Cracking the Nut

"Chestnuts roasting on an open fire"...for 29 Christmas seasons I have sung these these lyrics, but until this year, I had never had a chestnut. I never questioned why a nut so popular in our musical history no longer graces our tables. Once upon a time, one in every four Appalachian hardwoods was a chestnut tree, but in 1904, a fungus was discovered growing on some Asian Chestnut trees in Long Island. The blight spread fast and deadly through the chestnut population. By 1945, nearly 4 billion chestnut trees had been wiped out, and the romantic chestnut was merely a melodic memory.

In Europe, however, the sweet chestnut is growing strong and still a traditional dinner delight. Here in Lower Austria, the nuts are traditionally soaked in wine before they are roasted. When roasted, the chestnuts becomes meaty and sweet with a baked potato texture. Chestnuts can also be dried and milled into a non-rising flour. Because I desperately miss peanut butter, I decided to try to make chestnut butter. I boiled the nuts in their shells for about 20 minutes. The boiled meat fell apart as I pealed the shells. I mashed 2 lbs of chestnuts hearts into a puree and added a tsp of vanilla, 1 cup of whipping cream, and 1 cup of sugar. I then let it boil down for about an hour, until the texture was buttery and thick.

One final note: Beware of the impersonators. Don't confuse the sweet chestnut with the inedible and slightly poisonous horse chestnut. Sweet Chestnuts have a slight point at the top, but horse chestnuts are rounded. I wasted an hour gathering the wrong nut. I didn't discover my mistake until I got them home and threw them into the oven. They were awful! I was terribly disappointed and the whole apartment stank. My European neighbors recognized the smell and came upstairs to laugh at me. We discovered that the chestnuts explode in a satisfying manner when tossed out the window, thus the evening was saved.