I love chestnuts. I grew up eating them from a paper bag, roasted by street vendors in NYC. Then my parents introduced me to coupe aux marrons, a French dessert of chestnuts and chestnut puree on vanilla ice cream - heaven!

I've never eaten them raw - I didn't even think that was possible.

I love them roasted but also like them raw. When I was a child I loved dried chestnuts which my mother bought at an Italian grocery store. I'd be afraid I'd break a tooth on them now.

Bookwoman, that dessert sounds delicious.

satine100, I've never heard of dried chestnuts.

I purchased some this weekend. Supposedly two types. One Chinese and another about half the size that was supposedly from native trees. There was a grower in eastern Kansas that was selling the trees so it is possible. Some have been found in nature with grafts and nuts taken from them and grown on. I have never heard of eating them raw but a Vietnamese bakery sells a slightly sweet chestnut bread that has the texture of a pound cake that uses both whole and ground nuts in it which is very tasty.

If you have an asian grocery store you can sometimes find dried ones there. I do not know what they are used for but are generally seen in the isle of chip type snacks.

malfluer03, I would love to taste that bread! I don't think there's an asian store around here. I am in a rural location.

I just tried both of them raw. The American chestnut was much sweeter than the Chinese one. Will see later if I have any digestive problems.

American chestnuts were traditionally supposed to be superior in sweetness and it is entirely possible that someone in Kansas has some to sell. People have been trying to breed blight resistant trees for a very long time. I lived in Kentucky and very small isolated groves of young trees would be found from time to time that were surviving. That is a state where they were the climax tree in the forests. I owned property that had some Chinese chestnuts and I was not overwhelmed by them. I would say I am not a big fan.

I have a large old chestnut tree on my property and for years had many nuts that I enjoyed raw. But then one year every nut had been bored into by an insect and consequently there were worms. Ever since then, the nuts have been fewer and wormy. Plus the tree itself is in decline. A volunteer tree appeared and is now almost as high as the first, but doesn't produce as many nuts. The squirrels and chipmunks steal away what little amount there is.

I've never tried to roast them. I remember a lady I used to work with said she and her friend decided to roast some in her oven. She said they got quite the scare when the nuts exploded and caused a racket. lol Evidently they didn't pierce the nuts first, isn't that what you're suppose to do to let the steam out?

The chestnut burrs are really spikey and sharp too. I'm not sure, but more than likely it's a Chinese Chestnut tree.

There are several places on the net that you can order American chestnuts from.

schoolhouse, yes, you are supposed to pierce the hull first. One of my brothers puts them in the microwave to roast them. That's too bad about your tree.

To all: just passing this on, if you store chestnuts in the fridge they won't get wormy so fast. My ex-MIL told me this. There was a tree in her yard, I had all the chestnuts I could eat!

They're okay.

I’ve only had the, fresh-roasted at the town’s holiday tree-lighting, and they were delicious.

Street vendors roasting chestnuts with charcoal fires are commonly seen in larger European cities in December and maybe in November in some places too. They're very good. I haven't eaten them in other settings or prepared other ways.

I have 4 sizable chestnut trees on my property, probably Chinese Chestnut. I helped a friend gather some a few years back but personally I don't like any nuts. If I had been smarter I'd have seen whether the farmer's market near me was interested in selling them.

I love them too. Would like to grow a few chestnut trees someday.

bob_cville I bet the farmer's market would be interested. Maybe next year? My cousin is a vendor in their town's market, I know they could sell them if they had them. My brother picked these up at a roadside stand.

I have never tasted them. I like most nuts. Not all.

Sue

I remember buying them in NYC too. I wonder if they still sell them there on the street.

They do, but only at Christmas in the touristy parts of the city: https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/chestnut-tradition-toast-n-y-vendors-offer-treat-article-1.473997

Just chestnut horses.

I don't know if I've ever tasted them.

