Why You Don't See Chestnuts Roasting On An Open Fire These Days

By JoshMogerman in News on Dec 9, 2012 8:00PM

You can’t go anywhere right now without hearing someone singing about “chestnuts roasting on an open fire,” but have you ever tasted one?

Foul. Utterly nasty. Not tasty at all. But that may be because, like most produce-related snacks, freshness counts. And, while chestnuts used to be abundant all over the eastern US, the trees that grow them have nearly gone extinct in the last century. But new efforts are afoot to return the iconic tree… and holiday snack.

The American chestnut used to dominate forests east of the Mississippi, covering hundreds of millions of acres and looming more than 100 feet above the ground. But by the 1950’s, they had all but disappeared. Imported trees brought an invasive fungus with them that was first identified in 1904 at the Bronx Zoo. Like so many unwelcome phenomena, it radiated out of New York City quickly, permanently changing the character of America’s woods and adding another dramatic example of the impacts invasive species have had in this country (Asian carp are just the latest in a long line of concerning alien species messing stuff up).

But fond memories of the lost tree have lived on, as have a few surviving groves near us in Michigan and Wisconsin. The song is iconic. The nut is undeniably nutritious (lowest fat of any edible nut with lots of protein). And so efforts to bring the American chestnut tree back are in full swing. This week the AP looked at a new blight-resistant strain of the tree being replanted in the Appalachians. And a couple months back, the Trib profiled an Illinois chestnut nursery who takes umbrage with our untasty take:

[Dennis Fulbright, a professor of plant pathology at Michigan State University] estimates 85 percent of Americans have not had a chestnut. But, he added, "Few people dislike chestnuts once they have had good ones, and the fresher the better. You can't find them any fresher than having been grown locally."

Surely, the good professor has a lot more experience with this stuff than we do. But for now, Nat King Cole’s great version of the Mel Torme song remains a vestige of days long departed and a reminder of changing tastes. But we are all for anything that brings it back into modernity---especially if we end up with a fresh tasty holiday snack and revitalized American forests in the process.