The Twelve Ingredients of A Christmas Dinner - Chestnuts

The Twelve Ingredients of A Christmas Dinner - Chestnuts

The Sweet Chestnut (Castanea sativa) is a fast growing tree that reaches a mature height of around thirty feet (nine metres); the plant was introduced from Sardis, Turkey where the nut was used as a carbohydrate substitute when the cereal crop harvests failed. Eastern USA had four billion trees in the early 1900's but by 1940 a blight had wiped a great number of them reducing the potential for cross-pollination.

The fresh chestnut, the fruit (nut) not the wood, is calculated to be about 180 calories per 100 grams - lower than almonds and walnuts; it contains no cholesterol, little fat (and mostly as unsaturated) and no gluten. The carbohydrate level is of a par to wheat and rice and no reason why it acted as a carbohydrate source for many medieval communities. It contains twice the amount of starch than potatoes and eight percent of the nut is made up of five sugars (fructose, glucose, raffinose, stachyose and sucrose). It also contains 40 milligrams of Vitamin C per 100 grams. (Source)

As stated above, the tree originated in Turkey but gained European status through the help of invading armies. Alexander the Great and various Roman armies planted these trees during their campaigns to create food supplies, much, later in the campaigns. In 2011, the Los Angeles Times reported that the Americans spent $20 million importing chestnuts from Europe and Asia.

The chestnuts can be brewed for beer, milled for flour, roasted and sold in the street. I recommend not to eat them raw, as I found out to my cost, when I was on traffic light duty in the mid 90's - I felt a bit like a horse with colic, I am guessing.

The chestnut trees can also be coppiced to form fencing spials and posts as well as using the more mature trees for furniture making. 

So if you have gluten intolerant guests for Christmas, why not give them a cabbage, chestnut and hazlenut salad or a chestnut crepe, some recipes can be found here.