Another story: my BF really likes chestnuts, so I gave her a small paper bag full of them to take home with her. She called me later to say, "What the heck?! I picked the bag up off my car seat and there were all these little white worms crawling around!" lol This was obviously before I knew I had a big infestation.

I didn't know putting them in the fridge would hold off the worms. So do all chestnuts eventually get wormy? I can tell when I pick the nut out of the burr and see tiny pin holes that a fly has laid eggs in there. Never thought I should eat them after seeing that.

I thought I loved chestnuts in all their incarnations, roasted, candied, puréed, turned into flour, I had no idea people ate them raw or dried. I will give those two a try.

Bookwoman, your dessert sounds a lot like a Mont Blanc, which is one of my tippy top favorite desserts ever. Cans of chestnut cream do not last long around me.

I also have never had chestnuts, unless you count water chestnuts, and I do not particularly like those - they are pretty bland and only provide texture, as far as I can tell.

Zalco, I've seen Mont Blancs in pastry shops, but never had one. I will have to remedy this situation....

Love chestnuts! Especially fresh roasted, but they're almost impossible to get here now. Trader Joe's sells prepackaged organic roasted & shelled ones seasonally, and I try to stock up when they have them.

I really miss buying bags of them and roasting them in the oven for just a snack and also for Thanksgiving dressing. The last several years when I bought fresh ones, they were quite expensive and almost all rotten inside, so I gave up 😟

I remember as a kid, some friends from France gave us a jar of marrons glace and those were so yummy!

nope

I like them but its probably been 30-40 yrs since I had them We used to roast them in our fireplace when I was a kid.

schoolhouse that is a funny story. I've seen something like that too. Yes, they will keep for a bit in the fridge. They don't last too long around me anyway.

Lars, you might like them roasted.

carolb, I have bought them and been disappointed before. I felt sure the seller knew they weren't edible. I have never bought them in a store, just roadside stands.

Growing up, chestnuts made a regular appearance at the holidays. My mom used to include them in her turkey dressing. After notching the flat end, she would steam them and then it was my job to peel them. I still can find them locally around the holidays but they are pricey and my turkey dressing is just fine without them :-) They are tasty, though.

Water chestnuts are of course not chestnuts at all - not even slightly related - but the tuberous root of a water loving, sedge-like plant.

I grew up eating chestnuts and love them. I eat them raw, never roasted!

For those who eat them raw, how do you peel them? I recall that being a bit difficult to do even when they're roasted.

They must not be too hard to peel, because I would sometimes stop what I was doing in the orchard and pick up a few to eat. I think I started at the tip and peeled them back. I'll have to see if there any chestnuts down there today and try it. There are burrs on the ground but critters may have gotten to the insides already.

Found some this morning. Certainly not as big as they used to be, plus the burrs of some were still somewhat green and the nuts hard to extract. Maybe they just got blown off the tree too soon. Anyway, I used my fingernail to peel back the outer shell starting at the tip. Very little taste, again not like I remember.

As a kid, I recall my Dad taking me up the hill in the woods behind our house. We gathered chestnuts off the ground from the one tree on our property. I’m sure it is gone now, but I have always wondered about it. Likely gone to disease along with the many other American Chestnuts in the US plus it was an old tree back then. We would eat a few raw and he would roast the rest. They were pretty good and sweet-ish raw as I remember. Not my favorite but interesting.

Critters take all the ones that drop from the tree from the burr unless I find them first.

Last night I tried one of both types that I purchased the other day. I simply pointed a knife point on the rounded side and pressed down. The shell split and I was able to peel each of them with my fingers. The skin that I have had a hard time removing in the past stuck to the shell except in one place. In thinking about the bugs decided if I wanted to keep them to make things for the holiday into the freezer they needed to go.

I have attempted in the past to score the flat end with very little success. It was easier to simply slice through the side then take the halves out of the shell.

Bookwoman, I just cut them in half and can usually peel them then. Or sometimes use the knife to peel.