Yes I enjoyed it sir. (Also the music.) The method and getting them out of their shells is not an exact study at all. I learned that you cut them round, which indeed needs careful handling, but you can cut them with it sitting in an older oven glove or a kitchen towel, such. This is what people did till right before bed time, after dinner, you know with family while others play a game or so. They put them to soak (- in water, but that is not really for the nut part, it is for the membrane part, maybe adding a little vinegar to the water might help -) before sleeping, and early rising, you take them out rinse them and roast them. They do great with an egg and or bacon, something salty indeed, it can be served with breakfast or lunch, or even at a dinner, making up a nice plate with a dot of salad or dried apples in some side dish arrangement, and simply eat them along. It is a seasonal thing, it gets you ready for winter, and is just that extra with all other extra, to get one through the winter. The longer they are soaked, means the more tender or mushy they become, which is logics I guess. They also do good with cheese and wines indeed, and or a more healthy snack, depending on how one seasons them, than potato chips we are used to today. One can also dip them in chocolate, and vary them that way. Salty chocolate balls...we all remember in a way. I love to eat them with pork, with honey and a tad pinch a salt, and 40% chest nut / 60% potato and some whatever liked herbs or plane with those, or with salad on their own, broken or whole, whatever is nice to serve them as and or comes in handy. They do great on apple pie, or mixed into the apple pie, or together with other nuts in to cookies etc. Last not least I love them on my spinach together with some cheese sprinkle to melt on them and the spinach. Which is awesome taste. Or try walnut + chestnut + almond cupcakes, or such with a sweet filling of these nuts in a preferred liking. I believe they are seasonal fillers, when other foods become less in stock, you can add these to fill a plate full of seasonal food :) I think is how these came to use, very practically, personally handled, and probably in many forgotten secret family recipes right before Christmas, rather than at Christmas. The longer kept, the more they probably need to soak, I think my grandparents used to store them until the new year came on which they had to be all consumed. Since yeah their shelve life isn't long, unless you treat them, which might have been less worth it. Something is always in season. :) They like to be treated like nuts, so, anything for recipes, with garnish etc. Restaurants should want them. They are a direct pointer to the seasonal treat of guests, just like beechnuts (from a beech tree ofc.). So with nuts and pies and cookies and deserts and what nots ( or nuts) as for dressing up a lovely meal, Greetings from the Netherlands.
True story. The first time I made them I couldn't remember if you cut a slit in them before or after you roast them, so I put them into the oven without cutting them first. Everything was fine until they started to cool on the counter and suddenly it was The 4th of July in the house with everyone being bombed and ducking behind the furniture! It was so funny that afterwards one of my guests had t-shirts made that said they survived Christmas at my house!
Did the same after coming back from a weekend in New York City where street vendors roasted and sold them on their carts. The aroma was to die for! Mine began exploding in the oven, then I made mistake number two by taking them out and putting them on the counter where they exploded, making a mess of the kitchen that took two days to clean up. Bottom line, it ain't as easy as these guys make it look!
Chestnuts store energy as a carbohydrate instead of a fat (oil) like most nuts. So if you roast them, the carbohydrates break down into simple sugars and creates that sweetness. It can also be dried and ground into flour much better than any of our more traditional nuts. In tuscany Italy, they use chestnut flour to make cakes.
They are commonly eaten roasted in the UK in winter. You either get them whole in nets or ready peeled in a vaccuum sealed packs. Frying them with bacon lardons and brussel sprouts is a great way of serving them.
We have chestnut peddlers all around central streets in Turkey, it's very common especially in winter. They cook it for you and put them into a paper bag. You eat them just like eating cookies. Best place to eat them in Turkey is Bursa :) The city is also famous with chestnut candies. You're all welcome to try!
You mentioned chestnuts as street food. I’m old enough to remember walking in midtown Manhattan and seeing vendors of roasted chestnuts every few blocks. The wonderful smell would carry for at least a block despite the automotive exhaust fumes. No other street food was ever as tempting as the roasted chestnuts. Many decades later, my (grown) children and I roasted them in the oven, the only preparation being to slit the tops. Yum!
you mean they no longer sell them from carts in Manhattan? I always wondered what fuel they were using; very smokey. I remember some of the top pans lined with aluminum foil. that goes back a few years :)
I remember chestnut vendors in Manhattan. As children, our father would occasionally take us to work-that is to say, we would go to his office (he was a financial printer salesman), and we would get to see the letterpresses and the pressman, and then we would go to the stock exchange, where his father had a seat on the exchange. I remember looking over the marble railing at the floor below and seeing all the paper scraps on the floor. After that, he would buy us roasted chestnuts from a vendor outside the exchange. I will always remember that smell of the roasting chestnuts.
@UriNierer Someone imported a dozen chinese chestnut trees that were infected with blight, which all but completely decimated the American chestnut tree by the 1950s.
I love that short exchange "If you don't slice em what happens?" *Eyebrow raised* "They explode" so matter of fact deadpan belying the horror of nuts exploding and general mayhem.
In the UK Roasted Chestnuts are very common at Christmas. What we do is cut the top off, cut the nut part way down the middle and soak overnight. Any nut that floats are bad and thrown away, the rest go in the pan with the Turkey and the cooking juices make them both soft and tasty.
In Germany roasted chestnuts are called Maronen. They are still very traditional on most Christmas markets, especially the Renaissance or medieval style Christmas markets. I am pretty certain that they are also widespread in Austria, Switzerland, France, and Italy. They are amazing at one of the Glühwein/ mulled wine stalls (Glühwein is literally "glow wine"). You get nice and toasty from both the wine and the roasted chestnuts that you still have to peel with your fingers. Imagine a cold, dark, gloomy late afternoon, strolling over a matket square, encompassed by half-timbered houses, and you come to rest next to a portable open fire stove, with chestnuts roasting. The lights of the stalls bathing the area in a soft glow, the comfy crackling of the fire, and the delicious smells of burning wood, mulled wine, and the chestnuts. That's tradition. Greetz from a German in Hamburg.
What an amazing video! I'm from Portugal and over here it is tradition to roast chestnuts when Autumn starts, we still have street vendors who use pages from a newspaper to form cones and fill them with roasted chestnuts. I remember as a child watching my parents roast them in the oven and then spending time peeling them and how slightly sweet they were. It's so nostalgic watching you do that, I absolutely love this channel.
I am Portuguese from Boston MA and they are a HUGE Holiday staple for the holidays. We buy either the Portuguese or Italian ones, make a slice just about halfway, wet them, and salt liberally. Roast in oven and once you see the shell and pith separate, peel when hot.......I absolutely adore them!!!!!!
I have been looking to buy an American chestnut and plant it on my property. Its a shame the blight killed so many of them off. So many Cities have a Chestnut street because the trees were so prominent. It would be great to see them make a comeback.
I think their is a variety that has been bred to be resistant to the disease that wiped them out. But like Panama disease and potato blight the diseases spread much more quickly when the trees are more closely related
@@michaelcross4112 It's a continuous process. The breeders took chinese chestnuts and are introducing traits to make them closer to the american variety: ua-cam.com/video/DbrY-J0bpto/v-deo.html
The Darling chestnut tree is soon to (probably) be approved for reintroduction in the wild. The inserted a gene from wheat that makes the trees fight the fungus. ua-cam.com/video/-mhMdUryolU/v-deo.html
@@travisfinucane seems viable, blight fungus is near impossible to eradicate. Mild risk of these hybrid trees becoming a vector to spread the blight to the few remaining surviving native trees but realistically speaking that blight isn't going anywhere soon so guess we have to adapt to it.
Roasted chestnuts were part of New York City Christmas traditions for a long time. You bought them from guys who roasted them on the street. Wonderful smell. NYC has changed so drastically in the last 40 years, though, I don't know if they do it anymore.
where i live (Austria 🇦🇹) roasting chestnuts is pretty popular, you can buy them already roasted at almoast all Christmas markets or raw in supermarkets in late autumn/early Winter. we even have an (electric) Chestnut roaster at home
We eat them in the UK winter, though my family doesn't soak them first - the shells crisp and are easy to peel for us. Their creamy sweet taste is unlike anything else, so good!
Also from the UK and I wouldn't describe the flavour as mild at all! (as they did in the video) very sweet and creamy, almost melt in the mouth, perhaps a regional variety? Some areas the entire forest floor is absolutely coated in fallen chestnuts so you get to be picky about the ones you take.
I grew up in NYC in the 60’s & 70’s there were push carts selling these all over town. My dad used to roast them in the fireplace. The trick is to make a small X not a long slice. This locks in the steam better!
The same in the Isle of Man, UK, usually there was a cart in the main street selling them. At home we put them on the small coal shovel and roasted over the open fire.
I also grew up in NYC in the 60's & 70's. We'd buy them from the carts already roasted and eat them as a street food snack. The ones they sold were roasted with the small X cut in them just as you described.
I grow a Chinese x American chestnut hybrid in South Georgia. I cure harvested nuts on a concrete floor inside a barn for about 3 weeks beginning in mid September. This process reduces the risk of rot, separates the meat from the shell, and improves flavor. Next I refrigerate nuts in perforated produce bags for several months. When ready to roast, I place nuts on hard surface and strike with a rubber mallet to crack shell slightly, instead of cutting each nut with a knife. I roast them in frying pan with a perforated lid and I don't add anything. They are delicious.
