Painting by Susan Alison

Today — 14th December — is ‘Roast Chestnuts Day’!

There’s nothing quite like the aroma of street-vendor-roasted chestnuts. And chestnut stuffing at home with dinner, and chestnuts in with the sprouts …

Chestnuts hail from the Americas and Asia. It was Alexander the Great, along with the Romans, who planted chestnuts throughout Europe where they became a staple food and valuable for bartering.

Ancient Greeks ground them into flour and made chestnut bread. I fancy some chestnut bread now, but it doesn’t look as if it’s a thing readily available anymore.

Unfortunately, chestnut trees were attacked by a deadly blight during the early 1900s and approximately four billion trees died. One that got away lives in Sicily and is thought to be over 2,000 years old.

I’m with Nat King Cole in his admiration of “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.”

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