Chestnuts Chestnuts Chestnuts Chestnuts Chestnuts...for the next few weeks, that's all I'll be seeing in my waking hours and in my dreams...Chestnuts are an awesome food, though -- they are roughly the nutritional equal to rice (so treat as a carb, not a nut!), and can provide a carbohydrate staple in the diet. Different from other carbs, though, is that they grow on trees, renewed every year without any special care or special demands on the soil.
All our other carbs, rice, annual grains, corn, soya, are extremely demanding on the environment in so many ways -- they take loads of irrigating, which means salination of the soil as well as draining and ruination of wetlands. They take loads of nutrients from the soil, which means loads of petrolium based fertilizers in order to use the same fields year after year -- and without that petrolium based fertilizer, all those beautiful amber waves of grain are absolutely sterile (yeah, bio fuel my ass...hate to break it to the bio fuel believers out there, but the biomass doesn't grow in sufficient quantity without the petrolium based fertilisers...bit of a catch 22 there) They take loads of heavy machinery (also oil dependant) to sow, to harvest, and to process. Grains on a large scale are simply not sustainable without oil, and as it starts to run out, we will have to learn to do with fewer annual grains and standard carbs in our diet.
But not so for chestnuts. They just fall from the trees. You can prune them a bit if you want, and it doesn't hurt to give them a bit of manure around the base, but whether you do or not, they will still make lots of yummy carbolicious fruit, which makes a flour usable like wheat flour (though the bread is not so nice and fluffy). The problem with chestnuts is in the processing. They are super yummy and delicious, but their shell and skin is a total PITA to remove. (Mind you, its not a piece of cake to thresh, separate and grind wheat by hand either, and so!)
I've been experimenting and researching all over the internet for other people's experiences and advice, and have tried about 16 million different methods so far (well, maybe 5 or 6...) and still, it takes at least an hour per kilo to prepare and shell chestnuts. The best method I've found so far is to make a good long cut across the fat belly of the chestnut, then roast in a super hot oven for about 15-20 minutes. The outside shell gets crackly and peels off easily. The inside skin, if not removed with the shell, comes off easily if you rub and roll the nut around between your hands. To get just the pulp, rather than the full chestnuts, out its easiest to boil them for a good 40 minutes, without any precuts in the skin, and with a good dollop of oil in the water, then use the sharp tip of a carrot or potato peeler to breach the skin and swirl around/scrape out the pulp. If you want the chestnuts free, whole, and uncooked (like for making Marrons Glacées), make a cut horizontally all the way around the chestnut, then steam for about 15 minutes. Still a major pain in the butt, though!
Recipe for Chestnut Pudding: Made this with the first batch, and it is oh oh oh so yummy...boil 500g of chestnut puree (boil chestnuts, squeeze out the pulp with the carrot peeler, squish any bigger pieces) in 500g of milk. When it is good and pudding/porridge consistency (about 10-15 minutes i guess), take off the fire and add 150g of icing sugar, a sprinkle of cinnamon and a sprinkle of nutmeg. Serve warm as a pudding, or save in a jar in the fridge to eat as is or use for a doughnut or crepe filling.
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