An Evening In The Pursuit Of A Roasted Chestnut

Mel Torme wrote about chestnuts roasting on an open fire in the midst of a heatwave. "Think cool, be cool", he thought. Less than an hour later, his beloved winter memory became a song, and before long that song became American folklore. It's an image so powerful you need not have actually experienced it to understand it at a Pavlovian level the moment someone starts crooning. It is a very deep rooted, cultural, emotional picture of winter and the holidays.

This year a few days before Thanksgiving I was able to finally give myself fully to the idea of winter when we used our fire ring for the first time. Amy bought it on a whim, and couldn't help but add the grill that covers it, god bless her. She had also bought a few pounds of chestnuts with the intention of making stuffing for the Thanksgiving gathering we had been invited to by our friends at Eater's Guild Farm. We lit a fire because we felt like it and remembered almost incidentally that we needed to prep the chestnuts, so that great holiday mythology became reality. Most people would just turn on the oven. But we had the chance to fill our Thanksgiving stuffing with the true spirit of the holidays so we went for it.

The fact is, there are very good reasons that chestnuts were once roasted on an open fire. The wood smoke, the intense heat that caramelizes the shells, the simple fun of it, all three infusing the nut even more fully with the feel of fall. Sometimes we forget when roasting chestnuts in an oven, when we're looking mostly for the shells to become brittle so they can be easily peeled, how important it is to actually cook them, thoroughly and a bit aggressively, to really develop their flavor.

More importantly, the act of lighting a fire on a cold, crisp late fall or early winter day fills you with the essence of the moment. The fire we built was in great excess of what was needed to roast the chestnuts (we did cook dinner on it later as well) as was the effort to build it. We wandered our property collecting downed wood that we thought would produce a good smelling smoke. We spent the better part of an afternoon gathering wood and tending the fire toward a plush bed of temperate coals, then stoking it with a little green wood to give a muscular, perfumed smoke. We scored the chestnuts carefully and deliberately, lounging comfortably beside the fire. Then roasted them until they were blushed with char and cracked open looking like a flower at hell's gate. We greedily dove into to the peeling, hands getting tender and rosy from the heat and now sharp, dry shards of the smoky shells. But there was no way to wait for them to cool. We were caught up in the moment.

Not too many people roast chestnuts anymore. The work involved is too daunting. The black walnut or beechnut, two other native fall treats, are even more overlooked for their mis en place intensity. Especially black walnuts, which oxidize and go rancid so quickly it almost seems like you're racing the clock even as you struggle to get them from their shells. But if you slow down, take the time to enjoy the prep, the real act of cooking, especially if you can light a wood fire and give it some seasonal context, you might find the work less tedious, even enjoyable. We don't eat foods so much that we have to work hard for, which is unfortunate because it gives our diet a sort of lazy and unnecessary boundary. The idea that we might live our whole lives without chestnuts and black walnuts just because they are a pain in the ass makes no sense to me.

These days many people think cooking is tedium and that stands between them and the more common use of their kitchen. We don't enjoy cooking anymore. We think of it as a chore, something that takes us away from our real lives. We look for "thirty minute meals" to give us back the time we want to spend with our loved ones instead of incorporating the act of cooking, which is so loaded with love and life and the expression of our place and time, into our lives. Cooking is bursting with the stuff of our real lives, but for some reason, we disregard it for time with the tv. We treat it with the same disdain we treat doing the laundry or scrubbing the toilet.

I can tell in an instant which of the cooks that come in to my kitchen will be in it for the long haul. They are the ones who enjoy dicing, tournet, peeling potatoes, even washing dishes. They enjoy the everyday, the mundane, the grunt work. The real work. Cooking.  Believe me when I say your cooking will taste better and your kitchen, your family, and you yourself will be happier, better off, when you do the same. There is no way to fake careful attention and respect for the food before you.

Don't rush through the prep. Don't hurry to get to the plate. Build a fire. Relax and fuss over it for a bit. Roast. Be slow and deliberate. Smile and talk comfortably with the friends and family around you. Dinner is coming. And it will be be good, as will be the time spent in its pursuit. But only if you are mindful enough to make it so.