In
this time of year (autumn), a particular scent invades many of our streets and
avenues of Portugal. A smell that we automatically associate with the imminent
arrival of winter, and eventually with the closeness of the holiday season
(Christmas)!
This
scent is produced by the carts of the street vendors of roasted chestnuts
(castanha assada), men and women who faithfully and for centuries and every
year put themselves strategically on the street corners, or in the outputs of
public transportation, invading the people that comes and goes with that
familiar childhood memories!
It
is almost impossible to resist and not buy (at least sometimes) one of these
paper cones, made of torn pages from old magazines and newspapers, were the
vendors place mostly of the times about 12 chestnuts... that we buy for 2€ to
3€ the cone... a bit expensive for the quantity, is true but is worth every
byte!
Is
assumed that the chestnut is originally from Asia Minor, the Balkans and
Caucasus, following the story of Western civilization for more than 100,000
years. Alongside with the pistachio, and the chestnut was an important
contribution to the caloric prehistoric men who also used it in animal feeding.
The
Greeks and the Romans put chestnuts inside amphorae filled with wild honey.
This preserved the food and impregnated it with its taste. The Romans included
the chestnut in their feasts. During the Middle Ages, the monasteries and
abbeys, monks and nuns often used the nuts in their recipes. By this time, the
chestnut was crushed, and became a major farinaceous in Europe.
Now
a "delicacy" of the season, the chestnuts, in time gone by,
constituted a nutritious food supplement, replacing the bread in his absence,
when the rigors of winter and scarcity arrived.