One of my favorite memories is getting roasted chestnuts across from Harrods one Christmas season when we were stationed in England. Neither my husband or our friend who was visiting from the states had ever had them. Little dusting of snow coming down, Harrods lit up like Santa's Workshop and a group of carollers adding to the wonderful, magical scene. I felt like I was in a Hallmark movie!
Chestnuts are a vital part of fall/winter. I have found that slicing them raw with a serrated knife makes the job much easier, but watch your fingers! I cheat and use a kevlar knife proof glove. We boil the sliced nuts for about 5-10 minutes and then roast ate 375F for 15 minutes or so. Wrap them up hot in a cloth for about 10 minutes and then peel immediately. Good eating as Jon discovered.
We've always cut an X on the pointy bit of the nut at the bottom. This helps it to open up when cooking. I've never heard of soaking them before but I look forward to trying that out.
I HAVE roasted chestnuts. I have also worked in downtown Philadelphia, PA where roasted chestnuts were a seasonal street food, along with the more widely available soft pretzels. Your descriptions were spot-on.
In Portugal we have the same thing. I think it's common to all south of Europe at least. And here it's common to have street vendors of chestnuts roasted over coal. They sell them in October, November and December grnerally
We eat them from the time they become available until the time they sadly stop being viable. They just taste so good on their own. Italian-American, whole extended family loves chestnuts. I'm always blown away that no one outside of us seems to even know chestnuts are real. Thank you for this video! Chestnuts deserve more fans!
I've never had a Chestnut(60 years old, now) as there were no trees near me. However, there were Walnut and Hickory Nut trees around and for Thanksgiving and Christmas, those were the nuts of choice, not only by themselves, but also baking.
Roasted chestnuts are a common sight in Taiwan during this time of year. They also spice them up sometimes with whatever it was they were soaking in, so they might take on a festive flavor. You can buy them in bags straight from the roasters. They make for a great treat.
@@southernwanderer7912 they are not peeled. They usually give you these little plastic toothed claws you press into them to tear away and split the softened shell.
I'm Italian, we always roast chestnuts on the fire in a special pan with pierced bottom. When available, we do it on wood fire, in a fireplace or on a wood fire stove. I love your videos.
So interesting to see Townends trying them for the first time when in Germany on every major Christmas market you have stalls abound that sell these for on the go. Best snack ever and incredibly nostalgic, also I can recommend soups made from them (get a frozen batch of precooked and prepeeled ones for larger quantities) no idea whether there are soup recipes from back then however
Unfortunately, American chestnuts almost went extinct due to Chestnut Blight around the early 20th century. They used to be extremely common, and a vital part of the diet for anything living in the woodlands; squirrels, deer, people... After the blight there were almost no native sources so the tradition died out. We're having to find ways to engineer resistant American chestnut trees. The two chief methods are to cross-breed them with Chinese chestnuts, or to insert the resistant genes and try to breed the engineered trees to amplify the trait. Of course this is slow-going since trees take a long time to grow and mature.
As a fellow german I would say, it's a bit regional. I live in the north west and apparently they are not very commonly eaten in my region (westwarts of Bremen). I myself have only seen them being sold on one Market and a colleague of mine from cologne is always a bit sad that she has to scour the christmas markets far and wide to finally find her favourite christmas treat 😆
@@lukasmarks6504 Hell yeah, happens I’m from the Cologne area and it’s so common here. In Bonn there’s I think a total of 5 little stalls in the inner city during Christmas Time.
Hi John, tremendous video as always, plus always a pleasure to see Michael as a guest. I'm French and when I was a child, every fall, we used to pick up chestnuts in the forest and grill them afterward. It's interesting to see that it's not as common as I thought it was. Here, in late autumn, it's not rare to see street vendors in cities roasting chestnuts on little fires. And for a Christmas/winter delicacy from South of France I recommend everyone to check "marron glacé" (we also eat "crème de marron" wich I don't even know how to describe, it's pure chesnut and sugar with a touch of vanilla, the texture would be halfway between jam and peanut butter I'd say) Now I'm hungry for chesnuts, thanks ! And thanks a lot for your beautiful channel.
our first time having chestnuts was 10 years in Italy on vacation from a street vendor who was cooking them over a hardwood grill. the entire family was hooked. since them we can thankfully find them in our local stores and are now a holiday tradition for us. Great episode and reminder it time to go get some for this coming weekend! Thx Townsends!
I use a pair of kitchen shears to slice mine up the middle: I leave the bottom blade of the scissors anchored to the countertop, and start about halfway across the nut, and close the scissors, then turn the nut around and do the other side, making sure the cuts meet in the middle. I use clean pair of gardening gloves to insulate the fingers while peeling them hot. I just leave them in the oven on warm wrapped in a moist towel and take out a few at a time to peel.
Roasted chestnuts would be sold on Chinese streets as a snack! I love them when I was a kid! They'd use a big, shallow wok and sort of stir-fry them on the fire. Usually there is some sugar added too, but IDK how much of it actually made it into the chestnuts. All in all, they were a pretty common sight in northern China. Thanks for the vid!
Here in Dayton we go to Carillon Historical Park (I know you all have been there) at Christmas time and they roast chestnuts on an open fire in one of the historical cabins. It's a family tradition to go there and get a paper cone full of them, as well as gingerbread cookies (1845-era recipe) baked in a fireplace bread oven. I remember going a couple of years ago and learning about the American chestnut blight (such a shame). At that time, Carillon purchased Italian chestnuts. Thanks for posting this. Roasted chestnuts are the best!
I actually have been there, lol. My wife grew up in Miamisburg, so I spent a decade there. I hated it, lol (but i grew up in California, so theres a bit of a difference) .. but I wish I had known about that, that would have been really cool to go to.
My family used to roast chestnuts every year for a dish at Thanksgiving. It was tedious and we would all have sore fingers. A few years ago we found French chestnuts in a jar with no added liquid or preservatives that taste better than any we'd had. I will never peel another chestnut in my life.
I made a chestnut stuffing recipe at Thanksgiving 21 years ago. I remember the year because I met my husband that weekend on a backpacking trip. The stuffing was delicious but I vowed I would never make it again because of all the time, blood, sweat and tears to peel all those chestnuts. This is a family channel so I can only say that it became known as the "f"ing stuffing. 😂
If you have a giant they sell very good chestnuts, i roast and eat about 12lb of em every winter lmao. If you have good chestnuts they peal easily with none of the shell sticking to the nut, and will be tender and slightly sweet.
Thank you doing this. Everyone has heard the song, but many of us haven't experienced chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Someone had to try this out, and you guys did. I am so proud of you for venturing out there for us. May we all learn from what you have done. Again, many thanks
I have roasted Chestnuts at a 17th century event where in the centre of our encampment there was a huge chestnut tree. We were sitting around the fire and roasted them in a skillet. The chestnuts were everywhere, so we popped them into the pan and took them out as soon as they appeared ready.
Every year I do this! It's very common in Europe. You can even buy chestnut flour here to make breads and pastries. I like to roast my chestnuts in an iron skillet and eat them with a little bit of honey.
Every year during Thanksgiving time, Chestnuts are available! I like to steam them. Cut a cross in the nut and steam for 20mins. They come out so soft and sweet! Yum!
Chestnuts were a fall tradition when I was a kid. We never soaked them, but I think it is a good idea, and just baked them in the oven. We cut a cross in them as you demonstrated. Now I need to buy some!
@@Viper-jk2pf at least that stuff made sense. they want stuff, they don't wanna work for that stuff, and people who work for their stuff are too tired to fight back. That's why we invented castles and police. Now everything's topsyturvy.
I think describing the texture as not-quite-done potatoes is beautifully accurate. They have a buttery flavor that vaguely reminds me of macadamias, but with a touch of sweetness. At least, the ones I've had are like that. I've never had American chestnuts. All the ones I've tried I bought at Asian grocery stores, so I don't know if the American breed tastes significantly different. But from your description, it sounds like the texture is the same. I hope American chestnuts become more prevalent in the future so I can try those, too. I encourage everyone to try chestnuts if they haven't before. They're wonderful.
Chestnuts at Christmas was a tradition in our family for years. A few comments on your experience: We never ever soaked our chestnuts. Your video is the first time I have heard of that process. I may try that if I ever buy chestnuts again. When we cut the shell, we made an "X" with the tip of a sharp pointed knife and cut through both the shell and membrane and slightly into the meat. I found the easiest way to make the cut was to hold the nut in one hand and with the other hold the knife vertical to the nut and drag the tip across the shell. We "roasted" them on a flat cookie pan in the oven at 375 degrees. I found the timing was variable depending on how old the nuts were, but in general once the shells darkened and turned back on themselves at the cut they were done. Chestnuts can be a challenge to open, but if they were opened hot, both the shell and the membrane usually pealed away easily by first squeezing the sides of the nut until the shell popped away from the meat. Generally, the membrane pealed away with little trouble, but if it did not, one trick was to squeeze the sides of the chestnut gently which might cause the membrane to loosen. If that didn’t work, you were in for a challenge. If you waited until they were cool, they were always a challenge. We haven’t roasted chestnuts for a couple of years now. We found that the quality of the nuts we purchased in our local grocery stores was abysmal. About half the nuts we bought the last few years we were roasting them were infected with mold, not good to eat. There were also a significant percentage of nuts that were dried out, gone bad and were otherwise inedible. We got sick and tired of paying top price for three or four pounds of nuts and getting maybe a pound and a half of edible ones.
I haven't had roasted chestnuts since I was a little kid in the 70's. They grew across the old country road from my Grandmothers place and she would do some every year.
