Castagne...Chesnuts
This past weekend, I did one of my favorite things to do in Italy... I went to one of the frequent, local sagre, or food festivals. They are particularly common in the fall, like 4H or county fairs in the United States. Only in Italy, they are usually focused on one food item. Searching a bit the etymology of the word sagra, I found that it can be traced back to the Latin word sacra, meaning sacred - more proof supporting my theory that eating can be a truly spiritual experience. Sacra originally referred to a religious liturgical ceremony, which was always followed by a popular festival involving lots of fresh, seasonal goodies. The label sacra, and its modified-over-time form sagra, eventually was used to recall the more joyous part of the day, the food celebration.
So where was I and what did I eat? I went with friends to the town of Cuneo for the "Fiera Nazionale del Marrone," or "National Fair of the Chestnut."
Getting to Cuneo takes about an hour and a half in train from Torino. It's half way between Torino and France. The day was sunny, but brisk.... perfect for eating bag fulls of roasted chestnuts. How many times did I sing when I was little at Christmas time "chestnuuuuts roasting on an open fair, Jack Frost nipping at your nose"? And I had never even eaten roasted chestnuts! Two years ago, when I moved to Italy I had my first roasted chestnuts experience. I'm embarrassed to say that I ate the smokey, black shell a few times before I figured out that you peel it off to eat the naturally sweet flesh inside.Every food festival has some common features here in Northern Italy. First, in addition to the produce of the day, there's always an abundance of small local farms or family producers of regional cheeses, salami, honey, and chocolate. These products can be sold all year round, but because, well, let's just say, they're not the lightest of snacks, they're much more appetizing in the sweater-friendly weather of the fall and winter. I will go into detail about all these food items in future blog posts - this week the star is the chestnut. For now, I'll just let your imagination run with the following image.
In Italy, they call the chestnut a fruit and a nut. Maybe that's because like many fruits, it's high in water content. Also unlike many nuts, the chestnut is low in calories and fat.[i] And like many citrus fruits, chestnuts are a good source of vitamin C. In the southern Mediterranean, they have been used for centuries as a subsistence food. Chestnut trees only grow in a narrow strip of the Earth’s latitude. Most died in the United States at the beginning of the 1900s, however, it seems they are slowly coming back onto the market.[ii] The majority, however, are imported into the States from Italy, China, and Korea.
A (slightly, unfortunately, outdated) study from the Department of Food Resources and Economics of the University of Florida notes that “the development of new American x Chinese hybrid chestnut cultivars -- which are resistant to chestnut blight and produce large, sweet nuts -- have helped to make possible expansion of the domestic chestnut industry in the United States, including in Florida.”[iii]
What does it mean that the hybrid produces sweet nuts? Are they engineered to have a higher sugar content than the norm to appease the American market? I have not yet found the answer, but it’s a good question to ask. It’s very hard to determine what’s better for you and for the environment: chestnuts flown over from Europe in carbon-emitting jets, or locally grown, but genetically sugared chestnuts? I need to do more research in order to give out any concrete facts on chestnuts.
The National Chestnut Fair of Cuneo started in the 1930s.[iv] There one can find all the millions of ways people have inventively consumed this staple food for generations. In the pictures here, you can see how the chestnuts are mass-roasted in these parts.
Two weeks ago, at a smaller gathering, to celebrate the first chestnuts of the season, we used a more single-family method. You can find these pans with holes in the bottom, specially made for roasting chestnuts, in every grocery store and market right now in Italy.
This year, I gorged and tried a bit of everything: freshly roasted chestnuts, chestnut beer, crepes made from chestnut flour - a sweet one with chestnut spread instead, and a savory one with speck, gorgonzola and crumbled chestnuts inside. Here are some of the chestnut treats we tasted...
For this post, I'm going to suggest my chestnut stuffing recipe. My Italian friends here know that Thanksgiving is around the corner, and they've already started dreaming about my stuffing. This dish is by far everyone's favorite at my annual cena del giorno di ringraziamento (Thanksgiving Day dinner).
Ripieno americano alle castagne
(my new name for my stuffing, hehe "American chestnut stuffing")
(my new name for my stuffing, hehe "American chestnut stuffing")
Ingredients:
1 loaf of (fresh) bread
3/4 lbs fresh chestnuts, or slightly less of pre-peeled chestnuts
a fist-full (1.5 cups?) of pancetta or fatty sausage cut into cubes or slices
1/2 cup butter
1 large onion
3 celery stalks
2 carrots
2 carrots
8.5 cups chicken stock
salt and pepper
fresh sage, thyme, rosemary, savory
2 eggs
Instructions:
Pre-heat oven to 350º F.
1. The night before, or even two nights before (depending on the humidity where you live) slice your bread up, and then cut the slices up again into cubes. Spread over paper towels on your kitchen table or counter, lock your dog out, and cover with paper towels to protect the bread from dust, etc.
2. If you didn't manage to find your chestnuts already peeled and a bit boiled, make one or two little cuts in each chestnut and drop them all into a saucepan with enough water to cover the chestnuts. Bring the water to a boil and let the nuts simmer for about 25 minutes. Drain them like pasta, rinse with cold water, and wait until they're cool enough to handle before starting the peel them. Then cut and quarter the nuts.
4. Prepare the chicken stock. Set aside to cool down.
5. Put the pancetta in a frying pan and cook till golden and crispy. Then remove with a slotted spoon and set aside. Don't get rid of the grease!
6. In the meantime you should have sliced the onion, celery, and carrots into little pieces.
7. Add the veggies and butter to the grease and let simmer for around 10 minutes, definitely until the onions are pretty translucent. Add in the fresh spices and a 1/2 cup of the chicken stock and let simmer again until about half of the stock has been reduced. Stir in chestnuts, cooked pancetta, and add salt and pepper to taste. Take the pan off the heat and let contents cool a bit.
8. Mix eggs into the remaining chicken broth - only if your broth is completely cooled! Otherwise you're going to end up with egg-drop soup!
9. Put bread cubes into a buttered, oven-proof pan. Mix the chestnut mixture in with the bread crumbs and then pour over the egg mixture. Toss everything together to get it evenly coated.
10. Cover with aluminum foil and and stick it in the oven and let cook for around 25-30 minutes. Take off the foil and cook another half hour until golden brown.
Enjoy!
For more chestnut recipes in English from the National Chestnut Fair committee of Cuneo, check out their recipe web page at: http://www.marrone.net/index.php?id=7653&L=1.
I hope you've learned something about chesnuts, and I hope you have the chance to taste them fresh and roasted too!
BACI
posted by Michelle at
2:16 AM
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