Chestnuts, a winter food that can help you in times of financial insecurity

If I told you there is a world where food lies scattered on the ground while people are still worried about their financial security, would you believe me it exists? What if I told you that it is the world we're living in? It's just another social paradox of the consumerist world. One easy way we can rid ourselves of this paradox is to simply gather the food that's on the ground. So my friends and I ventured out, not once, but 5 times and acquired a bounty of one of the best winter plant foods there are - chestnuts. We've found some edible, medicinal and spice mushrooms too, but that is a story for another post.

Below, a photogenic chestnut next to mushrooms that were too old for identification,

I agree that since dawn of humanity until the beginning of horticulture and later on, agriculture, we were all hunters-gatherers. The problem I have with this is that the original human wasn't that much of a hunter, but more of a gatherer - so I try to leave out the "hunter" from the phrase, or replace the words. The reason for this is simple. When a human is deprived of dietary carbohydrate intake, even for short period of time, his glycogen reserves get used up, he enters a state of ketosis, where his body is resorting to it's own fat for energy, which is an effective survival method, but far too dangerous for every day life. Only one human genotype does not enter ketosis without eating carbs - the eskimos (but they still have heart disease). That means, that the original human needed a fair amount of carbs to keep him going through the winter... He did not grow any grains, tubers and the fruit he gathered wasn't big enough and probably didn't keep for long. So what did he munch on to get his 'daily bread'?

Above, a basket full of chestnuts with decorating Leccinum and Clitocybe mushrooms

One smaller part of the winter food might have been wild root vegetables like burdock and ancient grains like amaranth. Perhaps, the largest part of his carb intake (depending on where the human is located) came in the form of forest foods like acorns, walnuts and last but not the least, chestnuts. They provided him with 88% calories in form of carbs, but some fat and protein too. His immune system worked as a charm with all the B1, 2, 3, 5, 6, folate and vitamin C... Most of the minerals were covered with chestnuts too, except for zinc and calcium, which he got from other foods. If he had to use the toilet (sorry, no toilet in prehistory), he didn't have to stop for long as the fiber from the chestnut made his digestion smooth, fast and effective.

Above, a chestnut bush growing from a stump, the far right trunk is infected with blight

When the chestnut tree is infected by chestnut blight, a pathogenic fungus Cryphonectria parasitica, which affects it's trunk as seen above, it shortens the lifespan of the plant to 25 years. If you see this, it might be a good idea to report it to anyone responsible for the forest as cutting down the infected trees can greatly reduce harm. The chestnut tree (Castanea sativa) itself is a remarkable species, it can live up to 500 years and reaches a height of 35 meters and up to three meters in diameter. During the spring and summer, it uses sunlight to turn a carbon based gas and water into oxygen and carbohydrates, an ideal form of energy for it's seedlings. It gathers all needed minerals from the ground and shoots it up his huge trunk, into the main branches, into the smaller branches, into the nuts. The tree collects various forms of energy with astounding efficacy and banks it up in energy packets with three shells, the inner one, the hard one and the spiky one. It shatters an abundance of energy-packed seeds on the forest floor with astounding efficacy. It would make no sense why it would do that, unless we understand it from an evolutionary perspective - it might be an adaptation to an animal-filled world. As the seed is an ideal form of energy for a young tree, so it is to a lot of other forms of life. Especially (but not limited to) to the carb tooth squirells, rats, mice, wild pigs and several insect life forms.

Below, a chestnut I found that is being eaten by a Mycena mushroom.

While it is growing, the chestnut protects it's 'young' with a spiky shell, effectively discouraging birds and squirels from munching on the nuts. When it falls down, the nuts are mostly released from the shell, mulched with fall leaves, but still exposed to all ground animals, including humans. The trick the tree uses here is quantity. If the tree was to release less seeds, it would have much less chance to survive, so animals, by feeding themselves, selected the most abundant trees, capable of both feeding the animals and securing it's genetic pool... If the tree has evolved to give bounty to the world, why not use it?

How to go about gathering this valuable resource that nature has made sure comes in great abundance?

First, you should learn about where chestnuts grow near you, if they do. If the chestnut season is over where you live, you can always prepare for next year by searching for healthy trees or even better - chestnut forests. Okay, pure chestnut forest are rare, but smaller ones do exist... Most often, the chestnut trees grow in mixed forests with mainly beech, but oaks too, while disturbed forests (humans cutting down, fire or storms) sometimes have pioneer trees like black locust. The quality and quantity of the nuts vary because of the positioning of the tree, soil quality, parent rock type, age, genetics and so on.

You should look for trees with bigger nuts, most of the times they are tastier, sweeter, but also easier to set free from the hard shell. Chestnut gathering is similar to mushroom foraging because it requires the same kind of perception. First you have to look in the canopy for chestnut leaves (with mushrooms you have to look for symbiotic trees since most mushrooms we eat have a mycorrhizal ecology)... Then, when you find a tree or a forest you just have to walk around, look in the ground, sometimes move some leaves or branches to look below them. If the nuts haven't been released out of the spiky shell, pick them gently or with robust gloves, put them on a hard surface and open it with two sticks or step on it and drag until they fall out. All in all, I can tell you it's fun work , just get yourself ready with food, water and whatever else you need. As always, don't get lost!

Above, a video of me trying to gather chestnuts while holding the camera.

You must be asking yourself: "If I find a lot of chestnuts what will I do with them if I can't eat them all right now?" I feel chestnut recipes and ways to preserve them are a subject for itself, so I'll be writing a new post about it. I hope this will help you one day and if you liked this post, please check out my previous posts and follow for a lot more simple ways to supplement your dietary (with it, financial) security!