When people think about Panama's food, they usually think about tropical fruits, rice, beans, plantains, seafood, corn and all the incredible flavors found in the country's countryside. Nuts don't necessarily come to mind. Yet Panama has its own fascinating nut culture, and some of the country's most interesting "nuts" have stories that go far beyond what you find in a supermarket bag. From the famous marañón to peanuts and locally grown tropical seeds, Panama's warm climate allows several nut and nut-like crops to grow, while other varieties commonly eaten in the country are imported because Panama's climate isn't ideal for large-scale production.
The most distinctly Panamanian nut is undoubtedly marañón, known in English as the cashew. This is the nut that has perhaps the strongest traditional connection with rural Panama. The marañón tree, Anacardium occidentale, grows particularly well in the country's warmer and drier regions, and historically it has been especially associated with provinces such as Coclé and Veraguas, as well as other parts of the interior. Panama's agricultural authorities describe marañón as an important crop for the country's dry regions because it is well adapted to those conditions. In fact, the government is currently working to restore and strengthen marañón production after years of declining productivity.
What makes the marañón so fascinating is that the nut doesn't grow the way most people imagine. The familiar kidney-shaped cashew nut hangs underneath a colorful fleshy structure known as the cashew apple. The apple can be yellow, orange or red and is extremely juicy, although it has a distinctive astringent quality that can make your mouth feel almost dry. The nut itself is protected inside a hard shell containing an irritating oil, which means that freshly harvested cashews cannot simply be cracked open and eaten like a peanut. Traditionally, Panamanians roasted the "pepitas de marañón" carefully before removing the edible nut. Older accounts describe families roasting them over fires, and the process became part of rural childhood memories, particularly during the dry season.
Marañón is much more than a snack in Panama. The fleshy fruit has traditionally been turned into chicha de marañón, juices, sweets, preserves and other preparations. The roasted nuts can be eaten by themselves, incorporated into desserts or used in confectionery. One particularly interesting tradition is associated with Semana Santa, when families in parts of the interior roast cashew seeds and prepare sweets from the fruit. The combination of marañón with cane syrup is another traditional preparation. This is one reason marañón has such a special place in Panamanian culture. It isn't simply something grown commercially and sold in bags. For generations, it has been something people collected, roasted, prepared and ate together.
Panama actually once had a much larger population of productive cashew trees than it does today. Agricultural research indicates that the country had hundreds of thousands of marañón trees, and older agricultural records documented particularly large numbers in provinces including Veraguas, Panama, Chiriquí and Coclé. Unfortunately, production has declined considerably. Since around 2015, a complex of fungal diseases has seriously affected the crop, reducing productivity and threatening farmers who depend on it. In 2026, MIDA and IDIAP launched programs aimed at recovering the crop, including research into disease-tolerant genetic material and improved agricultural techniques. So the story of the cashew in Panama isn't just a story about a traditional food. It is also a story about an agricultural crop that the country is actively trying to save.
Another familiar nut found in Panama is maní, or peanut. Technically, peanuts aren't nuts at all. They are legumes, related to beans and peas. Unlike cashews, almonds or walnuts, peanuts develop underground. Nevertheless, in everyday food culture they are absolutely treated as nuts. Peanuts are used throughout Panama as a snack and as an ingredient in cooking and food products. They can be roasted, salted, ground into spreads or incorporated into sweets. Small-scale cultivation has existed in different parts of the country, although peanuts are nowhere near as culturally distinctive to Panama as marañón. The warm climate and agricultural conditions in parts of Panama make peanut cultivation possible, but production is not on the same scale as the enormous peanut industries found in countries such as the United States, Argentina or China.
Another interesting category is coconut. Botanically, the coconut is a drupe rather than a true nut, but the name itself can be confusing because it is commonly described as a nut. In Panama, however, coconut is absolutely part of the country's food culture. Coconut palms grow particularly well along the Caribbean coast and islands, including Bocas del Toro, as well as in other tropical coastal regions. Coconut is used in rice dishes, desserts, drinks, sweets and countless Caribbean-inspired recipes. The coconut provides water, milk and flesh, making it one of the most useful food-producing plants in tropical Panama. It isn't normally considered one of Panama's "nuts" in the same sense as marañón or maní, but it belongs in any discussion about the country's tropical nut and seed foods.
