Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire...

 Well, I know it's only October, but in Italy, that is castagne season! Castagne is the Italian word for "chestnuts," and between September and November is the peak time to collect them....or in other words, NOW!

Now we haven't had chestnuts in this country in a very long time, despite the popularity of the Christmas song. In fact, I wondered why I'd never had a chestnut as a child, and I never tasted one before going to Italy in the 90s.

And why is that?? 

Apparently, chestnuts are America’s great "almost food." We should have them, but Mother Nature threw a massive hissy fit back in the early 1900s and unleashed a chestnut-blasting fungal apocalypse. It wiped out billions of our beloved trees like a bad plot twist in a nature documentary. So now, chestnuts in the U.S. are kind of like unicorns—technically possible, but you'll have a hard time finding one in the wild.

Fast-forward to today, and we’re still importing most of our chestnuts or growing them on small farms with hybrid trees. They’re like that cool band that never quite made it big—people talk about them in cozy holiday songs, but in real life, most folks are still reaching for almonds or walnuts.

But not in Italy.

In Italy, during the cold months, you can smell their enticing aroma coming from every city corner in Italy—it’s like stepping into a warm, buttery postcard from a simpler time. Picture this: you're strolling down a cobblestone street, dodging Vespas, and suddenly, you catch a whiff of something smoky, nutty, and downright irresistible. You follow the scent like a cartoon character floating through the air, and there it is—a little cart with a weathered Italian nonno roasting chestnuts over a fire.

The chestnuts themselves? Hotter than an August afternoon in Rome, so naturally you burn your fingertips trying to crack one open. But once you finally get it—oh, mamma mia. It’s sweet, earthy, and just the right amount of toasty. The perfect snack to keep you going between your cappuccino and your next gelato.

It’s one of those Italian experiences that makes you feel like you’ve wandered into a scene from a 1950s movie, except with fewer sunglasses and more fumbling with change. But hey, that’s part of the charm—because in Italy, even snacks are served with a side of nostalgia.

Now you can also go collect them from the woods yourself, and I remember the first time I headed into the forest with a group of my friends from Pinerolo, stocked with shears and paring knives, looking for fresh chestnuts that had fallen from the trees. I remember thinking--man, 20-year-olds in the States would be doing something totally different on a Sunday afternoon. Likely something involving playing video games or nursing that hangover or dropping the little cash you have at the mall. But not in Italy. We were out in nature, collecting chestnuts, building a fire on the spot, scoring the chestnuts with our knives and roasting and eating them right there.

It's actually something I haven't done in years, and as I sit here writing this from my living room in the Detroit suburbs, I want nothing more than to be back in those woods on a crisp fall day, burning my fingers and lips on freshly roasted chestnuts.