By Evangeline MacLeod*
THE worldwide social media frenzy for the decadent pistachio-based “Dubai chocolate” has caused the price of pistachios to skyrocket, making it difficult for businesses closer to home.
Dubai chocolate is a chunky chocolate bar filled with a bright pistachio cream, tahini and flaky and crunchy kataifi (thinly torn phyllo pastry). The result is a decadent chocolate bar that has caught the attention of those that court attention.
Fuelled by TikTok “influencers”, demand has surged, not only for the chocolate bar, but also for other pistachio-based items with ice creams, spreads, chocolates, coffees and even protein powders landing on supermarket shelves. The chocolate bar has become a symbol of opulence with the Lindt version selling for $20 for less than 150 grams.
Although Australia is a relatively trivial producer of pistachios, producing 5000 tonnes in a world market of 700,000 tonnes, chair of the research and development committee at Pistachio Growers Australia, Chris Joyce, said that there has been a 50% increase in demand.
“There has been an extraordinary escalation in price for pistachio kernels in the last 12 months,” said Joyce. “We are seeing a price increase of around 50-70%.”
A disappointing harvest in the United States, that produces over two-thirds of the world’s pistachios, has seen their production fall by 26%, compounding the problem.
Middle Eastern communities who have utilised the nut in cuisine and custom for thousands of years are feeling the pinch. The owner of Middle Eastern restaurant “1001 Nights” in Mt Eliza, Nina Syawish uses pistachios in her traditional Iraqi cuisine.
“Pistachio is very popular in Middle Eastern dishes. In any dish we use it as a garnish on top of the rice, biryani rice, we use it for dessert, other savouries, we mix it with the meat,” said Syawish. Her restaurant offers classic baklava, along with lokum (a traditional version of Turkish delight), mahalabi (milk pudding), kanafeh, and awamat doughnuts. All these dishes include pistachios.
Syawish said she has felt the strain of increased pistachio prices but due to their importance in her dishes she has been forced to bear it. Without the pistachio, her food is simply not the same; a concession she is not prepared to make.
Since the Dubai chocolate trend began, Syawish has also struggled to access kataifi pastry. This is the foundation of kanafeh, the milk pudding dish that the Dubai chocolate was derived from. Syawish has resorted to trying to make the pastry herself however has struggled to simulate its exact structure.
“I was so upset. I have tried to make it myself. I tried many things, but it didn’t work because that pastry is very fine.”
The current Dubai chocolate crazy is likely to go the way of the “fidget spinner”; another internet craze from 2017 that died a sudden death. All Syawish can do in the meantime is wait for the crazy to die down and normalcy to return.
*Evangeline MacLeod is a third year journalism student at Monash University