Then there are the nuts that you frequently see in Panama but which are not necessarily grown commercially in significant quantities inside the country. Almonds, walnuts, pistachios, macadamias and Brazil nuts are widely consumed, particularly in Panama City, hotels, supermarkets, bakeries and restaurants, but much of the supply is imported. Panama's climate isn't naturally suited to producing large commercial quantities of some of these temperate-climate nuts. Government trade classifications and import records show Panama handling substantial quantities of products such as walnuts, pistachios and macadamias from international sources. So if you buy a bag of almonds or pistachios in a Panamanian supermarket, you shouldn't assume they were grown somewhere in the Panamanian countryside.
Macadamias are particularly interesting because they can grow in tropical and subtropical environments, meaning Panama's climate can support them in appropriate locations. However, that doesn't mean macadamias have become a major national crop. Panama has some agricultural and commercial interest in a wide range of tropical crops, but marañón remains far more deeply connected with traditional Panamanian agriculture. Macadamias are therefore much more likely to be encountered as a specialty or imported product than as a major everyday Panamanian agricultural commodity.
The same is true of almonds and walnuts. These are familiar to Panamanians, but their natural growing environments are very different from most of Panama. Almonds are strongly associated with Mediterranean-type climates and California, while walnuts require conditions that Panama's tropical lowlands generally don't provide. That is why they are primarily imported rather than being major domestic crops. They have nevertheless become common ingredients in modern Panamanian cooking, particularly in desserts, breads, pastries, salads and international cuisine.
There is also an interesting world of tropical seeds that don't always get called nuts but deserve attention. Panama has numerous palms and tropical plants producing large edible seeds. One of the most famous is pixbae or pifá, the fruit of the peach palm. It is technically a palm fruit rather than a nut, but its large seed is part of what makes the fruit distinctive. Pifá is traditionally boiled and eaten as a snack and is strongly associated with Panamanian food culture. It demonstrates an important point about Panama's traditional diet: the country's relationship with seeds, fruits and nuts doesn't always fit neatly into European or North American categories.
The interesting thing about Panama is that the marañón is much more than just another nut. It connects geography, agriculture, childhood memories, seasonal traditions and local cuisine. The appearance of the fruit during the dry season can be an important seasonal event, particularly in the interior. Older generations remember collecting the fruit and roasting the seeds, while younger Panamanians may encounter marañón more often in markets, sweets, juices or packaged snacks. Recent efforts to revive production show that there is still a strong desire to keep this traditional crop alive.
There is also something wonderfully Panamanian about the way these foods are used. A person might walk past a marañón tree without giving it much thought, while someone who grew up in the interior immediately recognizes it. The bright red or yellow cashew apple signals that the seeds are there. The fruit can become juice or chicha. The seeds can become roasted pepitas. The leftovers can have other uses. One tree can provide several different food products, which helps explain why marañón became such a useful rural plant.
And then there is the taste. Fresh marañón is completely different from the roasted cashew you buy in a supermarket. The fruit is intensely juicy, aromatic and slightly astringent, while the roasted nut has the creamy, rich flavor that has made cashews famous around the world. Experiencing both together in Panama is one of the best ways to understand the plant. Suddenly, the little cashew sitting in a bowl of mixed nuts isn't just a snack anymore. You know where it came from.
So if you're traveling through Panama and someone offers you pepitas de marañón, don't think of them as simply another type of nut. You're tasting a small piece of Panamanian agricultural history. And if you happen to see a marañón tree covered in colorful fruit, take a closer look. What appears to be an ordinary tropical fruit tree is actually producing one of Panama's most fascinating traditional foods.
Panama may not be famous around the world as a major nut-producing country, but it has something arguably more interesting: its own nut story. Marañón, maní, coconut and a variety of tropical seeds have all found their place in the country's agriculture and cuisine, while almonds, walnuts, pistachios and other international favorites have become increasingly common through imports. Among all of them, however, the marañón stands apart. It is the nut that comes with a strange fruit, a complicated harvesting process, a memorable flavor and generations of Panamanian stories attached to it.
And perhaps that is what makes Panama's nuts so interesting. You don't just eat them. Many of them come with a story.