In the French Revolutionary Calendar today is “Marron”, or Day of the Chestnut, so here are 10 things you might not know about chestnuts:
Sweet chestnuts belong to the genus Castanea, in the Beech family.
What did the Romans ever do for us? Plant sweet chestnut trees all over Europe, for one. They did so because chestnuts were an important part of their diet. They ground them into flour or coarse meal to make Bread, and Roman soldiers were fed a type of Porridge made from chestnuts before heading into battle.
In places where it was hard to grow grain and food was scarce, chestnuts became the staple food for poor people. In Honore de Balzac's novel Père Goriot, Vautrin states that Eugène de Rastignac's family is living off of chestnuts; this represents how poor Eugene's family is.
When you think of chestnuts, you probably think of roasted ones. Chestnuts roasting on an open Fire and all that. They can also be boiled, pureed, grilled, steamed, deep-fried, candied, ground into flour, churned into Ice cream or stirred into savoury Stuffing. In fact, an old Corsican wedding tradition says to prepare 22 different chestnut dishes for a couple’s big day.
Don’t, however, eat them raw. Chestnuts contain tannic acid, which can upset the stomach.
Chestnuts are the only nut which contains Vitamin C. In fact, a 30g serving providing 20% of our recommended daily intake. They’re also a great source of Potassium, as well as minerals such as Iron, Calcium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, Zinc and B vitamins.
The oldest and largest chestnut tree in the world is between 2,000 and 4,000 years old and, when it was measured in 1780, had a circumference of 190 feet. It is located on the eastern slope of Mount Etna, 8km from the crater. It’s known as “Castagno dei Cento Cavalli” or “The Hundred-Horse Chestnut”, not because it’s a Horse chestnut, but because a Queen and her entourage of a hundred knights took shelter under its branches during a storm.
The oft parodied poem, “Under a spreading chestnut-tree/the village smithy stands” was written by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. When the tree mentioned in the poem was cut down, part of it was made into an armchair and presented to Longfellow by local schoolchildren.
Chestnuts are a recurring motif in In George Orwell's 1984, referenced in poems referring to nature, modern life, or the saying: 'that old chestnut'. Protagonist Winston Smith frequents a bar called the Chestnut Tree Café.
The French and Italians have two words for chestnut. An ordinary chestnut is called a châtaigne, whereas the best, sweetest chestnuts are called marrons. In England we know them as the Spanish chestnut.
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