Roasted Chestnuts (Castañas Asadas) is a staple of Christmas, autumn and winter Spanish street food served on newspaper cones. The Spanish way of preparing them (I say Spanish because I don't know if they are done differently on other country) is: wash them (if dirty), check for holes (bugs), cut a cross in the round part or just once along the side (a toothed knife is safer), to avoid any cuts you can just cut them almost in half like you are cutting a hard vegetable (example raw beet). If the chestnuts aren't soaked the skin will become hard and break easily making the peeling process way easier. Cooking in a modern home: oven, pan, microwave (2-3mins), no steaming or resting necessary. Traditional cooking: old pan with holes drilled so they get a bit smoked over coal/wood embers. About the salt... at least here is uncommon to salt them because they are more like dessert or "candy" but salted they should have more flavor (as any food does) and probably salting them is older because in Roman times chestnuts where used like wheat and corn today, primarily to make flour, bread... Personally I like them raw but this way they are a bit harder to digest so only a few should be eaten raw.
I remember being up in Vancouver, BC and they were selling roasted chestnuts 🌰 on the street. Pretty tasty! And every Christmas my stepmother who was English, would get purreèd chestnuts 🌰 for our dinner.
Toronto, Canada - we used to have pushcart vendors downtown that sold popcorn, cotton candy, candy apples and during the right season, a little charcoal burner hanging off the side and chestnuts roasting in it. My parents boiled them, I roasted them in cast iron. Tried the fire thing. Did it in the oven xmas 2022 and had my first exploding chestnut this season. More recent times, Italian supermarkets sell a chestnut opener - plastic scissor mechanism with a spoon on one side and metal serrated blade on the other that clamps down and perforates the chestnut. How to eat it has been a struggle for most of my 50 years. The most satisfactory method without spending lots of time separating membrane was this last season. Perforate splitting into two hemispheres, taking an oyster knife, spinning the half around the blade to scrape as much meat out as I can. I like the big ones and put up with the hassle of trying to extract meat. For the rest of the year, the small shelled and vac packed snack bagged ones that presumably come from China work.
Two years ago we went scurrying around a local parkland looking for them. My better half is Chinese and myself being from the rural UK we both have roasted chestnuts in our culinary culture! Open fire cooking for us on Dartmoor National Park… which in the depths of winter is pretty inhospitable, as would be testified on this very day :P
Buying roast chestnuts on the street is a treat in many cities. They’re everywhere in carts Istanbul. I’ve bought them in multiple cities from carts in the UK and France. I remember as a kid buying them in San Francisco. I can’t believe the hosts never came across them before.
I'm glad I'm not the only person who has had problems roasting chestnuts this year. Thanks for this video and here's hoping we'll see the return of the American Chestnut.
It's traditional to roast them in Portugal in Autumn and Winter. You'll often find street vendors with portable coal ovens to roast and steam them right there on the spot! It's wonderful to share freshy roasted chestnuts on a cold winter day.
Loved this video. In Japan, roasted chestnuts are very popular in winter, and you can sometimes find little trucks or foodstands selling them. It's so nice to walk around in winter holding a warm back of chestnuts and sharing them with someone.
During the winter period roasted chestnuts are sold everywhere on the street of every italian town. We make cakes with them, we even make a kind of chestnut marmelade. In Firenze (and surely other places in Italy) we even boil them; we call the roasted ones “bruciate” and the boiled ones “ballotte”.
They're slightly sweet, but very starchy. I first had them outside a huge Japanese grocery store years ago and was so excited to see the guy selling them! It was during the winter. I roasted some myself in the oven years after that because I finally found raw ones locally and it was quite a task to peel them. I used the "X" method, but my "X"s were too small and I'm pretty sure I didn't cut all the way through the thin skin/membrane. They're super easy to overcook and they get really hard once they cool off after that, so soaking is a must and you HAVE to watch them closely.
Gosh ,I love chestnuts. We had an old chestnut tree out in the woods, behind one of my childhood homes. I think it was one of those Chinese chestnut trees. It wasn't but maybe 30 feet tall and large around. Man ,that thing would really produce. Where I live use to be covered in chestnut trees (southeast U.S.).
24hr soak with a tsp of salt per 1lb. I use an X-ACTO Retractable Metal Utility Knife for cutting the X. Thank you for all that you do Townsends family. I did not know about the wine soak until now. I'm going to try it this week. Merry Christmas all!
One thing that I've done recently that has helped a LOT when peeling was to soak these in boiling water for 10 minutes. So bring enough water to cover the nuts to a boil, take off the heat, and then let the nuts soak in it for ten minutes. Pat dry and then roast in the oven how you normally would. If you give it a shot in the future, I hope this tip helps!
5:03 before televison, spending time by the hearth with and slowly roasting chestnuts would be fun way to pass time. especially fun seasonal treat for kids i imagine
Where I'm from roasted chestnuts are a common snack in the winter. Really nothing better than sitting by a fire while pealing and eating some chestnuts. So tasty and you don't do anything but roast and slice em. And exactly like you guys mention at the end, it's also a street food. I still remember one day coming back from a long trip, stopping by the road to pullover to a chestnuts roaster. Some of the best tasting thing I've ever had.
The dive into a recipe so commonplace that it wasn't written down and figuring it out are the fascinating bits of history and historical perspective I enjoy about this channel.
Hopefully this video will help to promote planting of more American Chestnut trees! I love this channel for the attention it brings to subjects like this. If I ever hit the lottery, I've always wanted to put a large sum of money towards reviving the American Chestnut.
Quite a popular street food during the autumn months here in Serbia. They are roasted on a cast iron gas stove with holes at the top so the chesnuts get the smokey taste from the peel burning up, quite a plesent smell aswell.
@townsends, really loved this particular video. I am so thankful we have chestnut trees in my area. Also last night I watched Charles Dickens, A Cristmas Carol(the black and white version), and there was a scene where Mr. Crachet had brought home chestnuts, which his wife roasted. Not long afterward, he put the chestnuts in this pot that resembled an old coffee pot, and then he added what looked like water. He stirred it and then put it back on the fire. Then when it was ready, he brought it in the dining room and poured some in everyone's glass this clear liquid. They all drank it as it was a warm drink, and it was sweet. Mr. Crachet got one of his kids to try the drink first to see if it was sweet enough, which she found a bit bitter, which meant it wasn't quite ready. Do you know what this drink is called? It is from the chestnuts, but I was curious as to know what this method was for turning chestnuts in a hot drink.
@Thurber, I have always been one to like the finer details of some films. I also loved how very sweet and loving Mr. Crachet really was. He was a real man of the house. Even though Mr. Scrooge sacked(fired) him, he still put on a smile, went and bought a goose, and other things to go to make a perfect Christmas dinner for his family. Oh and of course we could never forget Tiny Tim, the poor boy always with 1 crutch. That boy sure learned happiness from his Father. It's not Christmas without Charles Dickens!😊
@@I_am_dovakin My mother read the book to us every year in the week leading up to Christmas and we also watched every version that came on TV. My brother and I both love it to this day.
My Grandmother would always boil chestnuts during the holiday season. The shell and membrane usually peeling right off, If you could handle the heat when peeling. They are perfect as is. They don't need any seasonings. Maybe I'll have to go find some now. Thanks for the amazing videos.
It's been many moons when I was a kid since I had chestnuts, I believe we collected them ourselves in the forest here in Denmark, don't know if we cooked them the same way or if we just put them on a tray with some water to steam them in the oven or directly boiled them, but we ate them with butter and salt.
I boil them for just 3-5 mins before roasting, also makes cutting them easier as it softens the shell. I generally roast them on a sheet pan under the broiler for 15-20 mins. When you buy loose chestnuts scan the ends of each one and reject any with pin holes. Nothing worse that eating a maggot in your chestnut.
My parents spotted a chestnut tree in our city, foraged a bunch of them. They are sweet and tasty. They kept some in the freezer and take a handfull out when they make a stew. I would describe the taste as mix between pistachio's and potatoes with sweet taste.
Speaking of cooked nuts (well, legume technically), my dad is from Louisiana and my step mom is from Florida, and they LOVE their boiled peanuts. I'm told you'll see stands all up and down the road selling boiled peanuts. Not my thing, personally, as I don't like the texture, but that's another cooked nut that's popular. Oh, and dropping a bunch into a bottle of Coke or Pepsi is a popular thing to do with them.
ty so much for all the content got introduced to this channel from my grandpa and we would always watch this channel or just go fishing together. Thank you so much for all the content!
here we have the magosto, a whole tradition around chestnut harvest, sometimes even tied to halloween or samhain you can still see roasted chestnuts stands in cities like mine around fall and maybe winter, it feels analogue to those japanese roasted sweet potato stands they put that roasted smell in the street's air, and people also buy them because they keep your hands warm they are a bit slow to peel open, but that makes them great to share while you spend some time with your hands busy and your mind vacant
If I were to compare a roasted chestnut to anything, I'd say it almost *almost* reminds me of like a butternut squash or a sweet potato... a little bit earthy, very smooth and creamy. They really are very good. I don't mess around cutting them I soak them with some water for a few days, to get the moisture up, then I have a steel perforated mid 70's clamshell popcorn maker. I put about 12 in at a time, and put them over a good hot campfire with some good coals and let them pop. they aren't going anywhere inside that cage. They usually come out of the shells pretty good that way. You get a little bit of the fire smokeiness, so you kinda have to go by feel as to how hot to go on them.
