Idaho Panhandle Chestnut Company

What's the Big Deal About Chestnuts?

Since the early 1900s, the American chestnut has almost disappeared from our culture. We hear historical hints of chestnuts in songs lauding "chestnuts roasting on an open fire..."

I never ate a chestnut until my Japanese wife introduced them to me fifteen years ago. Initially, I was underwhelmed because she would buy these "hard-to-peel" chestnuts and the bitter inner shell of the chestnut embedded itself in the chestnuts' crenulations. Again, I was underwhelmed.

In those early years, my wife fanatically devoted painstaking effort to process her "precious chestnuts." I didn't understand her cult-like facination with chestnuts. Being the helpful sort, I begain to wonder if there was an easier way to satisfy my wife's chestnut addiction.

Excited to please my wife, I researched how chestnuts were processed in other countries, such as Italy, Portugal, China and Japan. Researching chestnut varieties and growing habits intrigued me immensely. I began considering planting a few chestnut trees on our Idaho farm.

My wife was mildly amused. Then she became delighted. I started ordering fresh chestnuts online from different parts of the United States. During the 2021 season, we ordered and roasted over 100 pounds of chestnuts from various online vendors in Iowa, Illinois and Washington. I noticed a huge difference in flavor and how easy the nuts peeled. The Dunstan variety was the "easy-to-peel chestnut" winner. The nuts were also larger than Washington's variety.

For full disclosure, we ordered at least twice from multiple vendors during my research.

My wife liked the chestnuts from Washington, but I found the Washington chestnut variety difficult to peel. I learned this is due to the variety.

How We Prepare Chestnuts for Roasting

After considerable research and experimentation, we settled on a preferred process for roasting chestnuts at our home for either immediate eating or freezing them for later consumption. Without doubt, my process was influenced by my wife's Japanese heritage. Oddly enough, I later learned that our home process we learned through trial and error is the same adopted by China's commercial chestnut processing factories.

Chinese chestnut harvest is huge and the order volume of frozen chestnuts has increased

In the above article, the manager of the Chinese chestnut processing factory says:

"We imported the processing technology for frozen chestnuts from Japan. We use a unique process where the chestnuts are first steamed and then roasted."

This is very similar to how we roast chestnuts at home. What we do with refrigerated fresh nuts is:

1. Flat-side down, use a box-cutter to score an "X" across the round face of the nut;
2. Toss into 200 degree water and let set for ten minutes, changing out the water twice;
3. Drain water and place on roasting pan with the sliced X facing up;
4. Roast on oven mid-shelf for 30 minutes;
5. Meanwhile, prepare a large glass bowl for hot nuts - lay a slightly damp cotton kitchen towel inside the bowl;
6. Remove and dump all nuts into the bowl;
7. Close the ends of the damp towel around the top of the nuts and wait ten minutes.
8. Keep the predators from the bowl of steaming chestnuts (good luck).

Often, we find ourselves watching the clock, waiting the appropriate ten minutes for the steaming chestnuts to cool to workable temperature. Beware! These freshly roasted nuts are sweet, hot, tasty temptresses.

That is why they are so popular around the world and why we need to bring them back to our culture.