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Castagna
Chestnut
Appears in
By Antonio Carluccio and Priscilla Carluccio
Published 1997
No walk in the mountains during the months of October and November is complete without collecting a few pounds of chestnuts. This nut grows on huge trees that are also valued for their precious wood by the furniture industry. The sweet chestnut tree is common in the Apennines and Pre-Alps and when the nuts are in season they are either roasted or boiled and consumed in huge quantities.
As well as the common chestnut, there is another variety called marroni which is much used in the kitchen. Marroni have a spiky shell and grow singly, whereas ordinary chestnuts grow in clusters. They are used to make marroni canditi (marrons glacés or candied chestnuts), which are very popular at Christmas time. Marroni canditi are very expensive because in the process of making them many get broken and only the whole ones are eventually sold.