A very nice Christmas treat. I've had chestnuts roasted over a fire, and they were so good. A vendor was doing them outside of a supermarket. Those look so good. I hope you have a Merry Christmas. Cheers! 🎄🌰🌰🔥
I spent my childhood in Southern Russia and we'd often roast chestnuts whenever they were available. We didn't do anything fancy like soaking or spicing them but they would usually turn out pretty nice anyway. Later my family moved north, to Moscow, and I was surprised to find few people considered chestnuts food at all. And when my friends tried some, they'd say they didn't taste very good.
I have. Still do. Italian tradition 🙂 We also use chestnut flour a lot, especially in my native Liguria region (mainly to make pasta - wich pairs *so* well with Pesto you guys have no idea 🌰)
How festive! Thanks, Jon and Michael! They have roasted chestnuts at the annual Dickens of a Christmas festival in Franklin, TN. A Merry Christmas to you all , dear friends.
I've wanted to go to the Dickens festivsl but never remembered to ask off in time to go. Is it worth it? Any part of the festival that can't be missed?
One of my son's first dirty jokes! We were listening to this song. He said, "Poor Chet." I was confused. We do have a friend named Chet. "Why?" "His nuts! They're roasting on an open fire!" I really thought he had misunderstood. He started busting up laughing. He was so proud of that joke and told it to our friend Chet.
I've never tasted them and have never even seen one. This has made me curious and I'd like to see if I can find some. Thank you for gifting us with videos all year and may every one of you connected with Townsends enjoy a wonderfully Happy, Healthy and Merry Christmas. Be safe, well and warm.
You may want to get in touch with Eva from Pasta Grammar. She is Italian and we still eat lots of chestnuts. She recently had a show on eating chestnuts and she knows heaps about cooking with chestnuts.
I served 1000s of chestnuts for years to shoppers at clarks department store in Provo Utah. I cut them corner to corner with a box cutting razor blade knife. Lots of melted butter in a sauce pan on med heat with a lid in place to help steam them. I stired and drizzled the butter over the nuts often for about 25 mins. Each nut when cooked was soft and served on a small napkin directly to the shoppers with a slight squeeze to open it for them. Thank you so much..that will be $873.13 for the secret receipt..Merry Christmas!
Had them last week for the first time. Man they are fun to eat on a cold day. Fun to Pick apart. Good handwarmers xD Tasty too :) kinda like a crumbly potato texturewise
As an Italian I have been roosting chestnuts with my family since I was a child and have eaten them at winter festivals in Europe. First, we take a very sharp knife and stick the tip straight in (make sure the flattest side of the chestnut is down for stability) the you complete each side of the “x” from there. Once you make the stab it’s much easier to cut. Second we never put salt or anything else on the chestnut or you ruin it’s natural beautiful taste
They have actually discovered some American chestnut trees in my area. If I ever get a house again, I'm going to volunteer to try and grow one. They are trying to reverse engineer them and bring them back. Hearing about trees dying out always hurts my heart.
@@RIBill The same way Coppicing works when growing trees for firewood. I am currently in a fight with our town over an ash tree that they cut down due to ash borers that keeps sending up shoots that they keep cutting off.
The "reverse engineering" is actually a GMO chestnut project where they are hoping to get GM chestnuts approved to open the floodgates to more GM trees. The GM chestnuts have a wheat gene inserted, so they are not true chestnuts, but a chestnut wheat cross. Real American chestnut trees can be found and bought from a number of nurseries west of the Rockies. Get hybrid chestnuts that are blight resistant, if blight is a problem in your area.
Growing up in Greece chestnuts were one of my favorite things in the winter time. A lot of street vendors would be roasting them out on the street and when you got them they were hot and practically fell out of their shells. No taste like it. I wish I could duplicate that but I won't even try! They always bring back great memories for me!
I have been making stuffing with chestnuts For Thanksgiving for 6 decades. Starting when I had to stand on the stool to help my mother peel them. we boil them after cutting an X in the flat side of the nut, if the nut has a flat side. The trick to getting the chestnut out of the shell is to peel them while they are still almost scalding hot. So I agree with someone else that commented here. Sore fingers from scoring them, and sore fingers from peeling them. some of those you made didn’t look quite cooked enough. It’s my understanding that people used to throw them into the fire and wait for them to explode and come back out again. I believe there is an old expression about pulling your chestnuts out of the fire. We had a wire basket for Chestnut that we used to hold over the fire as well.
When I was a little girl, my daddy would go to his family's old homestead from the 1800s and bring back a big bag of chestnuts for us to roast every Christmas. We didn't realize that our old American chestnut trees were basically unicorns because they were pretty much gone from the area by then. I sent him back to look a few years ago, but as expected, the trees were long gone.
Seventy years ago, they were sold in small brown paper bags, all hot and ready to eat, from a man who would sell them on the street. This happened on Eastern Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland, right by the stores that sold all kinds of products...a long time before any Mall. The snow was flying, decorations were everywhere, and Christmas songs were heard through big speakers hung on the street poles. I have pictures of me wearing a blue velvet pants, coat and hat. Happy memories.
I was given some this Winter by a friend. I found his description to be spot on, "They taste like a combination between an almond and a potato. They aren't delicious, but I find that I can't stop eating them." One slice is easier than the cross and I had no issue peeling them. I did not soak or steam them. I had an old stamped steel skillet that I drilled about a dozen or more holes into. This lets the heat scorch the shells slightly and give a bit of smokiness to the nut flavor. Looking forward to next Winter's harvest!
I've eaten chestnuts my whole life, and it's super easy to buy pre-cooked and peeled where I'm from, and I was extremely surprised to find that in other parts of the world, even if there's plenty of chestnuts to go around, people had never, ever tried them! It's the most delicious thing ever. Roasted, boiled, candied, covered in salted butter, I could eat some all day, everyday.
My parents have a big pan with a very long handle and lots of holes at the bottom of the pan. Not exactly as the one in the video. I remember we would start getting chestnuts a bit after we went back to school from summer break. Chesnut trees are everywhere in France, so we just take some on our way back from school to home and cook them in the fireplace. Or throw their spiky shells at each other like any 10-year-old would do. I didn't like the taste much, but I really enjoyed the moment, the ritual, the fire, and just the ambiance of mid-september to late october. It was also a nice way to forget about the troubles of a new year at school and nice quality family time. Also, very often we didn't pre-cut them, we let them pop up in the pan. It was funnier. Like pop-corn but louder and with fire.
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Yes I enjoyed it sir. (Also the music.) The method and getting them out of their shells is not an exact study at all. I learned that you cut them round, which indeed needs careful handling, but you can cut them with it sitting in an older oven glove or a kitchen towel, such. This is what people did till right before bed time, after dinner, you know with family while others play a game or so. They put them to soak (- in water, but that is not really for the nut part, it is for the membrane part, maybe adding a little vinegar to the water might help -) before sleeping, and early rising, you take them out rinse them and roast them. They do great with an egg and or bacon, something salty indeed, it can be served with breakfast or lunch, or even at a dinner, making up a nice plate with a dot of salad or dried apples in some side dish arrangement, and simply eat them along.
It is a seasonal thing, it gets you ready for winter, and is just that extra with all other extra, to get one through the winter. The longer they are soaked, means the more tender or mushy they become, which is logics I guess. They also do good with cheese and wines indeed, and or a more healthy snack, depending on how one seasons them, than potato chips we are used to today. One can also dip them in chocolate, and vary them that way. Salty chocolate balls...we all remember in a way. I love to eat them with pork, with honey and a tad pinch a salt, and 40% chest nut / 60% potato and some whatever liked herbs or plane with those, or with salad on their own, broken or whole, whatever is nice to serve them as and or comes in handy.
They do great on apple pie, or mixed into the apple pie, or together with other nuts in to cookies etc. Last not least I love them on my spinach together with some cheese sprinkle to melt on them and the spinach. Which is awesome taste. Or try walnut + chestnut + almond cupcakes, or such with a sweet filling of these nuts in a preferred liking. I believe they are seasonal fillers, when other foods become less in stock, you can add these to fill a plate full of seasonal food :) I think is how these came to use, very practically, personally handled, and probably in many forgotten secret family recipes right before Christmas, rather than at Christmas.
The longer kept, the more they probably need to soak, I think my grandparents used to store them until the new year came on which they had to be all consumed. Since yeah their shelve life isn't long, unless you treat them, which might have been less worth it. Something is always in season. :) They like to be treated like nuts, so, anything for recipes, with garnish etc. Restaurants should want them. They are a direct pointer to the seasonal treat of guests, just like beechnuts (from a beech tree ofc.). So with nuts and pies and cookies and deserts and what nots ( or nuts) as for dressing up a lovely meal, Greetings from the Netherlands.
True story. The first time I made them I couldn't remember if you cut a slit in them before or after you roast them, so I put them into the oven without cutting them first.
Everything was fine until they started to cool on the counter and suddenly it was
The 4th of July in the house with everyone being bombed and ducking behind the furniture! It was so funny that afterwards one of my guests had t-shirts made that said they survived Christmas at my house!
Man, that would've been awkward to explain to a doctor if someone got injured by the chestnuts.
Mine went off while they were still baking, lol. "What color is the inside of the oven?" "Chestnut."
@@kaylathehedgehog2005 As you can see we all had a sense of humor!
Did the same after coming back from a weekend in New York City where street vendors roasted and sold them on their carts. The aroma was to die for! Mine began exploding in the oven, then I made mistake number two by taking them out and putting them on the counter where they exploded, making a mess of the kitchen that took two days to clean up. Bottom line, it ain't as easy as these guys make it look!
