Nutty November

Now that October has come and gone, our current chestnut count is over 55 kg. That's almost my weight in chestnuts! And while the harvest season is coming to a close, this isn't even the final tally. There are still plenty more to be picked up. For example, we haven't had our annual Magosto with friends yet. Usually we have people over in the afternoon so they can collect some of their own chestnuts to take home before we get down to roasting them over the fire and feasting on them in good company. Our chestnut-collecting goal is 70 kg. I think we're on target.

Jackpot 3-for-one

I guess like many foods I've started eating in Galicia, chestnuts have grown on me. They're quite sweet, and when boiled can be eaten like cereal in warm milk. Or when made into a cream similar to apple butter, they're to die for! But what I most enjoy is the satisfaction of collecting my own food. Buying them from the grocery store just wouldn't be as appealing. By now we've staked out which tree gives the big ones (whoppers, as I call them), and which aren't really worth our time. Within each spiky bur grow 3 chestnuts. Usually the two on the ends are a decent size, but the one in the middle is so slim it's worthless. Other times, there's just a huge one in the middle, in between two useless flakes of chestnut. But every once in a while you hit the jackpot. That is, you find three good-sized chestnuts all in one burr. Now that's efficient!

This year aside from the usual bounty of chestnuts we've been collecting from the half-dozen trees in the yard, we've also collected tons of walnuts since mid-September. And they still keep coming! I don't think we've ever had so many in this yard. In the past, we got dirty unnecessarily, but now we've learned that it's possible to get walnuts without staining your hands black. The walnut shells grow in a green, leathery skin. Sometimes they fall with said green (or black, rotting) flesh. Other times they break loose and can be found on the ground in just the light brown shells we all recognize. In the past we would try to pick off the green skin, thereby dying our hands for days. No need, apparently. As they ripen, they loosen themselves from the green and are easy to collect that way. We've got a few dozen kilos drying, all from just two walnut trees.

Usually I go foraging with my canine companion. I've renamed him the Nutcracker. When there were only walnuts on the ground, he'd be by my side, crunching on the shells. At first I was concerned that he was eating them whole. But as it turns out, he knows what's up-- he cracks the walnuts open and spits them out to only get the meat inside. Wonder who he learned that from. Now that it's mostly just chestnuts, he's taken to doing the same. Except, I don't think chestnuts are good for him. He mostly spits them out whole. What a waste of a chestnut!