Romancing Halloween in the High Country: That Old Chestnut

Please click on the picture to enjoy all the nutty goodness

One good thing about spending my Halloween gleaning chestnuts up at Skyline Chestnut Orchard ( just south of the southern Skyline Ridge Trail Head parking lot in the Mid-Penninsula Regional Open Space), was that it finally forced me to find out why people say "Not that old chestnut!" when somebody tells an old joke. Since I come from a family that repeats their jokes, and like to hold with this cultural tradition myself, I've had my chestnuts raked out of the fire quite a few times.

Yes, that's what's known as mixing metaphors. According to the web write-ups I found the line has to do with an old has-been actor, of the English Regency era, who overdid his storytelling. When he mixed up one of his standard stories, he was corrected by his hearers, who had heard the story so many times that they knew it involved a chestnut tree.

Another good thing was that I had an excuse to drive up to Skyline, the slow moving highway that runs along the top of the Santa Cruz Mountains on a gorgeous fall day. I should say that it's slow moving when I'm driving on it. Yeah, I did pull over whenever it was safe. And I had a few disgruntled locals shoot past me, when I couldn't find pull outs fast enough. It must be exciting to be so important that you are always in a hurry. Maybe.

And on top of that I learned the trick of twisting the chestnut burs in my hands to display (usually) three glossy nuts. If I'd only wanted a half a pound or a pound of the little beauties, I could have just scavanged for what was laying out in the debris under the trees. That was what the kids nearby were doing. They were delighted to show me how to gnaw open a nut with my teeth. I'd always had the impression you had to roast them before you'd want to eat them. Actually after trying this technique and eating them raw, I still think that. But don't tell the kids.

I spent about an hour and a half twisting open the prickly husks and plopping nuts in my container until I'd amassed nearly six pounds. Now comes the challenge of incising them, soaking them, roasting them and hulling 'em. I asked for advice from a few of the people I chatted up, as we scavanged cautiously around each other, never wanting to invade each others patches, but enjoying the company. A couple of people I talked to are regulars, each has their own techniques for removing the woody hulls and ideas for cooking them that had never occurred to me. A woman, who I think might not have been here long from Korea, boils them and eats them plain. She was interested when I suggested that she try making them into soup.

My gleanings cost me just under $30.00. The point is not to save money over buying them in the store. The point is the pleasure of gathering your own historical chestnuts from trees that are likely nearly hundred and fifty year old trees.*

It was a perfect California fall day, clear air, blue sky, slightly breezy, and no need for the jacket tied around my waist. And it was terribly romantic to imagine spending a few weeks in the fall harvesting chestnuts and then processing them at home. But I know the real reason I enjoyed my harvest was that it makes me appreciate how much autumn work I don't really have to do.

* Though the actual age of trees in the orchards is unknown, the orchard farmers have done some ring counting from deadwood.