Fallen nuts ready for gathering.
Castanea species
EDIBLE nut
The chestnut is an amazing food, filled with protein, minerals, vitamins, and carbohydrate energy. It’s a complete food and also versatile in the kitchen with its neutral and approachable flavor that everyone will enjoy baked into breads, soups, casseroles, and even roasted over an open fire.
The true American chestnut is virtually extinct from North American forests because of a 20th-century fungal blight that wiped the tree from the landscape. What foragers will find escaped from cultivation in the woods and in landscaping are American-Chinese-Euro hybrids, which exhibit traits similar to those of the American chestnut, including the versatile, delicious, and nutritious edible nut.
Most chestnut species reach heights of only 20 to 30 feet. The bark is dark gray and deeply furrowed, with flat-topped ridges. The shiny, toothed-edged green leaves are 5 to 9 inches long, oblong, and ending in a point. Chestnut flowers in late spring and then produces a very spiny bur that ripens in fall with three or four chestnut fruits inside.
Fallen nuts ready for gathering.
Don’t confuse Castanea species with the horse chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum, which also produces a spiny bur about the same time as the chestnut. The horse chestnut is inedible and used only in herbal medicine.
You can find the tree growing along the edges of mixed hardwood forests, in areas with well-drained soil and sunshine. If you cannot locate trees on your own, frequently local-food resources can also help you connect to a local chestnut grower who may allow gleaning of the excess fallen nuts.
The spiny burs of the tree split open and fall to the ground in late September. A ripe bur will detach easily from the tree and contain two or three well-formed chestnuts. The chestnuts inside will be fleshy, shiny, chocolate-brown in color, and firm to the touch. It is a brief harvest season, about two weeks.
Because the bur of the chestnut is extremely spiny, leather gloves are required for gathering and handling. A nut gatherer is highly recommended and fun for harvesting, especially with small children. Carefully extract the nut from the bur, and store the nuts themselves in a cold storage area (refrigerator, basement, or cold storage) or freezer until processing to prevent sprouting. Discard or compost any nuts that mildew or sprout.
For an easy appetizer that kids will enjoy, roast the chestnuts on the stovetop, but first score a slit with a sharp knife in the bottom of the shell to allow the moisture to escape (thus eliminating exploding chestnuts). Once roasted, they can be easily peeled and enjoyed warm from the shell. They have a very neutral, buttery flavor, making them an especially easy food for children to both prepare and appreciate. French, Spanish, eastern European, and Asian cooking traditions include the chestnut as a traditional food. It can be pickled, pureed into soups, and turned into delectable desserts like the classic Mont Blanc.
The window to harvest chestnuts is small and the competition with wildlife relatively fierce. Given the limited distribution of wild chestnut trees, a big consideration for the forager is in helping re-establish the tree in mixed hardwood forests. Partnering with growers to make plantings of hybrid varieties on fungus-resistant rootstock can help.
CAUTION Horse chestnuts (Aesculus hippocastanum) are often confused for chestnuts but are inedible and used only in herbal medicine.
