Author Topic: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree  (Read 1452 times)

Jaboticaba45

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Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« on: September 11, 2020, 07:41:54 PM »

So I spent several hours foraging these. They taste like jackfruit seeds but are sweeter. Large meaty nuts that are sweet. They taste perfect when roasted. They can also be boiled but I find them hard to eat that way. A quite hard to find tree as the majority was killed out by chestnut blight. There was over 8 million trees before the blight hit in the early 1900s. Most of the trees you see are the Chinese chestnut variety as these are blight resistant.
I have some seedlings for sale $10 each. They sell for over $6 a pound if you are able to find them in stores. These are squirrel resistant as they are surrounded by a ball of spikes. Will also put out pictures of the tree later.







« Last Edit: September 11, 2020, 07:50:01 PM by Jaboticaba45 »

Triloba Tracker

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Re: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« Reply #1 on: September 12, 2020, 06:00:15 PM »
I am with you 100% ..... each fall i go around to a few huge Chinese chestnut trees here in town and gather what I can and roast them.
Such a great sweet flavor.

It's a shame that many of the foraged ones are "duds," you can't tell how long they've been on the ground and many are rotten.

Jaboticaba45

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Re: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« Reply #2 on: September 12, 2020, 10:46:50 PM »
I am with you 100% ..... each fall i go around to a few huge Chinese chestnut trees here in town and gather what I can and roast them.
Such a great sweet flavor.

It's a shame that many of the foraged ones are "duds," you can't tell how long they've been on the ground and many are rotten.
Interesting... all of the chestnuts that I pick are always edible until a few months later in the fridge then spontaneous generation happens and some of them get grubs ;) [size=78%]. There is one tree that ripens all the chestnuts within a few days so the ground was literally covered in chestnuts.[/size]

Muni

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Re: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« Reply #3 on: September 13, 2020, 08:09:24 AM »
We have quite a decent distribution of chestnut in Portugal https://flora-on.pt/#/1Castanea+sativa as long as you forage them or get some good organic ones they are pretty good.
I have heard that the Korean ones are super sweet and large, has anyone had any experience with them?

https://journals.ashs.org/hortsci/view/journals/hortsci/49/12/article-p1588.xml
« Last Edit: September 13, 2020, 08:20:36 AM by Muni »
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Triloba Tracker

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Re: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« Reply #4 on: September 13, 2020, 09:08:18 AM »
Well, rotten is probably too strong. They are technically edible but they don’t taste good or are super hard after roasting. I’m referring to the nuts that, after roasting and shelling, have dark spots or holes.
The fresh ones are a clean solid gold when roasted and are soft.

Triloba Tracker

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Re: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« Reply #5 on: September 15, 2020, 06:12:30 PM »
Thanks for posting this and reminding me to go check the trees.
It looks like here they JUST started dropping. I think my problem in the past is that I waited too late in the season. By that point the ground is littered with nuts and you end up getting many nuts that have been sitting there for a long time.

 I probably just picked up 15 pounds of fresh chestnuts in about 10 minutes!
One tree has decidedly bigger nuts than the other. I’ll stick with it.

Jaboticaba45

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Re: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« Reply #6 on: September 15, 2020, 07:16:01 PM »
Thanks for posting this and reminding me to go check the trees.
It looks like here they JUST started dropping. I think my problem in the past is that I waited too late in the season. By that point the ground is littered with nuts and you end up getting many nuts that have been sitting there for a long time.

 I probably just picked up 15 pounds of fresh chestnuts in about 10 minutes!
One tree has decidedly bigger nuts than the other. I’ll stick with it.
Does anyone else know about the trees? My friends all know their spots and will not tell anyone else where it is.... where I go to pick them it is a public park so other people come and pick them up so most of the nuts collected are fallen that day-shaking the tree and throwing tennis balls works really well ;D

Triloba Tracker

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Re: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« Reply #7 on: September 15, 2020, 08:21:08 PM »
Yes the trees are also in public areas, so people COULD know about them if they care.
But I’ve never seen anyone pay them any attention and as I said the mast builds up big time.

Jaboticaba45

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Re: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« Reply #8 on: September 15, 2020, 08:31:45 PM »
Yes the trees are also in public areas, so people COULD know about them if they care.
But I’ve never seen anyone pay them any attention and as I said the mast builds up big time.
Wow they are missing out....

Jaboticaba45

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Re: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« Reply #9 on: September 16, 2020, 09:04:46 PM »

Triloba Tracker

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Re: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« Reply #10 on: September 16, 2020, 09:33:53 PM »
To be clear - the chestnuts I’m talking about are NOT American chestnuts.
I would ask for lots of proof to believe someone is harvesting nuts from an actual American chestnut. They are so rare that in many cases their locations are guarded secrets for fear of throngs of tourists or worse.

Triloba Tracker

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Re: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« Reply #11 on: September 17, 2020, 08:58:20 AM »
http://dendro.cnre.vt.edu/comparison/

Note that the fruit (nuts) of American Chestnuts are considerably smaller than Chinese. the original post mentioned large nuts. That is not a characteristic of American chestnuts.
« Last Edit: September 17, 2020, 09:00:16 AM by Triloba Tracker »

Jaboticaba45

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Re: Chestnuts- foraged and a hard to find tree
« Reply #12 on: September 17, 2020, 09:53:12 AM »
Yes definetely agree. All the chestnuts I pick were planted by the American Chestnut Foundation. And to be honest I will probably never see a mature American chestnut in my life. They put labels on the trees- Japanese chestnut, Chinese chestnut, chinquapin, hybirds between c.mollisima and c.dentata. A lot of they hybrids died due to blight.