Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire

One of the street foods Istanbul is famous for is roasted chestnuts. I lived here for four years before I learned it wasn't just a street food, but a cherished Turkish wintertime tradition for home too. Roasted chestnuts must have been a tradition for America as well. That fabulous Christmas carol had to come from somewhere, didn't it?

Recently, I moved into a new apartment, with a young Turkish woman. The first time she made homemade roasted chestnuts, she said, "now, I feel like it is really winter." Then she taught me how to make them at home. It's so easy, and so satisfying!

First, cut a cross into the hull,

so the hull will steam open later.

Then soak the chestnuts

so they will steam

themselves over heat.

If you skip this step,

or don't soak them long enough,

(at least 10 minutes)

the nuts become

hard and bitter to eat.

I discovered

you can throw them back

into the water,

to try and get them right

a second time.

Ooohh,

don't they just look wonderful?

They cook so beautifully

in a cast iron skillet.

Grateful for a real fire

on a cold winter night

Last week, I was invited to a party at a Turkish film maker's
place on Büyükada Island in the Marmara Sea. "There will be a fireplace!" my friend Burcu said, on an especially cold day. I wondered if it would be possible to roast chestnuts over it, just like the song, so I brought a kilo of large Bursa chestnuts as a gift.

A fire is so

comforting on a

cold, Winter evening

Our host,

Turkish film maker
 Erdal Rahmi Hanay

It was possible

to roast them

over an open fire!

Roasted chestnuts

were such a fun treat

to cook and share!

Former American
chestnut range

I became curious why there aren't chestnuts for sale in America anymore. I was sad to discover that at one time, chestnut forests were plentiful in the eastern United States with stands adding up to three billion trees. At one time, chestnut forests accounted for 25-30% of all of Appalachia's forests. Unable to fight off disease from imported Asian chestnuts, the American chestnuts developed blight and died off.

There is a group trying to bring back the original American chestnut, and a group trying to bring back a disease-resistant hybrid. I wish them well. Roasting chestnuts is a beautiful wintertime tradition. We don't want that gorgeous song, to be the equivalent of an audio fossil hearkening back to an earlier time whose reality we have forgotten. Let's make it real!