Chestnuts
 

I've only had them over 30 years ago..... roasted in a fireplace......boom....crackle....pop..... didn't love the "musty" taste. Guess I need to get out more!

No tips for roasting, but I was told to buy the Italian chestnuts as they were the best (this tip came from a chestnut vendor on State St in Chicago). I loved buying chestnuts from street vendors as holding the paper cup of roasted nuts kept my hands warm :)

Well, you know you can boil them also, but you still have to cut the 'X'...maybe a little easier to peel if you start before they've cooled down. This is how I do them for my Xmas stuffing.

I do it the same way with the X and roast at 350.

Chestnuts need to be kept cool for about 3-4 weeks around 40 degrees before they are ready to eat or roast. This makes them sweeter. If not they will rot & start turning brown and nasty. We have over 200 Chestnut trees, most only a couple years old, but they are starting to produce and hope within a couple of years will have a marketable crop. We are growing Dunstin Chestnuts, but also have a couple of Chinese ones.

Once my sister in law & I roasted chestnuts in her oven. No one told us about cutting the X. Imagine our surprise when we opened her oven door. We escaped to safety under her kitchen table. No chestnuts for us, just a mess to clean up. That was over 40 years ago & it still gets a good laugh.

I have never eaten a chestnut. Not very easy to get around here, I don't see them much.

I've never eaten a chestnut. Are they like other nuts that are roasted? Are they crisp or soft inside? Do you eat them warm or wait till they've cooled down? So many questions, I know, but I'm curious.

yes press on the chestnut with the heel of your hand and the peel will come off easily (most of the time)

I enjoy eating the Chestnuts straight out of fridge. I just use large chef knife, slice through the middle top to bottom and then pop meat out of skin. Nice & crunchy and a sweet flavor.

I love them!!! My mom use to boil rather than roast them

How do you tell an eatable chestnut from a horse chestnut that I was told was poisonous?

The horse chestnut often times called a conker is a native tree to Europe. If there are any in the US I am not sure. The seed pods are completely different looking along with the leaves on the tree. Looking it up on Google, it seems that there MAY be some medicinal value to them. More study would be needed to be able to tell the difference between them.

The horse chestnut grows in the U. S. and Canada. It has lovely flowers and the nuts used to be used as a component of acetone during WWII. When we were little we used them to fight battles --- my nose bone is split because I stood up at the wrong time!