to inactive the glycoside that would yield cyanide. A few of them slip past the treatment.
Do we have an almond expert in the house? In any case, I've been curious for many years to try a bitter almond. I kept meaning to buy some when I was in Europe but forgot. I'm convinced what I tasted was a bitter almond, so, I'm glad I had the experience. Too bad they are toxic in stomach-filling quantity - I rather liked the taste!
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What you describe sounds exactly like my experience - It did not seem at all like rancidity which is why I posted originally. and it was the FIRST nut I had out of the bag and was concerned if they all tasted that way.
I did not care for the flavor, but bitter is not a flavor i enjoy except in very small quantities and typically only accompanied by sweet (like a super dark chocolate).
I'll be interested to hear what others have to say. Thanks for posting this!
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Thanks for clarifying your experience. I forgot to mention that, rancidity, by its very nature, would tend to "spread" to the other nuts unless they were protected by an antioxidant like Vitamin E or TBHQ. I do sometimes experience, for example, a batch of hazelnuts where they are all at varying stages of rancidity, some worse than others. But the rest of the nuts in this case, as you and I both experienced, were just fine.
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My understanding is that a sweet almond tree pollinated by a bitter almond tree will not produce a bitter almond. If you plant the sweet almond that was pollinated in this way, it could produce a bitter almond tree that could produce bitter almonds. I think you just got a few bad ones. If they whole bag was bad, then there was obviously a problem in the processing (they certainly process them differently for the US market, where they will sit on the shelves longer).
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i bought the rosemary marconas about..... 5 years ago from trader joes, and i found them quite delightful, it sounds like yours might be rancid somehow, maybe air in the bag somehow??? :/ im sorry you had a bad experience. i really enjoyed the marconas from tj.
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As we have both made quite clear, it was definitely NOT a rancid flavor at all. Very different.
Also, I must say that rosemary contains a chemical called rosmarinic acid that has powerful antioxidant properties, being several times more effective than the classic phenolic antioxidants (BHA, BHT, TBHQ). It is also slightly more toxic, but that's really not a concern for the small amounts of either type of chemical added to preserve oils. I advise anyone to avoid eating an entire rosemary bush though. Your liver would not be happy with that.
So it would be highly unlikely for TJ's Marconas with rosemary to develop a rancid flavor unless the product had been extremely mishandled, for example, left on the side of an Arizona highway all summer.
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Do you still have the package? Maybe you could get it tested/investigated.
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um, im sorry but it still sounds to me like it was time/temperature abused. lord, do you really need to be so snippy? even if it wasnt completely "rancid", it still sounds like the product has gone off in some way.
not sure why you felt it was necessary to include that bit about rosemary in the middle?
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EUREKA!
I investigated this further myself. At first I found a possibly helpful citation in a publication that charged $15 for a copy of the article. I emailed a friend getting a PhD at Harvard to see if she could get me a copy of the article (all research universities can get online versions of any academic research articles, often from more than 20 years past)
Luckily I found a free online article that had exactly what I was looking for. I'll just simplify it by saying that, Marcona almonds, even fertilizing themselves, are capable of producing the odd bitter kernel. Because they are heterozygous for the recessive gene that causes bitterness. Interestingly the article slightly contradicts itself, implying but not stating that another gene may control the degree of bitterness expression.
This is the key statement:
occasionally the presence of the recessive allele may produce a certain
degree of bitterness.
CASE CLOSED!
F.J. Vargas, M.A. Romero and I. Batlle
Departament d‘Arboricultura Mediterrània, Institut de Recerca i Tecnologia Agroalimentàries (IRTA),
Centre de Mas Bové, Apartat 415, 43280 Reus (Tarragona), Spain, e-mail: Francisco.Vargas@irta.es
Bitterness in almond is controlled by a single recessive gene with two alleles: S (sweet) dominant over
s (bitter) and was first identified by Heppner (1923, 1926). This monogenic relationship has been
confirmed by almond breeders and the genotype of some cultivars has been known. Most Californian and
some Mediterranean almond cultivars are heterozygous for bitter (Ss) and a number of homozygous
sweet (SS) have been also identified through crossing (Kester and Asay, 1975; Kester et al., 1977;
129
Spiegel-Roy and Kochba, 1977, 1981; Grasselly and Crossa-Raynaud, 1980; El Gharbi, 1981; Vargas
et al., 1984; Vargas and Romero, 1988; Dicenta and García, 1992; Kester and Gradziel, 1996). Among
the heterozygous cultivars (Ss), it is possible to find sweet (‘Atocha‘, ‘Marcona‘) or slightly bitter
(‘Garrigues‘) kernels. Dicenta and García (1992) suggest that slightly bitter forms must correspond to
heterozygous trees (Ss) and occasionally the presence of the recessive allele may produce a certain
degree of bitterness.
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One more supporting citation:
Fruit breeding by Jules Janick and James N. Moore
"Since several biochemical steps are involved in the reaction, the inheritance pattern may be more complex than described. [exactly as I hinted above...I had not read this citation at the point I made the first post] Crane and Lawrence (1947) reported that when the almond cultivar 'Marie Depuy' was pollinated by pollen from a bitter almond, the seeds were decidedly bitter, suggesting a xenia effect...Inheritance of bitterness in peachXalmond hybrid populations is more complex and shows quantitative variation."
PeachXalmond hybrids are more common in the Med. as rootstocks than in California, because they are more drought and disease resistant. Peach pits are bitter too. Those plants being around to serve as rootstock sources could explain why Mediterranean almonds are more prone to this random bitterness phenomena than Calif. almonds. The writers go on to state that:
"Variation in amygdalin content may account for flavor differences and the distinct flavor characteristics claimed for Mediterranean produced almonds"
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Wow! You really DO research!
I'm so glad you found this and I can put my mind at ease that I'm not nuts (pun intended) and that I do know the difference between rancid and the bitterness I experienced with the marconas.
I have experienced this since that first time with the marcona almonds and I noticed the ones that were bitter were darker in color. so now I simply avoid the darker ones. I'm also extremely sensitive to bitter, as I said (super taster, and all) so if it's possible for some of the nuts to pick up some of this trait rather than being fully bitter, I would surely notice that as well.
Thanks again for all your hard work!
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i just opened a bag of marcona almonds yesterday, from trader joe's, and found the same incredible bitterness! unfortunately i was not in a place to spit them out. i was hoping it was a fluke but several handfuls later... the same experience.
i see the above genetic research about bitter versus sweet. is this bitterness still linked with cyanide? are these occasional super-bitter almonds likely to contain the higher levels of cyanide found naturally in bitter almonds (even after supposedly being roasted)?
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thanks for this posting. i found the same experience with tj's rosemary marcona almonds.
any more info on the link between this bitterness and the presence of cyanide? are the bitter almonds that sneak through in trader joe's rosemary roasted marcona almonds likely to contain high levels of cyanide? is amygdalin accounting for the bitterness, and is amygdalin associated with cyanide?
still tasting the bitterness i experienced in two handfuls of almonds last night.
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