Roasted chestnuts

[pegkerr]

I stopped by the grocery store yesterday, and along the ingredients I bought for yesterday's disastrous dinner, I bought a few chestnuts. I roasted them under the broiler after dinner and offered them to the girls. Fiona tried one and rejected them (of course) but Delia was pleased by the taste and had several.

They reminded me so powerfully, as they always do, of being back in England, where I tasted them for the first time. I remember buying roast chestnuts from the vendors at the street corners, who would pull them out from steel drums where they roasted them and hand them to you in a paper cone. They kept the hands warm as you walked around that grand old city, and the taste was so warm, so welcome, so sweet and filling and perfect.

Tell me about a food that when you eat it brings back a powerful memory.

Edited to add: since people have asked: Roasting chestnuts is extremely easy. Just make a criss-cross cut on the flat side of the chestnut with the point of a sharp knife and then throw them on a broiler pan and put them under the broiler for five to ten minutes. Yum.

Comments

[madlori.livejournal.com]

In Wisconsin, at every county and state fair, they have deep-fried cheese curds. They are greasy and cholesterol-laden and AWESOME. The outside is crunchy and the cheese is ooey-gooey and pulls away from your mouth in big long strings.

I've had them a few times out here (Culver's has them) and every time I eat them, I'm instantly back at the Rock County 4-H fair.

[gamps-garret.livejournal.com]

Wow -- I would love to roast chestnuts at home -- I've never tried that. Do you have instructions?

As for a food that brings back memories -- my mother makes these incredible cinnamon rolls with cream cheese frosting and caramel drizzle on Christmas morning. She won't share the recipe yet (I get it on my thirtieth Christmas, as does my sister), and she only makes them that morning. When we eat them, I always feel like I'm seven, sitting at the top of the staircase with my sister and my Dad, eating "special breakfast" on Christmas morning while we wait for her to get home from work at the hospital.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Roasting chestnuts is extremely easy. Just make a criss-cross cut on the flat side of the chestnut with a sharp knife and then throw them on a broiler pan and put them under the broiler for five to ten minutes. Yum.

[gamps-garret.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[tiellan.livejournal.com]

Onion rings is one for me. When I was little, my mom used to let my school bus driver babysit me. This must have been pre-school because I'm pretty sure we were riding a short bus. She would take all the other kids home while I played with a box of toys she kept on the bus, then she'd take me to Jack in the Box and buy me onion rings before dropping me off at home. Honestly, looking back, I wonder why in the world my mom let a complete stranger "babysit" me -- Mom was a stay-at-home mom and there wasn't any need for me to be babysat. But onion rings bring back that memory, and I have pretty warm feelings about it so I don't think anything untoward was going on.

Another is tomato soup, although this is more of a Pavlovian response. My mom used to always make me tomato soup for lunch, and we'd watch the Wheel of Fortune while we were eating. So when I hear the letter-turning chimes, I think of tomato soup; and when I eat tomato soup, I think of the Wheel of Fortune.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Cloudberry preserves are my tenth birthday in a jar. I went almost a decade between the first and second times I had them, so the association was preserved very firmly.

How do you roast chestnuts? That is, how long, what temp, any other special instructions?

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

See my answer here.

[wilfulcait.livejournal.com]

When I was 13, I discovered SF fandom and found out that I wasn't the only member of my species. Our local group met every Thursday at the library, put out a fanzine, watched movies, talked about books. Afterwards, we would go to the New Yorker deli and have subs and, sometimes, cheesecake. Those subs still remind me of how wonderful it was to be that teenager in that particular place with those people. Even just the smell of them...

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Thanks!

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

I'd never experienced cloudberry preserves till a few yrs. ago when I read "the Blue Place" I then tracked them down, umm wonderful.

[mrissa.livejournal.com]

Coincidentally, I've just been talking to pameladean about The Blue Place.

[von-krag.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Ms Griffith is one to watch for me. I like both her mysteries and her SF. I understand there's a illness involved that limits her output, damn shame if it's true.

[amandageist.livejournal.com]

Do you peel them first before you roast them? How do you get the shell off at all? I spent hours trying to peel chestnuts for a chestnut stuffing, once--it was absolutely wonderful but I've never made it again, I hated dealing with the damned chestnuts and those horrible shells.

~Amanda

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

No, I don't peel them before roasting them. When you make that criss-cross cut, the shells will curl a bit back from the cut as they roast, and then you can get your fingers underneath the curled up bit and leverage the shell off.

[cornfields.livejournal.com]

I know it sounds stupid, but at a local supermarket chain here in NE Indiana, you can buy frozen green chili burritos for something like 20 cents each. After my parents divorced, and my dad was down on his luck financially, my little sister and I practically lived on those things. We'd eat them for breakfast, lunch, and dinner; two each, covered in shredded cheddar cheese, and nuked until the cheese turned crusty where it fell onto our plates.

I've never seen the brand sold in any other supermarket, so when I moved back to this part of Indiana after almost six years on the East Coast and found the same supermarket sold the same cheap-assed burritos, it made me nostalgic. Full of curiosity, I picked up a couple and called up my sister while they were nuking in the microwave. I was pleased to report they still taste the same, even after all these years.

It's funny how nasty frozen burritos bring back so many memories of me and my sister; fighting, laughing, crying, goofing off, fending for ourselves. Not all of the memories are particularly nice ones, but still... Those things she and I went through made us the loving, close-knit sisters we are today.

[jrittenhouse.livejournal.com]

When I was small, we lived between two drive in theaters - one in each direction up a main drag in the semi-country, about two miles apart from each other. My folks would whip up stuff to take with, and expeditions to the drive-ins were frequent on weekends. There was a sort of hot chocolate they would make that I loved...and rediscovered the taste again a couple of years ago; the bottled Starbucks Mochas. Needless to say, I turned Susan on to them, and even Mere loves them.

[castiron.livejournal.com]

As a kid, when the family made popcorn, I'd often sit in the dining room reading one of the Narnia books, eating popcorn, and drinking cola. Ever since, I've associated popcorn and cola with Narnia.

Popcorn alone doesn't trigger the memory, and I don't generally drink sodas anymore, but about once a year I'll get a can of cola, fix some hot buttered popcorn, and sit back with a Narnia book and relive the feeling.

(No, this doesn't mean I'll buy popcorn when I see the movie in the theater....)

[cheshyre]

No food to contribute of my own, but you just reminded *me* of eating hot roasted chestnuts from such a vendor while walking along Oxford St in London (my first and only visit to the City so far)...

Thanks.

[sternel.livejournal.com]

Mulled Wine. My semester in Austria, I was there over Christmas. Every street corner had a little stand set up that sold mulled wine (You put a deposit down and got a real, honest-to-goodness mug, not some wimpy paper cup) and you sould get your mugful and wander the streets, stopping for a refill whenever your mug emptied, and pause to chat with people as you walked. No matter how cold it was, everyone would be outside, bundled up tight, because Mulled Wine only happens at Christmas so you better not miss it!

I had some of my dormmates teach me how to make it and brought the recipe home with me. Every time I taste it, for just that one moment, I'm back in Graz with the winter wind biting my nose.

[pegkerr.livejournal.com]

Oh, I adore mulled wine! Thank you for reminding me; I will make my recipe of it tomorrow.

[tassie-gal.livejournal.com]

Koeksisters....essentially a south African type of donut. My mum used to make them and I serverly associate them with sweetness and fun.