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The Veggie Girl: Gotta get this off my chestnut!
Chestnuts are famously associated with the Christmas season because of the 1946 classic, “The Christmas Song,” with its affectionate reference to chestnuts roasting on an open fire.
This line, forever memorialized by Nat King Cole’s velvet vocals and Bing Crosby’s croon, are a common response when the word chestnut is uttered.
It happened to me recently. I told my brother-in-law I was seeking chestnuts at local stores, and he suggested I look for them on an open fire.
Despite this association, chestnuts are a fall crop, typically coming into season in the weeks prior to Thanksgiving.
They’re a starchy nut, containing twice as much as potatoes, and are used as a substitute for this tuber in Europe, Asia, and Africa.
As the song suggests, they’re fantastic straight from the oven or fire, but they may also be used in a variety of ways in cuisine, both savory and sweet.
It’s possible the chestnut is one of the first foods consumed by man, as they’ve been part of our diet since prehistoric times.
Unlike most nuts, they’re low in fat and high in carbohydrates. They’re also high in fiber. They rank low on the glycemic index, which means they don’t cause a spike in blood sugar as many other foods high in carbohydrates do.
They have a high vitamin C content (so much so they’re said to help prevent the common cold) and contain a plethora of other nutrients, such as manganese, potassium, copper, phosphorus, magnesium, and iron. They’re cholesterol free and low in sodium.
As to cuisine, they’re a popular addition to stuffing recipes for fowl – particularly this time of year – and are an accompaniment in various forms for meats such as lamb, pork, duck and lobster.
They’re added to or used as the main ingredient for soups, stuffed into ravioli, made into puree, combined with potatoes and rice (Upper Lake farmer Haji Warf tells me Koreans enjoy adding them to the latter), used as a stuffing for squashes, and paired with such things as mushrooms and leeks.
On the sweet side, many desserts can be made with chestnuts, including mousse, fillings for cream puffs, ice cream, truffles, tortes, candy, and cakes. Chestnuts and chocolate are often combined in desserts.
If roasting chestnuts isn’t your thing, chestnuts are abundant in jars this time of year, and canned chestnut puree (either sweetened for confections or pure for savory foods) may be found in holiday displays at markets. One popular brand is imported from France.
Chestnuts can be ground into flour and used for baking, a practice which has been popular in Italy for centuries. When combined with other types of flour, chestnut flour may be used to make such things as breads, scones, cakes, and muffins.
Because chestnuts are gluten-free, combining chestnut flour with flours made with other gluten-free foods, such as sorghum or rice, is a boon for those with Celiac disease or sensitivity to wheat.
Visually chestnuts are quite lovely. Mahogany-colored shells look as though they’ve been lacquered, giving their wood grain-like patterns a subtle sheen. They make a pleasant clicking sound, almost like castanets, when tossed together.
While on the tree, the nuts grow encased in a spiny outer covering that sheds when the nuts drop to the ground. There are usually three nuts within each of these spiny casings.
Chestnut trees are in the same family as beeches and oaks. There are four main species, commonly known as European, Chinese, Japanese, and American chestnuts. Those in the U.S. are mainly of European stock (which was introduced there from Sardis in Asia Minor) because a deadly and unfortunate blight destroyed most of the American chestnut trees in the early part of the last century. The blight “hitchhiked” on chestnut trees imported from Asia, which carried the fungus but were immune to its effects.
Efforts are currently being made to restore the American chestnut, which once grew prolifically throughout the United States and Canada. Sadly, the blight of the last century took most of these native trees, other than a few stands in the Pacific Northwest and California.
The Zeni family of Yorkville in Mendocino County has been harvesting and selling chestnuts since their grandfather purchased a ranch there in 1918. I went to high school with the current ranch owners, and John, the eldest brother, tells me that the height of harvest was in the 1970s when more than 14,000 pounds of chestnuts were sold.
The blight struck their trees shortly after that and they lost 75 percent of them. Even so, they still harvest enough chestnuts to hold an annual festival at the ranch. In John’s words, “people come and pick their own chestnuts, enjoy a vast potluck lunch and fire roasted chestnuts, drink homemade wine and fresh pressed apple juice, and discuss the varied agricultural bounty that people bring and display.”
The festival, the 30th this year, is being celebrated this weekend in conjunction with the Mendocino County Permaculture Society. Yesterday featured a potluck lunch and chestnut picking; today includes a chestnut roast and mini farmers’ market.
To get directions or to inquire about chestnuts (they charge a little for people to gather their own), contact Linda Zeni at 707-884-4208, John Zeni at 707-291-6805 or Raymond Zeni at 707-895-2309.
