Have You Ever Roasted Chestnuts? We Did!! - 18th Century Cooking

Chestnuts roasting on an open fire. We've all heard this song. We've probably all sang along with the song. The question is, have we ever tried roasted chestnuts? I certainly have not. Our special guest, Michael Dragoo, has brought in chestnuts for us and we are going to try that out. Tell us about roasted chestnuts. Sure, chestnuts have been roasted for a long time. I had a hard time finding a dated recipe going back to this time. I think it's just so obvious a thing to do that no one ever wrote them down. Like today, they write down recipes that are kind of extravagant or hard. This is so simple and everybody was doing it. We had a blight that took out most of our American chestnuts. Today, were you to order chestnuts, you can still get American chestnuts. These are American chestnuts. But 80% of the chestnuts purchased in the world are from China. The other 20% are from Italy. You can get them from France and from other countries, but predominantly they are other chestnuts. They're related to lots of things. These little guys are one nut. There are some other chestnuts, I think Chinese chestnuts, in that shell might be two or three nuts. What we're gonna do is we're gonna cut the shell so it expands and so it doesn't explode and we're just gonna roast them over an open fire. They're gonna get softened and we're going to enjoy their little innards. Yeah, I think the reason why you wouldn't see them in a recipe book is because, I mean, it is the recipe, right? Roast the chestnuts. What recipe is there about it? Other than the simple direction of cut the shell, which I don't think anybody, since everybody was eating them, they probably seen the finished product and so they wouldn't bother to write it down. You can buy chestnut roasters, pans with holes in their bottoms. I have a early 1800s copper chestnut roaster from England that's meant to steam the chestnuts or it's a roaster, you could steam lots of things in it. But we're predominantly today, when I try to find original recipes, they're just in a pan heating up over a fire and that's what we're gonna try. Chestnuts roasting on an open fire in the song, it's called the Christmas song. Are these directly related to Christmas? Only in that it's a late harvested produce and they have a short shelf life once they're produced. So you consume them right away. Right around Christmas time. Yes. That's when they're ready. To prepare these for roasting, I soaked these for about a half an hour. You can soak them up to 24 hours. You're doing two things. You're trying to soften the outer shell so it's easier to cut, but you're also trying to introduce water into the chestnut because they're not just roasting on the open fire. It takes something besides that external heat so you've gotta be steaming from within. And now we're just cutting through the shells. There's an outer shell and then there's a membrane inside and we're trying to cut through both of them without slicing our thumbs off. This is an adult watching an older child project, not a young child project. These little outer shells are tough. It's no wonder. If you don't slice them, what happens? They explode. Yeah, so you don't wanna do that. So you definitely have to slice. No, and they explode with enough velocity that they can take out your oven light or perhaps crack your glass. Okay. They take out. Make sure to slice your chestnuts. So this is surprising. It wasn't as easy as I thought it was going to be. We had three batches here. The first batch, I didn't put in a cloth to steam. Once I pulled them out of the pan, they were very difficult. They resisted all attempts to peel nicely. There's the outer husk. There's the inner kind of skin. Yeah, it's a fibrous kind of thing. That inner skin, unless it's still moist and still warm, it just doesn't wanna separate from that inner sort of the nut proper. And you don't wanna eat that. No. Skin's not good. It's not good. And then the other two batches, we steamed and they peeled much easier. It's important to cut not only through the outer shell, and it's difficult. I don't know how to do it right. I don't have any tools. I just used a paring knife. But you gotta cut through that membrane too. Because if you do, and if you cook them till they're soft, and then if you let them steam in a cloth, it all comes off together. And they peeled rather nicely. But you still have to peel them when they're almost hot. Yeah. It's hot enough you- Almost too hot to touch. Right. You're right on the hairy edge. And then they peel. But I like them. I've never had a taste like this before. I can't tell you any other nut that it tastes like exactly. And it's soft. Well, I'm gonna try it out. So a little bit of salt was kind of, it's better with that, right? I preferred them when I did them at home. Okay, let's try this out. Well, I'm trying to figure out what this nut tastes like. And it's kind of creamy. It's not strong nutty. No. It's sweet. Very sweet. Compared to walnuts and other holiday nuts. Nothing that really comes right to mind. But we don't normally, well, I guess we do have like hot peanuts, right? Other things that we cook, nuts that we cook. But this has got a completely soft texture, almost like slightly too hard mashed potatoes. You know how mashed potatoes kind of have that, if you don't cook them quite enough, there's a little texture there. So they have that, and it's a good texture. They're very mild. And they're mild, they're sweet, but you don't think, oh, that's just like some other nut, right? They're chestnuts. They're not anything else. I can't tell you what they did to perk them up in our time period. But modern research, when I was just researching how to get the things out of the shells, they're using oils and butters. They're infusing them with herbs, with spices. Oh, for extra flavor. For extra flavor, right. It could be tarragon. It's- I wouldn't, I don't think they need anything else. I think these are fine, but they do have a drizzle that you could drizzle on. And in one case, I read that they soaked them in wine before they cooked them in the first place. I didn't try that, but- Yeah. I could definitely see them as a street food, but you would get them right out of the roaster. You know, they probably give them to you just a little warm, and then you would eat them quickly while they were still warm, or else you wouldn't be able to get them apart. I think it's really important to soak them ahead of time. And maybe I didn't soak them long enough. We soaked them for maybe 45 minutes this afternoon before we introduced them to the skillet. And it's possible they should have absorbed more water, been in there longer. They were kind of tough to cut. I don't think I cut them through enough because of this. The proper ones, the whole thing peeled back. I don't know. Sometimes it worked. Yeah. Even when it was... You just can't let them get cold, or else you can't peel them. Right, right. Yeah, so this one, it just doesn't work. And I can't weigh in. There were some instances where people recommended to just slice it- Halfway. We elected to do the cross because more people, from what I read, did them that way. I can't tell you which is easier or better. I don't think we soaked them enough, and I think we peeled them when they were starting to get cool. I think those two things made it difficult for us because the ones that were almost too hot to touch peeled. That's where we got these successful ones from, and they look great. They taste... I think they taste good. Yeah. So, success? I think they're very successful. I wish we still had plenty of chestnuts to eat, but we don't around here. Yeah. It would be something pretty prolific. Chestnut trees were very, very common, and you would have lots of chestnuts to eat. So we've all heard the Christmas song, This Is What They're Talking About, and it's wonderful. It's a great opportunity to get a chance to eat something that they would have had very, very commonly in the 18th century. So thank you so much, Michael, for bringing that in. Oh, and Michael's new cookbook is out. Make sure to check it out. It's on the website, and it's a tremendous way of kind of talking about and understanding how we connect with history, not just thinking about it 200 years ago, but our personal history, our ancestry that goes back to that kind of time, how do we connect with those ancestors from 200 years ago? Food is a great way of doing that, understanding food. So great job on that cookbook. Thank you so much. Make sure to check that out. Thank you so much for joining us today as we savor the flavors and the aromas of the 18th century.