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Dec 15 - Dec 22,2002 |
Chestnuts roasting on...
Versatile nut is favourite Italian holiday indulgence
By Lynn Luciani
Originally Published: 2002-12-01
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Roasted chestnuts
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Even though we don't roast them over an open fire any longer, the immortalization of this in the lyrics of Mel Torme's song about roasting chestnuts over an open fire, make us believe this is the only way to do it. There's something special and romantic about the aroma of roasting chestnuts in the cold winter months. Long before they became a winter specialty, chestnuts were the mainstay of the Mediterranean diet, especially among the poor in southern Italy.
Chestnuts have been a part of the human diet for at least 6,000 years. The ancient Greeks are thought to have been among the first to cultivate the chestnut and it was the Romans who named chestnuts "Castanea". By the Middle Ages chestnuts were the staple food of the peasants in large parts of Italy, from Piemonte to Lazio and further south. In Lunigiana, Lucchesia and other areas of Tuscany, much of the economy revolved around the crop.
The backbreaking work of gathering the nuts started in the fall, sorting, processing, packaging and selling them in the winter. Then, in the spring it was time to tend the chestnut groves again. It was backbreaking work, so it's no small wonder that with improving economic conditions the majority of Italy's chestnut farmers sought out other jobs. For those who remained, it's now a seller's market for chestnuts and the prices have soared!
Though a chestnut connoisseur will be able to point out a half-dozen or more varieties of chestnuts, what we find in Italian markets is two basic varieties. The smaller of the two, the Castagne, is generally small, an inch or so high and having fairly flat sides. The voluptuously round and larger Marroni, can be up to an inch and a half high with a wondrously distended front.
Either way, the decadent tasting edible chestnut is a brown, starchy seed wrapped in a silk wrapper, further clad in sole leather and then enclosed in a mass of shock absorbing, vermin-proof pulp and protected with a final case of porcupine spines, almost impregnable. There is no nut so protected; there is no nut in the woods to compare with it as food. What an intriguing food and yet very few of us indulge!
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