@@senior_ranger yes it is. You just need to cut the chestnut and put in the oven or pan.
You don't even need to soak them
Chestnuts store energy as a carbohydrate instead of a fat (oil) like most nuts. So if you roast them, the carbohydrates break down into simple sugars and creates that sweetness. It can also be dried and ground into flour much better than any of our more traditional nuts. In tuscany Italy, they use chestnut flour to make cakes.
Great info. Thanks!
Very interesting!
i love raw chestnuts. keep chewing it and you get this really bright sweetness.
Awesome!
Yes and also chestnut pasta is amazing
They are commonly eaten roasted in the UK in winter. You either get them whole in nets or ready peeled in a vaccuum sealed packs. Frying them with bacon lardons and brussel sprouts is a great way of serving them.
In my house we mix ours with sausage meat and make a loaf, great cold in sarnies.
@@stephenbell5217 how do you prepare them
Same here in germany
@@stephenbell5217 What is/are sarnies? I've never heard of this term before.
@@susansparke3462 sarnie is short for sandwich where I’m from.
We have chestnut peddlers all around central streets in Turkey, it's very common especially in winter. They cook it for you and put them into a paper bag. You eat them just like eating cookies. Best place to eat them in Turkey is Bursa :) The city is also famous with chestnut candies. You're all welcome to try!
We used to have those in Singapore too, but I haven't seen them around for years now. I think the trade just kind of died out over here...
What a nice little travel fact. I want to visit Bursa now!
Was in istanbul over xmas and they were fantastic.
In Greece too. Along with corn and all kinds of nuts
@@KABOOM-32 Corns too! They're one of my favorites but a bit difficult to digest 😄 Γεια σου γείτονα!
You mentioned chestnuts as street food. I’m old enough to remember walking in midtown Manhattan and seeing vendors of roasted chestnuts every few blocks. The wonderful smell would carry for at least a block despite the automotive exhaust fumes. No other street food was ever as tempting as the roasted chestnuts. Many decades later, my (grown) children and I roasted them in the oven, the only preparation being to slit the tops. Yum!
this is still normal in europe, i really didnt think that this became uncommon in the us
@Uri Nierer exactly, im from Portugal and I thought it was weird that Townsends never had any chestnuts
you mean they no longer sell them from carts in Manhattan? I always wondered what fuel they were using; very smokey. I remember some of the top pans lined with aluminum foil. that goes back a few years :)
I remember chestnut vendors in Manhattan. As children, our father would occasionally take us to work-that is to say, we would go to his office (he was a financial printer salesman), and we would get to see the letterpresses and the pressman, and then we would go to the stock exchange, where his father had a seat on the exchange. I remember looking over the marble railing at the floor below and seeing all the paper scraps on the floor. After that, he would buy us roasted chestnuts from a vendor outside the exchange. I will always remember that smell of the roasting chestnuts.
@UriNierer Someone imported a dozen chinese chestnut trees that were infected with blight, which all but completely decimated the American chestnut tree by the 1950s.
I love that short exchange "If you don't slice em what happens?" *Eyebrow raised* "They explode" so matter of fact deadpan belying the horror of nuts exploding and general mayhem.
they can take out the oven light. no big deal 😉
In the UK Roasted Chestnuts are very common at Christmas. What we do is cut the top off, cut the nut part way down the middle and soak overnight. Any nut that floats are bad and thrown away, the rest go in the pan with the Turkey and the cooking juices make them both soft and tasty.
Ooooh, that sounds delicious!
Thank you that is interesting.
Are they hard to peel?
Not if you cook them this way as the shell goes soft and because you split them prior to cooking the shell just easily peels off, Try it and enjoy!
TY for the tip!
In Germany roasted chestnuts are called Maronen. They are still very traditional on most Christmas markets, especially the Renaissance or medieval style Christmas markets. I am pretty certain that they are also widespread in Austria, Switzerland, France, and Italy.
They are amazing at one of the Glühwein/ mulled wine stalls (Glühwein is literally "glow wine"). You get nice and toasty from both the wine and the roasted chestnuts that you still have to peel with your fingers. Imagine a cold, dark, gloomy late afternoon, strolling over a matket square, encompassed by half-timbered houses, and you come to rest next to a portable open fire stove, with chestnuts roasting. The lights of the stalls bathing the area in a soft glow, the comfy crackling of the fire, and the delicious smells of burning wood, mulled wine, and the chestnuts. That's tradition.
Greetz from a German in Hamburg.
What an amazing video!
I'm from Portugal and over here it is tradition to roast chestnuts when Autumn starts, we still have street vendors who use pages from a newspaper to form cones and fill them with roasted chestnuts. I remember as a child watching my parents roast them in the oven and then spending time peeling them and how slightly sweet they were. It's so nostalgic watching you do that, I absolutely love this channel.
same in turkey
I am Portuguese from Boston MA and they are a HUGE Holiday staple for the holidays. We buy either the Portuguese or Italian ones, make a slice just about halfway, wet them, and salt liberally. Roast in oven and once you see the shell and pith separate, peel when hot.......I absolutely adore them!!!!!!
A tradição do Magusto é uma das nossas tradições mais icónicas. E as nossas castanhas são excelentes.
I have been looking to buy an American chestnut and plant it on my property. Its a shame the blight killed so many of them off. So many Cities have a Chestnut street because the trees were so prominent. It would be great to see them make a comeback.
Just gotta plant them but no one tries. To reestablish them.
I think their is a variety that has been bred to be resistant to the disease that wiped them out.
But like Panama disease and potato blight the diseases spread much more quickly when the trees are more closely related
@@michaelcross4112 It's a continuous process. The breeders took chinese chestnuts and are introducing traits to make them closer to the american variety: ua-cam.com/video/DbrY-J0bpto/v-deo.html
The Darling chestnut tree is soon to (probably) be approved for reintroduction in the wild. The inserted a gene from wheat that makes the trees fight the fungus. ua-cam.com/video/-mhMdUryolU/v-deo.html
@@travisfinucane seems viable, blight fungus is near impossible to eradicate.
Mild risk of these hybrid trees becoming a vector to spread the blight to the few remaining surviving native trees but realistically speaking that blight isn't going anywhere soon so guess we have to adapt to it.
Roasted chestnuts were part of New York City Christmas traditions for a long time. You bought them from guys who roasted them on the street. Wonderful smell. NYC has changed so drastically in the last 40 years, though, I don't know if they do it anymore.
where i live (Austria 🇦🇹) roasting chestnuts is pretty popular, you can buy them already roasted at almoast all Christmas markets or raw in supermarkets in late autumn/early Winter. we even have an (electric) Chestnut roaster at home
Same here in Germany
Same here in Greece 🌰
Same here in Spain
Same in Croatia…
Holland
We eat them in the UK winter, though my family doesn't soak them first - the shells crisp and are easy to peel for us. Their creamy sweet taste is unlike anything else, so good!
Also from the UK and I wouldn't describe the flavour as mild at all! (as they did in the video) very sweet and creamy, almost melt in the mouth, perhaps a regional variety?
Some areas the entire forest floor is absolutely coated in fallen chestnuts so you get to be picky about the ones you take.
I grew up in NYC in the 60’s & 70’s there were push carts selling these all over town. My dad used to roast them in the fireplace. The trick is to make a small X not a long slice. This locks in the steam better!
Nice tip!
The same in the Isle of Man, UK, usually there was a cart in the main street selling them. At home we put them on the small coal shovel and roasted over the open fire.
I also grew up in NYC in the 60's & 70's. We'd buy them from the carts already roasted and eat them as a street food snack. The ones they sold were roasted with the small X cut in them just as you described.
@@diannej2406 those were the days!
Why did people stop selling it?
I grow a Chinese x American chestnut hybrid in South Georgia. I cure harvested nuts on a concrete floor inside a barn for about 3 weeks beginning in mid September. This process reduces the risk of rot, separates the meat from the shell, and improves flavor.
Next I refrigerate nuts in perforated produce bags for several months. When ready to roast, I place nuts on hard surface and strike with a rubber mallet to crack shell slightly, instead of cutting each nut with a knife. I roast them in frying pan with a perforated lid and I don't add anything. They are delicious.
One of my favorite memories is getting roasted chestnuts across from Harrods one Christmas season when we were stationed in England. Neither my husband or our friend who was visiting from the states had ever had them. Little dusting of snow coming down, Harrods lit up like Santa's Workshop and a group of carollers adding to the wonderful, magical scene. I felt like I was in a Hallmark movie!
Chestnuts are a vital part of fall/winter. I have found that slicing them raw with a serrated knife makes the job much easier, but watch your fingers! I cheat and use a kevlar knife proof glove. We boil the sliced nuts for about 5-10 minutes and then roast ate 375F for 15 minutes or so. Wrap them up hot in a cloth for about 10 minutes and then peel immediately. Good eating as Jon discovered.
👍
We've always cut an X on the pointy bit of the nut at the bottom. This helps it to open up when cooking. I've never heard of soaking them before but I look forward to trying that out.
Soaking AT LEAST 2 hours---is the Best !! then cover with a Damp Towel !--I you like Soak in Sweet Wine !
Never heard of soaking them either
I HAVE roasted chestnuts. I have also worked in downtown Philadelphia, PA where roasted chestnuts were a seasonal street food, along with the more widely available soft pretzels. Your descriptions were spot-on.
In Italy is a normal winter street snack called "Caldarroste" and we have a special pan with holes in the bottom
Same here in France! It's like a big frying pan right?
