Chestnut

Castanea spp.

fruit · nuts & seeds

The floury fruit of the sweet chestnut, a tree of the rainy uplands of the northern Mediterranean, from Greece to Corsica and northern Spain; roasted, boiled, or dried and ground into gluten-free flour. It provides starch, fibre and ellagitannins.

Origin

Mediterranean rim and Asia

Season (United States)

October to December · grows in your region

Preparation

You eat the nut without the hard shell or the thin bitter brown skin: both come off better while still hot.

Molecules

Ellagitannins

Did you know?

In the Cévennes and around the Mediterranean, the chestnut was nicknamed “the bread tree”: dried in drying houses, its nuts replaced cereals.