I’ve known they were coming for a while, yet still, as we rounded the corner to the local farmers’ market last night, my heart skipped a beat upon seeing the chestnut lady setting up stall!
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I knew we only had 30 Euros in our pockets. And I knew that had to cover all our veg needs, yet, like a kid at Christmas, I really wanted to get some nuts to roast and some flour to bake with!
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Rob dug into every pocket he had looking for change whilst I tried to work out exactly *just* how many what greens we needed for the week.
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Down to the last few cents, we managed it, coming home with not only lots of kale and broccoli, but also a bag of marroni (think chestnuts but bigger) flour and a couple of handfuls of the nuts to score and roast in the oven.
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These nuts are from a region of Tuscany called Mugello, which Wikipedia tells me is the heart of Tuscan chestnuts. I feed so grateful that it’s here on my doorstep and that there are people who are willing to take it upon themselves to steward and nurture the land and its produce.
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I’m on to making some Castagnaccio with this flour. It’s an age-old Tuscan chestnut cake. I’ll be demoing it and talking all about chestnuts in the live Zoom cook-up @farmandhearth and I are doing for our podcast patrons on November 12th. If you’re interested, go to @ancestralkitchenpodcast to check out how to become a patron and join us.