@@martindunn4545yes
In Portugal we have the same thing. I think it's common to all south of Europe at least. And here it's common to have street vendors of chestnuts roasted over coal. They sell them in October, November and December grnerally
We eat them from the time they become available until the time they sadly stop being viable. They just taste so good on their own. Italian-American, whole extended family loves chestnuts. I'm always blown away that no one outside of us seems to even know chestnuts are real. Thank you for this video! Chestnuts deserve more fans!
They definitely deserve more fans.
Well hard to find in the US sadly and often imported and quite old..
Yes, they are delicious😍😋.
I've never had a Chestnut(60 years old, now) as there were no trees near me. However, there were Walnut and Hickory Nut trees around and for Thanksgiving and Christmas, those were the nuts of choice, not only by themselves, but also baking.
Roasted chestnuts are a common sight in Taiwan during this time of year. They also spice them up sometimes with whatever it was they were soaking in, so they might take on a festive flavor. You can buy them in bags straight from the roasters. They make for a great treat.
They're common in Korea, where I live, as well. They're a nice treat but I rarely eat them.
When you buy the roasted chestnuts, do you peel them yourself or are they already peeled?
@@southernwanderer7912 they are not peeled. They usually give you these little plastic toothed claws you press into them to tear away and split the softened shell.
Thanks for sharing. Blessed enough to find a chestnut farm here in California
Still a winter street snack in Vienna, Austria. They call them maroni.. Delicious.. There are some tutorials on UA-cam in German 👍
I'm Italian, we always roast chestnuts on the fire in a special pan with pierced bottom. When available, we do it on wood fire, in a fireplace or on a wood fire stove. I love your videos.
So interesting to see Townends trying them for the first time when in Germany on every major Christmas market you have stalls abound that sell these for on the go. Best snack ever and incredibly nostalgic, also I can recommend soups made from them (get a frozen batch of precooked and prepeeled ones for larger quantities) no idea whether there are soup recipes from back then however
Good for you to mention that maybe they might look one up. Thanks
Unfortunately, American chestnuts almost went extinct due to Chestnut Blight around the early 20th century. They used to be extremely common, and a vital part of the diet for anything living in the woodlands; squirrels, deer, people... After the blight there were almost no native sources so the tradition died out.
We're having to find ways to engineer resistant American chestnut trees. The two chief methods are to cross-breed them with Chinese chestnuts, or to insert the resistant genes and try to breed the engineered trees to amplify the trait. Of course this is slow-going since trees take a long time to grow and mature.
Surprisingly they’re everywhere in some grocery stores in Los Angeles this time of year too.
As a fellow german I would say, it's a bit regional. I live in the north west and apparently they are not very commonly eaten in my region (westwarts of Bremen). I myself have only seen them being sold on one Market and a colleague of mine from cologne is always a bit sad that she has to scour the christmas markets far and wide to finally find her favourite christmas treat 😆
@@lukasmarks6504 Hell yeah, happens I’m from the Cologne area and it’s so common here. In Bonn there’s I think a total of 5 little stalls in the inner city during Christmas Time.
Hi John, tremendous video as always, plus always a pleasure to see Michael as a guest.
I'm French and when I was a child, every fall, we used to pick up chestnuts in the forest and grill them afterward. It's interesting to see that it's not as common as I thought it was. Here, in late autumn, it's not rare to see street vendors in cities roasting chestnuts on little fires.
And for a Christmas/winter delicacy from South of France I recommend everyone to check "marron glacé" (we also eat "crème de marron" wich I don't even know how to describe, it's pure chesnut and sugar with a touch of vanilla, the texture would be halfway between jam and peanut butter I'd say)
Now I'm hungry for chesnuts, thanks !
And thanks a lot for your beautiful channel.
Love crème de marron as a crêpe filling. Super yummy.
our first time having chestnuts was 10 years in Italy on vacation from a street vendor who was cooking them over a hardwood grill. the entire family was hooked. since them we can thankfully find them in our local stores and are now a holiday tradition for us. Great episode and reminder it time to go get some for this coming weekend! Thx Townsends!
The Italian chestnuts were always a big thing at Christmas in the Italian neighborhoods in New York, both the fresh and the ones in jars.
I use a pair of kitchen shears to slice mine up the middle: I leave the bottom blade of the scissors anchored to the countertop, and start about halfway across the nut, and close the scissors, then turn the nut around and do the other side, making sure the cuts meet in the middle. I use clean pair of gardening gloves to insulate the fingers while peeling them hot. I just leave them in the oven on warm wrapped in a moist towel and take out a few at a time to peel.
Roasted chestnuts would be sold on Chinese streets as a snack! I love them when I was a kid! They'd use a big, shallow wok and sort of stir-fry them on the fire. Usually there is some sugar added too, but IDK how much of it actually made it into the chestnuts. All in all, they were a pretty common sight in northern China. Thanks for the vid!
Sweet potatoes too!
Here in Dayton we go to Carillon Historical Park (I know you all have been there) at Christmas time and they roast chestnuts on an open fire in one of the historical cabins. It's a family tradition to go there and get a paper cone full of them, as well as gingerbread cookies (1845-era recipe) baked in a fireplace bread oven. I remember going a couple of years ago and learning about the American chestnut blight (such a shame). At that time, Carillon purchased Italian chestnuts. Thanks for posting this. Roasted chestnuts are the best!
I actually have been there, lol. My wife grew up in Miamisburg, so I spent a decade there. I hated it, lol (but i grew up in California, so theres a bit of a difference) .. but I wish I had known about that, that would have been really cool to go to.
My family used to roast chestnuts every year for a dish at Thanksgiving. It was tedious and we would all have sore fingers. A few years ago we found French chestnuts in a jar with no added liquid or preservatives that taste better than any we'd had. I will never peel another chestnut in my life.
I made a chestnut stuffing recipe at Thanksgiving 21 years ago. I remember the year because I met my husband that weekend on a backpacking trip. The stuffing was delicious but I vowed I would never make it again because of all the time, blood, sweat and tears to peel all those chestnuts. This is a family channel so I can only say that it became known as the "f"ing stuffing. 😂
Same. My mother-in-law always made chestnut stuffing starting with roasting. We found them peeled and jarred and it was a game changer!
If you have a giant they sell very good chestnuts, i roast and eat about 12lb of em every winter lmao. If you have good chestnuts they peal easily with none of the shell sticking to the nut, and will be tender and slightly sweet.
commercial chestnuts are pressure cooked. Do it at home
@@cyruskhalvati I went to the giant, but he sold me magic beans.
Thank you doing this. Everyone has heard the song, but many of us haven't experienced chestnuts roasting on an open fire. Someone had to try this out, and you guys did. I am so proud of you for venturing out there for us. May we all learn from what you have done. Again, many thanks
I have roasted Chestnuts at a 17th century event where in the centre of our encampment there was a huge chestnut tree. We were sitting around the fire and roasted them in a skillet. The chestnuts were everywhere, so we popped them into the pan and took them out as soon as they appeared ready.
Where was the event held?
You attended events happening in the 17th century? I am intrigued
@@BackForwardPunch Time travelers confirmed
Every year I do this! It's very common in Europe. You can even buy chestnut flour here to make breads and pastries. I like to roast my chestnuts in an iron skillet and eat them with a little bit of honey.
Every year during Thanksgiving time, Chestnuts are available! I like to steam them. Cut a cross in the nut and steam for 20mins. They come out so soft and sweet! Yum!
Chestnuts were a fall tradition when I was a kid. We never soaked them, but I think it is a good idea, and just baked them in the oven. We cut a cross in them as you demonstrated. Now I need to buy some!
Such a wholesome channel! Helps me pretend for a bit that the world is not dark
We must look for things to keep us cheerful or we become more depressed people and the world has enough of those.
Kindle a light, and it'll be a wee brighter
@@kellysouter4381 or we could just be depressed and get used to it. the important thing is we don't let our problems become other people's.
Its pretty light in Europa, dark in Afrika... :))))
@@Viper-jk2pf at least that stuff made sense. they want stuff, they don't wanna work for that stuff, and people who work for their stuff are too tired to fight back. That's why we invented castles and police. Now everything's topsyturvy.
Love the old fireplaces making and old day cooking keep it coming
I think describing the texture as not-quite-done potatoes is beautifully accurate. They have a buttery flavor that vaguely reminds me of macadamias, but with a touch of sweetness. At least, the ones I've had are like that. I've never had American chestnuts. All the ones I've tried I bought at Asian grocery stores, so I don't know if the American breed tastes significantly different. But from your description, it sounds like the texture is the same. I hope American chestnuts become more prevalent in the future so I can try those, too. I encourage everyone to try chestnuts if they haven't before. They're wonderful.
Yup Macadamia is a good description.
They are also wonderful glaced or simply pureed with honey and brandy to make a spread that is delicious on toast or mixed into cakes and cookies.
Chestnuts at Christmas was a tradition in our family for years. A few comments on your experience:
We never ever soaked our chestnuts. Your video is the first time I have heard of that process. I may try that if I ever buy chestnuts again.
When we cut the shell, we made an "X" with the tip of a sharp pointed knife and cut through both the shell and membrane and slightly into the meat. I found the easiest way to make the cut was to hold the nut in one hand and with the other hold the knife vertical to the nut and drag the tip across the shell.
We "roasted" them on a flat cookie pan in the oven at 375 degrees. I found the timing was variable depending on how old the nuts were, but in general once the shells darkened and turned back on themselves at the cut they were done.
