Chestnut, châtaignes/marron (French), Kastanie/Edelkastanie (German), castagna/marrone (Italian), castana/marrona (Spanish), castanba (Portuguese), kashtan (Russian), li zi (Chinese), kuri (C. crenata) (Japanese)
(Castanea sp. – Family Fagaceae)
Chestnuts are considered to be tops in the world of nuts, but it is a name given to many nuts. Originally, it was used to indicate the European “sweet” or “Spanish” chestnut tree, but later applied to various Asian and American relatives. Many European languages have different names for the finest cultivated nuts, as in the “marron” in French as opposed to “châtaignes” for the wild chestnut, or the ordinary cultivated kind. The biggest and best of these are grown in the region of Lyon, where they, as well as imported chestnuts, are candied to make the famous “marrons glacés.” Since chestnuts contain more starch and less oil than most other nuts, they have played a special role as food. Although chestnuts are difficult to peel, it is made easier by gashing the shells and putting them into a pan, sprinkling with water, and baking them in a very hot oven until the skins split away. Another method is roasting. Special perforated pans used to be common items of equipment sold in Europe for this purpose. In some places, it is still possible in winter to buy freshly roasted chestnuts from vendors. In many places, chestnuts have undergone a change from a staple food to a delicacy as a result of the selection and breeding of new “super-chestnuts.”
– The European chestnut, despite its name, has an Asian origin. It was formerly an important staple food, but has now become more of a luxury. Greek writers from 300 BCE described how children of Persian nobles were fed chestnuts to fatten them. It was the Greeks who took the tree to Europe, where it flourished in the southern part. The Latin botanical name was bestowed for the town of Castanea in Magnesia, where the tree was especially common. The Romans had the tree in regular cultivation by 37 BCE; and ground the chestnuts into flour, using it to extend wheat flour, a practice which still survives in southern Europe. Roman recipes indicate that chestnuts were cooked with lentils. The Romans are also credited with taking the chestnut tree into Gaul, and then Britain. Wild chestnuts are found all over Europe, and one, at the foot of Mount Etna, is thought to have been over 2000 years old when it was killed by that erupting volcano.
– The Moreton Bay chestnut (Castanospermum australe) is from an exceedingly ornamental tree, and was first described by botanist Alan Cunningham in 1828. Since that time, in tropical Queensland and rainforests of New South Wales, where the tree still grows wild, this chestnut has played a part in medicine. Although the chestnut-like seeds were eaten by the aborigines, they are poisonous, yielding the valuable, if unusual, alkaloid called castanospermine. The abrogines rendered the poison harmless after an eight- to ten-day soaking process, after which they were dried in the sun before being beaten into a coarse flour. The Moreton Bay Chestnut is also known as the black bean tree, which reaches heights of about 120 feet. An evergreen, it has glossy dark leaves that produce large yellow to orange to red flowers, which are pollinated mainly by birds. Today, the trees have been severely depleted through exploitation for its timber, which is beautifully grained and very strong and durable.
– The Japanese chestnut (C. crenata) has large starchy nuts which are usually boiled, ending up to be quite similar to potatoes. They are usually considered to be of an inferior quality, except when boiled or roasted.
– The American chestnut (C. dentata) was essentially destroyed by a blight that began in 1904, and the Chinese Chestnut stepped in to fill the void. The trees now grown in the eastern US are blight-resistant crossbreeds of Chinese and Japanese chestnuts. The fresh chestnuts, found in the brown shells and called roasting chestnuts, provide more carbohydrates, less protein, and less fat than many other nuts.
– The Chinese chestnut (Castanea mollissima – Family Fagaceae) is one variety of chestnut which has a good flavour and relatively thin skin, and now the main cultivated species in the US today. The largest commercial growers are in Georgia. The nuts flourish when grown with peaches. The trees are orchard-types, about the size of an apple tree and requiring much the same kind of care. They bear at five or six years and produce large crops that ripen in the fall. When the fruits burst open, the chestnuts fall to the ground, where they are gathered.
– The Spanish chestnut (C. sativa) is a name that likely arose when it was thought that the best chestnuts imported into Britain came from Spain. It is not as large or as tasty as the Chinese chestnut, but it still has monopolized the American market. These chestnuts, which bear very large nuts, are grown mainly in Madeira. They are a staple food for people in the Apennine mountains of Italy, in Savoy, and in the south of France, where they are not only boiled and roasted, but also made into various desserts.
– The Chinquapins (C. pumila) is an original American name applying to trees of the genus Castanopsis, related to the chestnut, but producing smaller nuts. The nuts are round and somewhat pointed at the top and about half as large as the American chestnut. They have much the same appearance as small acorns. It is another of the chestnut group that grows west of the Cascades as a bush or in the Appalachians as small trees. They are fairly resistant to the chestnut blight that attacks so many varieties at one time or another. The nuts are a smaller version of the regular chestnut, relatively hard to shell, but sweet and more palatable than other chestnuts. They were prized by the Indians and early Americans and have been traded or marketed for more than two centuries.
– The Malabar chestnut, Guyana chestnut, Saba nut, Provision tree, castanha de Guiana (Portuguese) (Pachira aquatica – Family Bombacaceae) are members of the Bombax family, but taste and are used like chestnuts. They are cultivated in many parts of the world for their nuts, which contains about 50% oil. In Hawaii, the tree produces an ovoid, five-valved fruit that can be up to a foot containing rounded, edible seeds – raw or roasted. The tree is a low-growing evergreen which is very resistant to drought and adverse weather conditions. When the large fruits become ripe, they split open like a walnut to discharge their many seeds on the ground. If there are showers, these seeds will sprout on the surface of the soil but, without rains, they will sun-dry and thus must be protected from moisture until gathered and dried properly for food. The young leaves and flowers are also used as vegetables.
– The Horse chestnut, buckeye (Aesculus hippocastanum and related sp. – Family Hippocastanaceae) are members of their own family and not related to the beech trees. The nuts are generally inedible, but have been used as a coffee substitute or eaten as food by some remote Asian cultures. Some American varieties can be eaten after boiling and roasting. However, with most, the leaves, twigs, flowers, and seeds contain large amounts of tannins, including the toxic glycoside, esculin, which is only removed after boiling in several changes of water. Symptoms of poisoning include nervous twitching, weakness, lack of coordination, dilated pupils, nausea and vomiting, diarrhea, depression, paralysis, and/or stupor. Even honey collected from the flowers and eaten can cause some of these symptoms. The roots, branches, and fruits have been used by fishermen to stupify fish in ponds, making the catch easier to obtain. The horse chestnut received its name in 1557 when a Flemish physician in Constantinople sent some nuts to the great botanist Matthiolus, in Vienna. He remarked that, in Turkey, they were used as horse medicine. The rest is history.
