Chestnut fatigue
The Cove Journal by JoDee Samuelson
A high wind came up after dark, and the long night was spent listening to hundred-year-old horse chestnut trees gleefully hailing down their spiky-coated fruits on the shed roof. In the morning I raked up a wheelbarrow full of nuts and casings, knowing that this chestnut storm would last for days.
The horse chestnut, aesculus hippocastanum, is a flowering hardwood in the same family as maples. It was brought to the New World in the 1700s as an ornamental tree, and I wonder why people thought this was a good idea. Obviously the hardy immigrants who brought the first saplings did not have horse chestnuts in their own yards.
Squirrels and chipmunks adore the shiny brown nuts; in spring the tall blossom “panicles” attract bees from the entire Cove; and the soft smooth wood is good for carving. Also, horse chestnuts can apparently be made into potions for such old-fashioned ailments as haemorrhoids and varicose veins. I just wish that I personally knew what to do with them.
One idea from some possibly unreliable website suggests using horse chestnuts to make soap: “Grate 12 conkers [the shiny nuts] and soak in 2 cups warm water. Squeeze out the water through cheesecloth and press the pulp into a mold. Save the water for laundry soap.”
Okay, I thought, that’s a little vague but worth trying. I gathered a handful of nuts, smashed them with a hammer and peeled off the brown skin—not a simple matter. But I was outside, and entertained by geese overhead honking and possibly burping on their way to the Cove after feasting at a harvested cornfield that’s had a 1950s-style brushcut…
In the kitchen I chopped the pale flesh (color and texture of parsnips) as finely as possible, and tossed them optimistically into a pot of warm water.
After a couple hours I didn’t think anything had happened (what could happen?) so I put the pot on the stove and heated it up. Got out the trusty hand blender and turned the whole thing into mash. Strained the mixture through cheesecloth, kept the liquid aside, and pressed the solid matter into a little tub that once held delicious Comeau Lobster Spread.
While I’m doing this I’m fondly remembering the sweet “castanea sativa” chestnuts that littered the roadsides in Italy before they were gathered and roasted to aromatic perfection in drums over fires at outdoor autumn festivals…
Now several hours later, I can report that the solid matter is firm enough to turn it out onto a plate… it kind of looks like hand soap… but will it start to mould in a few days? I have also added some horse chestnut liquid to hot water in the dishpan and it’s really foaming up!… but does it cut grease? It seems to… Mind you, I’m only using a dozen chestnuts…
Goodness, enough with the chestnuts! it’s night-time already. Where did the day go? With shortening hours of sunlight my Scandinavian hermit instincts are really kicking in. Thank heavens for anything that nudges a body off the couch in the evening but doesn’t require distant travel. Tonight is choir practice at the school. Perfect.