Chestnuts can be a challenge to open, but if they were opened hot, both the shell and the membrane usually pealed away easily by first squeezing the sides of the nut until the shell popped away from the meat. Generally, the membrane pealed away with little trouble, but if it did not, one trick was to squeeze the sides of the chestnut gently which might cause the membrane to loosen. If that didn’t work, you were in for a challenge. If you waited until they were cool, they were always a challenge.
We haven’t roasted chestnuts for a couple of years now. We found that the quality of the nuts we purchased in our local grocery stores was abysmal. About half the nuts we bought the last few years we were roasting them were infected with mold, not good to eat. There were also a significant percentage of nuts that were dried out, gone bad and were otherwise inedible. We got sick and tired of paying top price for three or four pounds of nuts and getting maybe a pound and a half of edible ones.
I haven't had roasted chestnuts since I was a little kid in the 70's. They grew across the old country road from my Grandmothers place and she would do some every year.
Roasted Chestnuts (Castañas Asadas) is a staple of Christmas, autumn and winter Spanish street food served on newspaper cones.
The Spanish way of preparing them (I say Spanish because I don't know if they are done differently on other country) is: wash them (if dirty), check for holes (bugs), cut a cross in the round part or just once along the side (a toothed knife is safer), to avoid any cuts you can just cut them almost in half like you are cutting a hard vegetable (example raw beet).
If the chestnuts aren't soaked the skin will become hard and break easily making the peeling process way easier.
Cooking in a modern home: oven, pan, microwave (2-3mins), no steaming or resting necessary.
Traditional cooking: old pan with holes drilled so they get a bit smoked over coal/wood embers.
About the salt... at least here is uncommon to salt them because they are more like dessert or "candy" but salted they should have more flavor (as any food does) and probably salting them is older because in Roman times chestnuts where used like wheat and corn today, primarily to make flour, bread...
Personally I like them raw but this way they are a bit harder to digest so only a few should be eaten raw.
I remember being up in Vancouver, BC and they were selling roasted chestnuts 🌰 on the street. Pretty tasty! And every Christmas my stepmother who was English, would get purreèd chestnuts 🌰 for our dinner.
Toronto, Canada - we used to have pushcart vendors downtown that sold popcorn, cotton candy, candy apples and during the right season, a little charcoal burner hanging off the side and chestnuts roasting in it. My parents boiled them, I roasted them in cast iron. Tried the fire thing. Did it in the oven xmas 2022 and had my first exploding chestnut this season.
More recent times, Italian supermarkets sell a chestnut opener - plastic scissor mechanism with a spoon on one side and metal serrated blade on the other that clamps down and perforates the chestnut.
How to eat it has been a struggle for most of my 50 years.
The most satisfactory method without spending lots of time separating membrane was this last season. Perforate splitting into two hemispheres, taking an oyster knife, spinning the half around the blade to scrape as much meat out as I can.
I like the big ones and put up with the hassle of trying to extract meat. For the rest of the year, the small shelled and vac packed snack bagged ones that presumably come from China work.
Two years ago we went scurrying around a local parkland looking for them. My better half is Chinese and myself being from the rural UK we both have roasted chestnuts in our culinary culture! Open fire cooking for us on Dartmoor National Park… which in the depths of winter is pretty inhospitable, as would be testified on this very day :P
Buying roast chestnuts on the street is a treat in many cities. They’re everywhere in carts Istanbul. I’ve bought them in multiple cities from carts in the UK and France. I remember as a kid buying them in San Francisco. I can’t believe the hosts never came across them before.
I'm glad I'm not the only person who has had problems roasting chestnuts this year. Thanks for this video and here's hoping we'll see the return of the American Chestnut.
I just tried to yesterday. Fought them valiantly. They won.
@@mktruancy don't give up. They're worth the effort.
YOU NEED TO SOAK THEM ! For at Least 2 Hours !!--Then put them in a Cloth--They will be very easy to clean then !!
@@mktruancy YOU NEED TO SOAK THEM ! For at Least 2 Hours !!--Then put them in a Cloth--They will be very easy to clean then !!
It's traditional to roast them in Portugal in Autumn and Winter. You'll often find street vendors with portable coal ovens to roast and steam them right there on the spot! It's wonderful to share freshy roasted chestnuts on a cold winter day.
Loved this video. In Japan, roasted chestnuts are very popular in winter, and you can sometimes find little trucks or foodstands selling them. It's so nice to walk around in winter holding a warm back of chestnuts and sharing them with someone.
During the winter period roasted chestnuts are sold everywhere on the street of every italian town. We make cakes with them, we even make a kind of chestnut marmelade. In Firenze (and surely other places in Italy) we even boil them; we call the roasted ones “bruciate” and the boiled ones “ballotte”.
I love when Michael visits. The videos with John and Michael are the best
They're slightly sweet, but very starchy. I first had them outside a huge Japanese grocery store years ago and was so excited to see the guy selling them! It was during the winter. I roasted some myself in the oven years after that because I finally found raw ones locally and it was quite a task to peel them. I used the "X" method, but my "X"s were too small and I'm pretty sure I didn't cut all the way through the thin skin/membrane. They're super easy to overcook and they get really hard once they cool off after that, so soaking is a must and you HAVE to watch them closely.
Gosh ,I love chestnuts. We had an old chestnut tree out in the woods, behind one of my childhood homes. I think it was one of those Chinese chestnut trees. It wasn't but maybe 30 feet tall and large around. Man ,that thing would really produce. Where I live use to be covered in chestnut trees (southeast U.S.).
24hr soak with a tsp of salt per 1lb. I use an X-ACTO Retractable Metal Utility Knife for cutting the X. Thank you for all that you do Townsends family. I did not know about the wine soak until now. I'm going to try it this week. Merry Christmas all!
One thing that I've done recently that has helped a LOT when peeling was to soak these in boiling water for 10 minutes. So bring enough water to cover the nuts to a boil, take off the heat, and then let the nuts soak in it for ten minutes. Pat dry and then roast in the oven how you normally would. If you give it a shot in the future, I hope this tip helps!
5:03 before televison, spending time by the hearth with and slowly roasting chestnuts would be fun way to pass time. especially fun seasonal treat for kids i imagine
Where I'm from roasted chestnuts are a common snack in the winter. Really nothing better than sitting by a fire while pealing and eating some chestnuts. So tasty and you don't do anything but roast and slice em.
And exactly like you guys mention at the end, it's also a street food. I still remember one day coming back from a long trip, stopping by the road to pullover to a chestnuts roaster. Some of the best tasting thing I've ever had.
The dive into a recipe so commonplace that it wasn't written down and figuring it out are the fascinating bits of history and historical perspective I enjoy about this channel.
Hopefully this video will help to promote planting of more American Chestnut trees! I love this channel for the attention it brings to subjects like this. If I ever hit the lottery, I've always wanted to put a large sum of money towards reviving the American Chestnut.
Quite a popular street food during the autumn months here in Serbia. They are roasted on a cast iron gas stove with holes at the top so the chesnuts get the smokey taste from the peel burning up, quite a plesent smell aswell.
@townsends, really loved this particular video. I am so thankful we have chestnut trees in my area. Also last night I watched Charles Dickens, A Cristmas Carol(the black and white version), and there was a scene where Mr. Crachet had brought home chestnuts, which his wife roasted. Not long afterward, he put the chestnuts in this pot that resembled an old coffee pot, and then he added what looked like water. He stirred it and then put it back on the fire. Then when it was ready, he brought it in the dining room and poured some in everyone's glass this clear liquid. They all drank it as it was a warm drink, and it was sweet. Mr. Crachet got one of his kids to try the drink first to see if it was sweet enough, which she found a bit bitter, which meant it wasn't quite ready. Do you know what this drink is called? It is from the chestnuts, but I was curious as to know what this method was for turning chestnuts in a hot drink.
No, I'll have to do some research on this!
I remember that scene! Never paid close attention to it though.
@Thurber, I have always been one to like the finer details of some films. I also loved how very sweet and loving Mr. Crachet really was. He was a real man of the house. Even though Mr. Scrooge sacked(fired) him, he still put on a smile, went and bought a goose, and other things to go to make a perfect Christmas dinner for his family. Oh and of course we could never forget Tiny Tim, the poor boy always with 1 crutch. That boy sure learned happiness from his Father. It's not Christmas without Charles Dickens!😊
@@I_am_dovakin My mother read the book to us every year in the week leading up to Christmas and we also watched every version that came on TV. My brother and I both love it to this day.
My Grandmother would always boil chestnuts during the holiday season. The shell and membrane usually peeling right off, If you could handle the heat when peeling. They are perfect as is. They don't need any seasonings. Maybe I'll have to go find some now. Thanks for the amazing videos.
It's been many moons when I was a kid since I had chestnuts, I believe we collected them ourselves in the forest here in Denmark, don't know if we cooked them the same way or if we just put them on a tray with some water to steam them in the oven or directly boiled them, but we ate them with butter and salt.
I grew up in the Chestnut Hill section of Philadelphia. I always saw them on the ground and wondered about this.
I boil them for just 3-5 mins before roasting, also makes cutting them easier as it softens the shell. I generally roast them on a sheet pan under the broiler for 15-20 mins. When you buy loose chestnuts scan the ends of each one and reject any with pin holes. Nothing worse that eating a maggot in your chestnut.
My parents spotted a chestnut tree in our city, foraged a bunch of them. They are sweet and tasty. They kept some in the freezer and take a handfull out when they make a stew.
I would describe the taste as mix between pistachio's and potatoes with sweet taste.
