A relative of the bygone nut

November 4, 2024 1:03 AM

Down the street, the owner of Vale das Freiras bottles sweet chestnut liqueur, its own kind of mountain hooch. From the café’s second floor, I accessed a small chestnut museum with artifacts of a working life: baskets into which men thrashed off chestnut skins, millstones for grinding chestnut flour, a chestnut roaster. Madeira’s earliest settlers brought the Castanea sativa variety with them to the island. It shares a common ancestor with the American chestnut, whose genetics split off soon before the two landmasses ripped apart. from On the Island of Madeira, a Tiny Town Celebrates the Chestnut
posted by chavenet (3 comments total)

Roasted chestnuts are (pricey) street food this time of year in Granada, Andalucia. And they're a common sight in fruit and vegetable stores as well.

I bought me a few yesterday and plan to have them with dinner tonight, God willing. They're surprisingly high in Vitamin C and potassium!
posted by rabia.elizabeth at 5:25 AM on November 4 [1 favorite]

For decades, conservationists in the States have worked to breed a blight-resistant American chestnut. Hopes surrounding a genetically modified tree were dashed just this year when researchers found that it was vulnerable to fungus.

I think this is an abbreviated explanation of the Darling 54/58 stuff up, in which the wrong transgenic chestnut variety was used.
posted by zamboni at 7:30 AM on November 4 [2 favorites]

Roast chestnuts are street food in Seoul at the moment, and the cafes have chestnut lattes.
posted by thixotemperate at 5:47 PM on November 4