Curious anecdotes about chestnuts

The beautiful autumn chestnut landscape in Andalucia © Michelle Chaplow
The beautiful autumn chestnut landscape in Andalucia © Michelle Chaplow

Three curious anecdotes about chestnuts:

  1. Sweet chestnuts should not be confused with horse chestnuts, which are found in the UK tied on strings and used in a game called conkers; these horse chestnuts are poisonous although they are obtained from a tree of the same name.
  2. Chestnuts have also been sneaking their way into local vocabulary: a person who ‘tiene castañas’ or ‘has chestnuts’ is a person who is hard to deal with. The chestnuts themselves aren’t easy to harvest, with their prickly shells and protective husks.
  3. Tostón is the chestnut festival, where chestnuts are roasted and consumed with anis. The chestnut itself isn’t easily digestible and is consumed with anis to aid digestion. If a person is referred to as a ‘tostón’, it means that they are rather unpalatable.

 

Chestnut celebration

As you can imagine, after the harvest there’s a celebration. Read more >

Chestnuts in Andalucia

The aroma of delicious sweet roast chestnuts roasting on the streets of Andalucía from late October to December Read more >

Booking.com