Closer to home, the Dorn Family of Kelseyville (who own Dorn Vineyards and Loasa Farms) harvests chestnuts from two beautiful trees on their property. They have a farm stand and contact information can be found on their colorful blog: http://dornvineyards.blogspot.com/ .
Another local site for chestnuts is the Livermore Ranch, situated on the slopes of Mt. St. Helena near the Lake-Napa county line.
Ranch founder, Bob Livermore, an avid agricultural student at U.C. Davis in the 1940s, started planting chestnut trees throughout the Mt. St. Helena region in about 1980.
Bob’s gone now (he died in 1996), but ranch manager, Pete McGee, tells me that the now-mature trees “produce great amounts of food for deer and other wildlife … however, the ranch has yet to conquer any niche market for selling chestnuts.”
If you’d like to find out more about Livermore Ranch or talk to McGee about chestnuts, he invites you to contact him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .
In Sonoma County, chestnut purveyors Jim and Dave of Sonoma Coast Organic Produce are well known at the Santa Rosa farmers’ market, which they attend only when chestnuts are in season. According to co-owner Jim McCrumb, the chestnut trees on the farm they purchased 30 years ago are more than 100 years old.
Interestingly, they learned this because they counted the rings on the stump left from a tree which the former owner had cut down to make a coffee table. To find out more about Jim and Dave’s chestnuts, they may be contacted at 707-847-3454.
If you’re interested in mail order chestnuts, you may enjoy the website of this Sonoma County chestnut ranch: http://www.chestnutranch.com/Green_Valley_Chestnut_Ranch/Home.html . Located in Sebastopol, the Green Valley Chestnut Ranch will ship fresh chestnuts to your door. You’ll have to wait, however, as they’re sold out for the 2012 season.
The ranch’s Web site is still worth perusing, as they have some interesting recipes and varied information on chestnuts, such as storage. (Basically, they should be stored in your fridge or freezer because of their high moisture content.)
I played around with roasting chestnuts, as well as experimenting with another method for removing from their shells: boiling in water.
Before employing either method, it’s important that the chestnuts be scored with a sharp knife to make an “X” on their top. This enables the skin to open up for peeling after cooking, and, more importantly, it prevents explosion of chestnuts in the oven due to steam build-up. (Based on others’ experiences, this is a real possibility.)
I roasted the chestnuts in a 425 degree Fahrenheit oven for about 30 minutes, and boiled another batch on the stove for about as long. They’re ready when the skins pop open at the crosshatch marks.
Each of these methods yields a somewhat different outcome. The boiled chestnuts were a bit more difficult to peel (the skin didn’t seem to want to let go of the flesh), and in terms of texture, they were moister. The roasted chestnuts had a slightly different flavor profile. I enjoyed both.
I was told by a student in one of my past culinary classes that some of her Portuguese relatives boil chestnuts in port wine. I haven’t yet tried this, but I would imagine the rich sweetness of port wine marries well with the creaminess of chestnuts.
For those who wish to roast chestnuts on an open fire (as the song indicates), I recommend this site for detailed instructions: http://www.essortment.com/all/chestnutsroasti_ranw.htm .
For this week’s recipe, I offer an updated version of a medieval recipe for chestnut soup, courtesy of this site which offers recipes for a medieval Christmas dinner: http://www.bellaonline.com/articles/art54386.asp .
The chestnuts should be roasted (or boiled) so they may be peeled before using in the recipe. The author recommends pureeing the soup in a blender; however, I highly recommend using an immersion blender if you have one, which eliminates the need to transfer hot soup from the pot to the blender.
Bon appétit! Enjoy!
Chestnut soup
3 tablespoons butter
2 onions, thinly sliced
2 carrots, diced
1 cinnamon stick
2 pounds chestnuts, peeled
6 cups chicken or vegetable stock
1/8 teaspoon mace
1/8 teaspoon nutmeg
Salt & pepper to taste
1 cup heavy cream
Melt butter and add onion, carrot, and cinnamon stick.
Cover and cook until vegetables are browned, stirring occasionally to prevent burning.
Remove cinnamon stick.
Blend in chestnuts and stock. Cook until chestnuts are tender, 15-20 minutes.
Puree in blender. Return puree to pot.
Add seasonings and whisk in the cream.
Once cream is added, keep warm but do not boil.
Esther’s note: If using a blender to puree hot ingredients, be sure to hold the lid on tight with a kitchen towel. Otherwise, the heat can cause the lid to blow off and cause injury.
Esther Oertel, a freelance writer, cooking teacher, and speaker, is passionate about local produce and all foods in the vegetable kingdom. She welcomes your questions and comments and may be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. .