chestnuts

What are chestnuts

Chestnuts are the fruit of the chestnut ( Castanea sativa = Castanea vulgaris = Castanea vesca ), an arboreal plant cultivated in the temperate regions of Europe, Asia and West Africa.

A healthy and nutritious fruit, the chestnut was in the past an essential food of the people, so much so that it earned the nickname "bread of the poor".

Fresh, dried or reduced to flour, chestnuts lend themselves to endless culinary preparations.

Chestnuts as food

Thanks to their excellent content in complex carbohydrates, chestnuts are a real staple food, capable of replacing the finest cereals.

It is no coincidence that the Greek historian Xenophon, who lived between 430 and 355 BC, called the majestic chestnut tree (a plant that can reach thirty meters in height) as the bread tree.

This food is consumed and is consumed still above all roasted (caldarrosta), candied and boiled (ballotta). Chestnuts also produce the homonymous flour, a basic ingredient of many sweets (castagnaccio), polenta and the so-called "bread of tree", typical of some areas of France.

From a nutritional point of view, the chestnut is a high quality food thanks, above all, to the high percentage of starches combined with a moderate content of fats, proteins, mineral salts (especially potassium, phosphorus, sulfur, magnesium, calcium, iron ) and vitamins (C, B1, B2 and PP). These characteristics, combined with excellent digestibility, make the chestnut an ideal food also for sportsmen.

During cooking a large part of the starch is reduced to simple sugars, giving chestnuts the typical sweet taste and making them contraindicated to those suffering from diabetes.

Further uses

Thanks to their high nutritional value, in the popular pharmacopoeia they are indicated in cases of avitaminosis, anemia and debilitation. The infusion and decoction, rich in tannins, are useful in case of bronchitis and diarrhea. Thanks to their antiseptic action, gargling with the infusion of leaves is an excellent remedy against inflammation of the throat and mouth.

Chestnut boiling water is an excellent fertilizer for plants.

Tips for buying

When buying, the peel must be intact and shiny, without cracks. To the touch a fresh chestnut appears firm and its shell does not yield when pressed with the fingers.

Similar to chestnuts, but more valuable, chestnuts boast superior dimensions and an oval shape more rounded at the sides, tending to heart-shaped; the peel, of a light brown color with well marked dark veins, is thinner and contains a sweet seed of ivory white color. Chestnuts are smaller, with a rounded, flat or hemispherical shape depending on the position taken inside the spiny inflorescence that contains them (hedgehog). In case it contains a single chestnut we talk about chestnuts, when we have three we talk about chestnuts. The hedgehog, which opens in autumn when it reaches maturity, protects the fruit from the aggressions of insects and prevents the residues of chemical treatments from entering inside.

The chestnuts are covered with a skin that adheres to them, penetrating the pulp. This film, which remains on the outside in browns and is easy to remove, must be removed before consumption. The elimination of the skin is more difficult: to facilitate this operation the chestnuts must pass from a refrigerated environment to the boiling one of cooking, to then be cooled again with cold water when preparation is completed. If subjected to this treatment they also easily lose the coating skin.

The chestnuts of Mount Amiata (province of Grosseto and Siena), of Montella (Avellino) and the chestnuts of Castel del Rio (Bologna) and Mugello (Florence), have recently obtained IGP certification.