Chestnut Picking

Truly, fall must be the hardest time of the year to be distanced from living life in the US (apart from Christmas Day of course!) There are so many unique traditional fall activities, that just make things feel like fall.  Know what I mean?  Thinking back to all the fun fall activities as a child that included: pumpkin farms, apple orchards, hay rides, leaf pile jumping, trick or treating, pumpkin carving, apple cider, bonfires, and concluding with Thanksgiving and in there absense has made us a bit nostalgic this year.  To be honest, it really has been Jonathan feeling the nostalgia more heavily.  He has taken it upon himself to find our own fall traditions here in Italy.  With his driving urge to just "pick" something, we started looking into a good place where we could pick chestnuts, since that seems to be the thing here in northern Italy.

Chestnut trees hold a long tradition of importance in the Italian culture and cuisine.  Chestnuts roasting on an open fire (in the US) are most likely largely imported from Italy.  They are a delicious nut, but do require some work and effort to get to the point of enjoyment--as we are finding out.  The chestnut tree is also referred to as the "bread tree" here in the mountaneous regions of Italy because the grinding of the chestnuts into flour was often substituted in the absense of grain flour.  There are many regional dishes using chestnuts that I am anxious to test out.

So back to our Italian fall adventure...we drove out to Giaveno yesterday because a friend of a friend recommended a grove of trees in that area that was not on private property.  It was a cool fall day that concluded with some sunshine, making our chestnut picking day picture perfect.  We set off on our adventure well equipped with bags and rubber gloves, to protect our hands from the prickly chestnut casings.  The kids were troopers and did not complain ONCE in our 2-hour wooded excursion.  After getting pricked just once myself, I thought maybe this wasn't going to be enjoyed by the kids.  Those spines were like needles--man they hurt and we are still digging out fine splinters as a result!  Everyone had a fabulous time nonetheless and all agree this needs to be our family fall tradition.  Thank you Lord, for providing something to ease our longing for home and allow us to enjoy your creation together as a family!

Giaveno, everytime we go there we wish we could have lived there.  It is such a beautiful town and area right at the base of the mountains.

Walking through some farm fields to reach our destination

 Chestnuts were everywhere!  

The trick was to find the ones that were already starting to explode open.  

 The kids would find the ones open and Jonathan would break out the nuts to put in the bag.

 A dangerous weapon

 Acorns too were everywhere

 An impossible job without those gloves

 Trekking up the hillside and digging through leaves

 A 10 for form

 So much fun to be had with just sticks

 After our time in the woods we stopped by our colleague's house for some coffee and popcorn.  Bea was happy for the company and attention too.

 Konked out from all that hard work

15 lbs. of chestnuts! We'll be roasting and experimenting with chestnuts all winter long.  And bonus is we saved more than 30 euros!