In my quest to find foods that exemplify the uniqueness of a region, there is one ingredient that works as a nexus in my memories, reminding me of many different places, including my own home. This is the chestnut.
Harvested in the fall and usually available in supermarkets through the winter, chestnuts were always part of my mother’s holiday feasts from Thanksgiving through New Years. Never incorporated into the meal, they always stood alone as a special snack after dinner and before dessert.
She slid the pan of scarred nuts into the oven to roast during the latter half of the main course. Sometimes we forgot about them and they burned, which was a horrible tease. If they didn’t, she set the pan between me and my father, because no one else seemed to care for them. My belly already swollen with turkey and stuffing, or fresh ham and candied yams, I was rarely hungry for the chestnuts. But their toasted-honey aroma seduced me and I ate them purely for taste pleasure.
Squeezing each chestnut on its rounded sides at its fattest point, the shell would pop open and split down the sides. After a quick examination for green mold, which is often prevalent in store-bought nuts, I peeled off any brown, fuzzy skin that didn’t pull away with the shell. Finally, I had it: the tender crinkled meat, starchy and sweet, still warm on my fingertips.
On a mild evening in January, five years ago, I was walkin
g through Madrid, weaving through the tide of people who had taken to the streets for the daily passegiata. I left the long shadow of the royal palace at Plaza de Oriente and moved toward Plaza de Espana, where a statue of Don Quijote holds court. Drawing near I caught the warm, smoky scent of something vaguely familiar. I found the source at the corner of La Calle Gran Via, where a chestnut vendor scooped mahogany-colored nuggets from a hot sooty pan into paper cones.
At the time I was surprised to see a chestnut vendor; I never thought the nuts to be a very Spanish ingredient. And they’re not, really. Chestnuts are a kind of transcendent food, having a place in cuisine across the world and yet not particularly necessary to any of it. The winter landscape of the western world’s great cities – New York, London, Paris, Madrid – invariably includes the roasted chestnut vendor. But the chestnut isn’t just a seasonal street snack and there are more ways to cook them than over dry heat.
Throughout the ages and the world, dried and pulverized chestnuts have been used as flour. Chestnuts were part of daily sustenance, even in the United States, where American chestnut trees once filled the Appalachian forests. Then the chestnut blight hit in 1904, introduced by imported Asiatic chestnut trees. Even today the American chestnut tree continues to suffer and most of the chestnuts available in markets come from Europe, where the trees continue to thrive and their nuts are used in creative ways.
In a Parisian creperie, I found crèpe aux châtaignes on the menu among various fruit and chocolate fillings. The large, delicate round crepe was filled with luscious chestnut cream, sweet and rich, perhaps made from pureed chestnuts and heavy cream. With my crepe folded into a triangle and wrapped in paper, I ate it on the go. Now my memories of sitting near a pool in the Jardin des Tuileries and disturbing the gargoyles pouting on top of Notre Dame stir in me an urge to eat chestnut cream.
In Avellino, Italy, I drove with friends to Montevirgine, a monastery perched atop a steep mountain above the mist. Pilgrims have long made the perilous climb on foot to leave their prayer requests for the sick and the dead – a crayon picture of an automotive accident with bodies strewn across the street, a photograph of a gaunt man in a hospital bed, a woman’s pink glove, all pinned to an interior wall outside the sanctuary.
On our way, the driver, Mauro, made an unexpected stop to purchase castagne del prete, priests’ chestnuts, which were boiled in a liquid that left them particularly smoky and sweet and very delicious. We munched on them as we continued up the slippery mountain roads, which were cloaked with leaves wet from a recent spring thaw. Our vehicle began to slide, but instead of heading two feet toward the edge, where the mountain dropped away, we slid two fe
et inward and bumped into a rock wall. It was a soft crash that left the vehicle a little scrunched but still functioning. Better yet, we were still alive and on the mountain. Perhaps the prayers of the priests came with those chestnuts.
Back home in the States, I’ve been thinking of ways to incorporate chestnuts into my cooking. Early this past December, chestnuts came to mind when a bachelor friend asked if I would help him pick out a Christmas tree for his new home. When we got the tall, fat evergreen into place – near the fireplace, in front of the picture window – and we had worked up a good appetite, we opened a bottle of wine and I put two dozen chestnuts into the oven. When the smell of the roasting meat began to swirl through the house, a dense, mellow note beneath the high-pitch evergreen, I went to the oven door to check on the chestnuts.
The oven was too dark to tell if the chestnuts were charring, so I pulled the pan out and rested it on the stovetop. My friend came into the kitchen behind me and peered down over my shoulder, a nearly empty wine glass in hand. “I think they’re done,” I began to say when – POP! – a chestnut exploded from the drastic temperature change. I started and sprang back into my friend, who dropped his wine glass, which shattered and skated across the hardwood floor.
There was chestnut everywhere. My shirt was covered in sticky golden bits, my arm, the kitchen cabinets, the microwave, and the counter too. A little stream of red wine dripped down the front of the white dishwasher door, the only thing left bleeding from the attack.
After we recovered from a fit of laughter, we cleaned the kitchen, (I changed my shirt,) and I peeled the remainder of the obedient chestnuts. Long fusilli with chestnuts and sherry was thereafter born.
LONG FUSILLI WITH CHESTNUTS AND SHERRY
3/4 lb. long fusilli or other pasta
5 thin slices of prosciutto, cut into inch-wide strips
1 onion, sliced
15 chestnuts
½ cup chopped sage
1 cup chicken broth
½ cup sherry
2 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsp olive oil
salt and pepper
Preheat oven to 400 degrees. Cut an X into each chestnut and place in single layer on a baking sheet. Roast in oven approximately 15-20 minutes. Let cool slightly before taking out of oven, lest you risk explosion. When cool, de-shell, chop the meat and reserve.
Bring large pot of salted water to a boil and add fusilli. Cook until al dente and drain.
Meanwhile, set large sauté pan over medium high heat and coat with olive oil. Add prosciutto and when fat begins to render add onion. When onions begin to turn translucent, add sage. Deglaze with sherry, scraping up carmelized bits. Add chestnuts and saute until sherry reduces. Add chicken broth. When all the ingredients are well incorporated, turn heat to medium low.
As soon as the pasta is drained, add it to the saute pan, preferably when the pasta is still hot so it can absorb the flavors of the sauce. Mix and toss, then add the butter and combine as it melts. Add salt and pepper to taste.
