Here in Britain, the arrival of Autumn heralds the season for chestnuts, sweet chestnuts that is, as well as conkers (horse chestnuts) but you can’t eat them! Chestnuts are another free food just waiting to be collected by us foragers.
Sweet chestnut trees can be found all throughout England (they are common in woods and parks) and scattered areas of Scotland. The nuts are ready to eat in Oct-Nov and fall to the ground in their prickly husks. They can be helped to fall with a few carefully thrown sticks 
Make sure no-one is standing in the way! It’s also best to wear a pair of gardening gloves and a stout pair of shoes. The shoes are to help you use your feet to split the husks open and the gloves are to protect your fingers from the prickles when extracting the nuts from their husks.
In Portugal, Autumn and the definitive arrival of the cold are commemorated on the 11 of November, Saint Martin’s Day (São Martinho). On this day, it’s traditional to eat and drink the fare of the season, we eat sardines, roast or boiled chestnuts and drink the new wine - called Agua Pé.
Chestnuts are very versatile, they can be boiled, roasted, pickled, candied (Marrons glaces), stewed, puréed or dried and ground into flour. They can be eaten raw too. In their raw state, they are have milky white flesh with a delicate sweet nutty flavour. But they really come into their own when roasted or boiled. Roasting especially enhances the nutty flavour and gives the flesh an extra sweetness.
For storage, they can be dried whole (peeled) or frozen (also peeled). Contadino on the River Cottage Forums suggests the following way of storing chestnuts…
‘If the weather’s good, pop them in a drier for a couple of days, then the freezer for a couple more days. After that any little devils they may host will be dead, so you can just pop them in a tupperware container until you need them.’
My personal favourite way of eating them is born from family tradition. In Portugal a very common way of eating chestnuts is boiled with a herb called ‘erva doce’, the leaves from the aniseed plant. They are delicious! Sweet and a little bit salty, with a comforting crumbly floury texture and of course a subtle aniseed flavour. This is how you make them…
Castanhas cozidas com erva doce - Chestnuts boiled with aniseed leaves.
Chestnuts
Water to cover - approx 1 litre
3 Tablespoons of dried aniseed leaves
2 Teaspoons of salt
Wash your harvested chestnuts and inspect for any that may have been attacked by insects or birds - discard those.
Using a small sharp knife, cut a slit through the skin on the bottom of each chestnut. If you’re making a lot, this can be a labour of love but it’s worth it! Exploding chestnuts make a lot of mess.
Pour about a litre of water into the pan and heat with the aniseed leaves and salt.
When the water is close to boiling, add the chestnuts and leave to boil gently for 30 min.
Taste one, if it’s still very firm, continue boiling for 10 min and taste again. If they’re soft, they’re ready!
Drain away the water and transfer the chestnuts to a bowel to cool a little.
As soon as they’re cool enough to hold and peel, tuck in!
We’re lucky enough to have 2 ancient sweet chestnut trees in our local park. Of course if you haven’t got any chestnut trees within foraging distance, you can always use the ones on sale in all the supermarkets and grocers at this time of year
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