As Christmas approaches, nearly every American radio station will play the familiar “The Christmas Song” commonly called “Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire.”

The song was written by Robert Wells and Mel Tormé in 1945 and made famous by the Nat King Cole Trio. Released in 1946 it became a Christmas melody popular for nearly 80 years. A pdf in the Library of Congress has an intriguing story.

Cruel Irony.

For thousands of years Native Americans harvested baskets full of chestnuts. So did Eur-Americans who swept across North America. Nutritious and abundant, chestnuts fed people and wildlife.  Many were, indeed, roasted by open fires and on woodstoves.

The American Chestnut was one of the abundant trees in the Eastern Hardwood Forest.

It was a perfect tree with gorgeous honey colored wood that was strong, lightweight, and easy to work. Chestnut’s abundant nuts fed wildlife and people. Settlers turned their hogs loose into the woods to fatten on them.

Then one of America’s greatest ecological tragedies happened when an imported fungus created a blight that killed nearly every single one of billions of trees. They disappeared from forests and the human diet……almost.

Disease Resistant Options

Rich bought a couple of pounds of edible chestnuts from Iowa’s Stringtown Market and roasted them on our woodstove for a gathering of friends to enjoy. How?

Well, across the world are Chinese, Japanese and European chestnuts. Chinese Chestnuts resist the blight and have been planted here and there. The nuts Rich roasted were either Chinese or a hybrid of a few types.

Personal Connection to American Chestnuts

Growing up in wooded New Jersey Rich remembers fallen trunks of blight killed American Chestnut trees and small trees growing from their roots. They die before maturing enough to produce nuts. Rich’s Dad, Henry Patterson, salvaged wood from fallen chestnuts and fashioned many objects from it. Marion’s father, Les Fellows, remembers gathering chestnuts when he was a child in New Hampshire. He crafted picture frames that we think are from American Chestnut wood. The pictures in the frames are of Hardwick, MA, where Marion lived first out of college. Chestnuts are part of our personal heritage.

Enjoy Edible Chestnuts

Although hard to find in the market edible chestnuts still make delicious fare. Many recipes can be found online. We like plucking them from their shells and eating them right after roasting. Here’s how Rich prepares them:

• Cover the nuts with water and boil them for at least 15 minutes to soften the hulls and leach out tannin.
• When they are cool enough to handle, use a stout sharp knife to make an “X” shaped cut on the top of each damp nut.
• Place the nuts in a cast iron skillet and heat on the woodstove. Watch them carefully and stir occasionally. The idea is to drive off most of the water.

Putting them on a cookie sheet and baking them in an oven also works well.

Then they’re ready to peel and eat.

 

Beware

Edible chestnuts are unrelated to horse chestnuts or buckeyes but the nuts look similar.  Horse chestnuts are toxic. DON’T EAT THEM. Here’s how to tell them apart.

> Horse chestnuts have compound leaves with leaflets that radiate out like fingers on a human hand. Edible chestnuts have single elongated leaves, often with shallow pointed lobes.

> Nuts in tight husks that don’t have porcupine-like spines outside are characteristic of Horse chestnuts. You could call edible chestnut husks “vegetative porcupines.” Prickly!

> Horse chestnut nuts are entirely smooth, while edible chestnut nuts have a “nub” at their end. See the photo with the arrow pointing toward the nub.

The Future

Enjoying Edible Chestnuts, Growing Them, and Saving the American Chestnut

We mostly enjoy peeling and eating edible chestnuts as they are. And, they work perfectly in many recipes. A good recipe source is at foodandwine.com.
(search for edible chestnuts)

Many nurseries sell chestnut seedlings. Pure American chestnuts are most likely to thrive when planted outside their native range where the blight still lingers. Many hybrids sold by many nurseries resist the blight. It’s wise to plant them a ways from the house for these  reasons:

• Blossoms just plain stink. And the trees produce hundreds of “porcupines”. Don’t step on one with bare feet!

For these two reasons, we will never know why Marion’s dad planted the edible chestnuts near the house in New Hampshire.

The American Chestnut Foundation

The American Chestnut Foundation, tacf.org, has worked for years seeking ways to restore this valuable tree. Its website has excellent photos and information.

We hope some day to spend an evening sitting by our woodstove snacking on genuine American Chestnuts while listening to Nat King Cole’s Christmas song. Until then we’ll roast the hybrid Chinese Chestnuts we buy.