I came home from my Hurricane Florence evacuation to a yard full of prematurely downed chestnuts.When I kicked the outer husks off, the nuts were greenish white and the interior crust was like light brown paper rather than the usual hard chestnut shell.
I had just made a batch of green acorn grits, from a recipe sent to me by Bill Whipple at Acornucopia. I decided to see if green roasted chestnuts would work.
It was a Tuesday night. Eva from Heart Strong Farm was distributing produce baskets to her CSA customers in the tasting room, so we threw in together and made a batch.
Delicious. Sweet. Crunchy. Buttery. Wonderful. People were coming up to the bar for seconds. Thirds. Endless tastings. Green chestnuts should provide season extension to chestnut growers everywhere.
It was so much fun we decided to implement “Wild Tasting Tuesdays.” On week two we made hickory milk and roasted mature chestnuts. On week three we served tastings of green acorn grits atop sautéed sweet potato greens.
One of the participants, Lydia, stopped by yesterday with a giant Chicken of the Woods mushroom she harvested on the Blue Ridge Parkway. It was our lunch today. Exquisite.
Tonight I prepped a batch of mature Willow Oak acorns that Trip brought in—I’ll get the tannins washed away and serve them up on Tuesday night. With roasted chestnuts. Along with other stuff.
If you are around on Tuesday night, and you are an “adventure eater,” stop by the tasting room—we usually roll from 4:00 to about 7:00 or so.
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