You have to be careful, many areas have horse chestnuts which are mot fit for human consumption
It was the Chinese chestnut tree; transported to here, back in the late 17th century; that brought and caused the Canadian/American Chestnut Blight.
Speaking of cooked nuts (well, legume technically), my dad is from Louisiana and my step mom is from Florida, and they LOVE their boiled peanuts. I'm told you'll see stands all up and down the road selling boiled peanuts. Not my thing, personally, as I don't like the texture, but that's another cooked nut that's popular. Oh, and dropping a bunch into a bottle of Coke or Pepsi is a popular thing to do with them.
ty so much for all the content got introduced to this channel from my grandpa and we would always watch this channel or just go fishing together. Thank you so much for all the content!
here we have the magosto, a whole tradition around chestnut harvest, sometimes even tied to halloween or samhain
you can still see roasted chestnuts stands in cities like mine around fall and maybe winter, it feels analogue to those japanese roasted sweet potato stands
they put that roasted smell in the street's air, and people also buy them because they keep your hands warm
they are a bit slow to peel open, but that makes them great to share while you spend some time with your hands busy and your mind vacant
If I were to compare a roasted chestnut to anything, I'd say it almost *almost* reminds me of like a butternut squash or a sweet potato... a little bit earthy, very smooth and creamy. They really are very good.
I don't mess around cutting them I soak them with some water for a few days, to get the moisture up, then I have a steel perforated mid 70's clamshell popcorn maker. I put about 12 in at a time, and put them over a good hot campfire with some good coals and let them pop. they aren't going anywhere inside that cage. They usually come out of the shells pretty good that way. You get a little bit of the fire smokeiness, so you kinda have to go by feel as to how hot to go on them.
A very nice Christmas treat. I've had chestnuts roasted over a fire, and they were so good. A vendor was doing them outside of a supermarket. Those look so good. I hope you have a Merry Christmas. Cheers! 🎄🌰🌰🔥
I spent my childhood in Southern Russia and we'd often roast chestnuts whenever they were available. We didn't do anything fancy like soaking or spicing them but they would usually turn out pretty nice anyway.
Later my family moved north, to Moscow, and I was surprised to find few people considered chestnuts food at all. And when my friends tried some, they'd say they didn't taste very good.
I have. Still do. Italian tradition 🙂
We also use chestnut flour a lot, especially in my native Liguria region
(mainly to make pasta - wich pairs *so* well with Pesto you guys have no idea 🌰)
By the way--We are from---CIRELLA Di Plati ,ITALY Calabria-
In Kent, in south east England, you get Kent Cob nuts which are different varieties of chestnut which are eaten green
How festive! Thanks, Jon and Michael! They have roasted chestnuts at the annual Dickens of a Christmas festival in Franklin, TN. A Merry Christmas to you all , dear friends.
Merry Christmas
I've wanted to go to the Dickens festivsl but never remembered to ask off in time to go. Is it worth it? Any part of the festival that can't be missed?
The carolers are amazing. I guess it's because of Franklin's proximity to Nashville, but those folks can really sing!
Anuc Attitawan sings the song so well
One of my son's first dirty jokes! We were listening to this song. He said, "Poor Chet." I was confused. We do have a friend named Chet. "Why?" "His nuts! They're roasting on an open fire!" I really thought he had misunderstood. He started busting up laughing. He was so proud of that joke and told it to our friend Chet.
Brilliant 😂 little legend
Our neighbor is named Chet, so you know what gets sung around here....
What did Chet say? 😁😂
Cheeky kid! 😂
The Femlin in the Playboy joke section had a joke about that, using the Femlin and an open fireplace, back in the 70s. I was in my 20s at the time.
I've never tasted them and have never even seen one. This has made me curious and I'd like to see if I can find some. Thank you for gifting us with videos all year and may every one of you connected with Townsends enjoy a wonderfully Happy, Healthy and Merry Christmas. Be safe, well and warm.
You may want to get in touch with Eva from Pasta Grammar. She is Italian and we still eat lots of chestnuts. She recently had a show on eating chestnuts and she knows heaps about cooking with chestnuts.
I served 1000s of chestnuts for years to shoppers at clarks department store in Provo Utah. I cut them corner to corner with a box cutting razor blade knife. Lots of melted butter in a sauce pan on med heat with a lid in place to help steam them. I stired and drizzled the butter over the nuts often for about 25 mins. Each nut when cooked was soft and served on a small napkin directly to the shoppers with a slight squeeze to open it for them. Thank you so much..that will be $873.13 for the secret receipt..Merry Christmas!
I enjoyed watching your efforts. You all can't get into the spirit more than roasting chestnuts at Christmas. John T.
Found some recently in my grocery and finding your video was very useful. Looking forward to trying these out and experiencing something new! Thanks!
Had them last week for the first time. Man they are fun to eat on a cold day. Fun to Pick apart. Good handwarmers xD Tasty too :) kinda like a crumbly potato texturewise
It's also an old tradition every year here in Austria. We call them "Heiße Maroni"
We need to preserve our food history. 🤗
As an Italian I have been roosting chestnuts with my family since I was a child and have eaten them at winter festivals in Europe. First, we take a very sharp knife and stick the tip straight in (make sure the flattest side of the chestnut is down for stability) the you complete each side of the “x” from there. Once you make the stab it’s much easier to cut. Second we never put salt or anything else on the chestnut or you ruin it’s natural beautiful taste
They have actually discovered some American chestnut trees in my area. If I ever get a house again, I'm going to volunteer to try and grow one. They are trying to reverse engineer them and bring them back. Hearing about trees dying out always hurts my heart.
That's amazing. What area is this?
The fun fact is that they DON'T actually die. The tree succumbs to blight but the roots survive and it sends up new shoots.
@@RIBill The same way Coppicing works when growing trees for firewood. I am currently in a fight with our town over an ash tree that they cut down due to ash borers that keeps sending up shoots that they keep cutting off.
The "reverse engineering" is actually a GMO chestnut project where they are hoping to get GM chestnuts approved to open the floodgates to more GM trees. The GM chestnuts have a wheat gene inserted, so they are not true chestnuts, but a chestnut wheat cross. Real American chestnut trees can be found and bought from a number of nurseries west of the Rockies. Get hybrid chestnuts that are blight resistant, if blight is a problem in your area.
Growing up in Greece chestnuts were one of my favorite things in the winter time. A lot of street vendors would be roasting them out on the street and when you got them they were hot and practically fell out of their shells. No taste like it. I wish I could duplicate that but I won't even try! They always bring back great memories for me!
Collecting and roasting Chestnuts was a great pasttime as a kid!
Don't eat too many in a row though : )
Chestnut laxative?
That is what I though. 😕
I have been making stuffing with chestnuts For Thanksgiving for 6 decades. Starting when I had to stand on the stool to help my mother peel them. we boil them after cutting an X in the flat side of the nut, if the nut has a flat side. The trick to getting the chestnut out of the shell is to peel them while they are still almost scalding hot. So I agree with someone else that commented here. Sore fingers from scoring them, and sore fingers from peeling them. some of those you made didn’t look quite cooked enough. It’s my understanding that people used to throw them into the fire and wait for them to explode and come back out again. I believe there is an old expression about pulling your chestnuts out of the fire. We had a wire basket for Chestnut that we used to hold over the fire as well.
When I was a little girl, my daddy would go to his family's old homestead from the 1800s and bring back a big bag of chestnuts for us to roast every Christmas. We didn't realize that our old American chestnut trees were basically unicorns because they were pretty much gone from the area by then.
I sent him back to look a few years ago, but as expected, the trees were long gone.
That was a lovely experience to have! What a nice, warm, childhood memory! 👌👌👌
guess i have a unicorn in my yard
Italy has yearly chestnut festivals all over the place.
It used to be a staple food item and people made everything from soups to bread with it.
Seventy years ago, they were sold in small brown paper bags, all hot and ready to eat, from a man who would sell them on the street. This happened on Eastern Avenue in Baltimore, Maryland, right by the stores that sold all kinds of products...a long time before any Mall. The snow was flying, decorations were everywhere, and Christmas songs were heard through big speakers hung on the street poles. I have pictures of me wearing a blue velvet pants, coat and hat. Happy memories.
I was given some this Winter by a friend. I found his description to be spot on, "They taste like a combination between an almond and a potato. They aren't delicious, but I find that I can't stop eating them."
One slice is easier than the cross and I had no issue peeling them. I did not soak or steam them. I had an old stamped steel skillet that I drilled about a dozen or more holes into. This lets the heat scorch the shells slightly and give a bit of smokiness to the nut flavor. Looking forward to next Winter's harvest!
I've eaten chestnuts my whole life, and it's super easy to buy pre-cooked and peeled where I'm from, and I was extremely surprised to find that in other parts of the world, even if there's plenty of chestnuts to go around, people had never, ever tried them! It's the most delicious thing ever. Roasted, boiled, candied, covered in salted butter, I could eat some all day, everyday.
My parents have a big pan with a very long handle and lots of holes at the bottom of the pan. Not exactly as the one in the video. I remember we would start getting chestnuts a bit after we went back to school from summer break. Chesnut trees are everywhere in France, so we just take some on our way back from school to home and cook them in the fireplace. Or throw their spiky shells at each other like any 10-year-old would do. I didn't like the taste much, but I really enjoyed the moment, the ritual, the fire, and just the ambiance of mid-september to late october. It was also a nice way to forget about the troubles of a new year at school and nice quality family time.
Also, very often we didn't pre-cut them, we let them pop up in the pan. It was funnier. Like pop-corn but louder and with fire.