Now that the consensus of media dieticians is shifting from carbohydrates to fats, I should like to put in a contrary word for chestnuts. They are very starchy indeed, contain little fat, and just a trace of protein. They are delicious roasted or boiled, and can be eaten au naturel once elegantly stripped of their casings. (Whereas, raw potatoes or yams are no fun at all.) They contain vitamins that other foods omit, better apportioned through a delicious nut than by chewing on manganese or copper. Moreover, they are real nuts, not fake ones like almonds and cashews, or peas passing themselves off as “groundnuts”. Those are all fats and useless calories. Chestnuts will make you fat, thus cutting out the middleman.
Which is why they have been fed to pigs, these last few hundred years; that, and the appalling propaganda mounted against chestnuts by our culinary elites. The European poor once ate them in quantity, as their filler; made bread from chestnut flour. Italians, harder to intimidate by fashion than most others, still adore their subtle flavours.
These thoughts were occasioned by a sealed bag of peeled chestnuts, casually purchased the other day as a snack while walking. They were candied in a rather disagreeable way. But worse, I unfortunately failed to read the label attentively, or would have noticed that the contents were “organic”. No intelligent consumer will buy anything on which this warning is prominently displayed. Quite apart from the doubling or tripling of the price, the product itself may be missing some important ingredient.
Children raised on “organic” food become weak and sickly. Those raised “vegan” as well are likely to die. If you find a child perishing in this way, be merciful and fill him with meat and chestnuts.
David Warren, “Chestnuts”, Essays in Idleness, 2018-01-29.
May 7, 2020
QotD: Chestnuts
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