Les Chataignes et la foret de Privas

Matt and I went on a hike to the Privas town forest a few weeks ago. It was the first real hike we've been on in months. Hiking in France is going to be far different than hiking in the U.S. Half of the hike was just getting from our house to the edge of town, which meant walking down streets. And let me tell you this town was not built for pedestrians. Or maybe it was 300 years ago, but those paths that used to be nice wide paths for horses and people are now roads for cars, without any real sidewalks. But there is a nice simplicity in walking down old roads past french farmhouses, grape vines, gardens and horses to get to your trailhead.

The forest was nice in that it was full of deciduous trees... and amoung them Chestnut trees. I can't say these forests could compare at all to the forests of California or Oregon, but there are reasons for that. Part of the beauty of having a country as young and as big as the U.S. is that by the time the West was being developed an environmental ethic had developed to protect the major forests and natural areas in the west. Here in France, a country the size of Texas with a history of civilizations that go back a 1000 years, you can only imagine what happened to the forests.

However you can tell that the government is trying to re-establish forests and each town seems to have their own town forest. All the kids in Matt's classes have been up to he forest, and they have started an arboretum up there. Here are some trees from the arboretum.

The best part of our hike other than eating lunch, and actually getting to be in a forest again, was picking chestnuts. Each region of France has specific foods and dishes that they are known for. In the Ardeche where we are living that specialty is chestnuts. You walk down any country road around Privas and you can't help but stumble upon the fuzzy prickly chestnut balls. And once you've seen them its really hard to resist picking them up. You crack through the prickly exterior and find big plump chestnuts.

The town forests was literally exploding with chestnuts. They were everywhere. You could barely walk for a few steps without stumbling on them. And we started collecting them, because they were just fun to hunt down. And quite quickly we had filled our pockets and eventually a bag we had with us. The experience made me think of my friend Robin who is constantly picking up fruit, nuts, and the like when out hiking so that it not go to waste (and making things like apple cider and blackberry wine out of it!).

When we got back home, we had to figure out how to go about making roasted chestnuts. I did know that you can't eat chestnuts raw and they have to be roasted or boiled. I figured sticking them in the oven at around 350 degrees for half and hour or so would do it. Our one mistake was not thinking about the fact that a chestnut in a shell with moisture in the nut, heated up just might explode. We're sitting playing cards and suddenly our oven is popping and exploding. So needless to say it took me two more tries to figure out how to roast chestnuts. The most important part is scoring the nuts so they don't explode and then baking for 20 minutes or so on 350. They are actually quite tasty, sweet and earthy, but they do take a lot of work.

We may roast a few more, but I think I'll just be buying the prepared chestnut cream from the farmers market. It's some amazingly sweet vanilla chestnut cream that you serve over ice-cream. They make a fantastic dessert served everywhere in town called a Coup Ardechoise, that is vanilla ice-cream, chest-nut ice-cream, chestnut cream, chuncks of candied chestnut and whipped cream. It's enough to put you in a sugar coma for life, but boy is it good.

Anyway, its been fun seeing what can be made of chestnuts. I've never really considered using them and have only seen a chestnut tree in the states once, so its been an experience.