Chestnuts Roasting…

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire,
Jack Frost nipping at your nose,
Yuletide carols being sung by a choir,
And folks dressed up like Eskimos.

My earliest recollection of chestnuts was also my first encounter with them. A summer evening when I was a lad of 12, in December 1959 at an outdoor induction evening at Westerford High School in Cape Town. I was due to start Standard 6 (Grade 8 or 9 nowadays) in January 1960.

Around the grassed sportsfields grew these huge towering umbrella-like trees, shedding ping-pong sized little hedgehogs. The first thing you learn about this nut is that the bristles break off and fester under the skin.

(Above) From the Westerford website, I see that the Chestnut trees have grown somewhat since then. I also see that they held the 50th Reunion get-together for my graduation class of 1964 four days ago. No wonder the trees have aged a bit.

Back in those days, we boiled (with a spoon of salt, I think) the raw nuts, and then we ate the (floury pasty) almost-bitter things. Not a favourite. There was something furry about them, I seem to remember…

40 years later, around the year 2000, we holidayed in Funchal, Madeira where we encountered vendors with barrows of chestnuts packed in hessian bags. We didn’t buy any… Hey! I’m not exactly Mr Adventurous.

(Above): Another 14 years on, and I meet with Chartwell’s lone Chestnut, which is unlike Westerford’s yesteryear specimens, a seemingly spritely young lass.

(Above): The fruit/nuts seem to be fairly prolific in the early stages of development. I guess they have another month or so to go… (based on my deep technical expertise)

(Above): Some have already started falling to the grass below – not sure whether this is good or bas, because they look rather small, if memory serves…

Having said all this, there is a wee potential little problem. This Mommy tree hasn’t had a nice friendly Daddy tree visiting her, so perhaps her little babies may not be quite so normal… I opened one of the little hedgehogs (yes, with some spikes in the fingers) and found triplets all shrivelled and skinny… not quite what I would have liked to find – only fibre, fur and leather, instead of yummy potato-type stuff…

(Above): Shrivelled triplets with fur inside.

The technical guys say that you will not get proper fruit from a lone tree and that you must have at least two for cross-pollination.

If something should come of these (I am the eternal optimist), perhaps we should roast some and boil some. Roasting at about 200ºC for 15 to 40 minutes, or boiling until soft-ish. Or perhaps I should rather take advice…

As the fruit of these trees are classified as “nuts”, it is probably advisable for those with nut intolerance to steer clear of them. However, Water chestnuts very unlike chestnuts are a tuber vegetable that only resembles a chestnut in colour and shape and thus are probably Ok for nut-intolerants.

Various chestnut varieties include:
Castanea alnifolia – bush chinkapin
Castanea crenata – Japanese chestnut
Castanea dentata – American chestnut
Castanea henryi – Henry's chestnut
Castanea mollissima – Chinese chestnut
Castanea ozarkensis – Ozark chinkapin
Castanea pumila – Allegheny chinkapin
Castanea sativa – Sweet chestnut (European)
Castanea seguinii – Seguin's chestnut

I will keep an eye on the 2014 chestnut crop, especially because we have a resident hungry and elusive possum at Chartwell. I think some security measures shouldn’t go amiss.

The walnut tree will be bearing fruit much later, and the danger of possum-attack on that variety of nut is unquestionable, so the measures taken with the chestnut might well serve as a dry-run rehearsal for later in the year…

Not knowing much (anything at all) about Chestnut trees as such, I consulted our technical department for scientific data:

• The European chestnut (Castanea sativa), a large-growing (up to 20m ) and wide-spreading tree which originated around Turkey and the Black Sea region of southern Russia. The nuts are quite variable, but superior fruiting varieties possess good size, sweet taste and have pellicles (inner skins) which are easy to remove. This tree is the most commonly seen chestnut species in New Zealand where it was introduced by the early settlers. This species is also known in English-speaking countries as the sweet chestnut or the Spanish chestnut.
• The Japanese chestnut (Castanea crenata), a small to medium sized tree, about 10m high, which is typically multi-leadered and wide-spreading when open-grown. Some varieties have very large nuts (about 40g – nearly the size of small potatoes). Nuts of this species typically have pellicles which are difficult to remove. This species is well—adapted to wet and humid weather conditions and hot summers (about 30°C), and as such would suit much of the upper North Island. These trees have been present in New Zealand since the early 1900s.
• The Chinese chestnut (Castanea mollissima), a medium sized tree, growing to about 15m, often multi-leadered and wide-spreading. Nuts usually have pellicles which are easy to remove and come in a wide range of sizes, although they are typically smaller than the Japanese chestnut. At present the Chinese chestnut is a rare tree in New Zealand, but recent imports will soon change this.
• The American chestnut (Castanea dentata). Of all the chestnut species this is the largest, growing to 30m, with the straightest trunk, and was prized as a timber tree in its native land before its demise as a result of the devastating fungus disease called chestnut blight. Nuts are typically very small (only about 5g), but quite sweet tasting, with pellicles which are easy to remove. This tree is rare in New Zealand, but has been imported recently.