A couple weeks ago, a friend gave my husband a burlap sack of chestnuts from his yard. I thought it strange because years ago, I was told that all the chestnut trees in our area died off in a blight. So either his survived the blight or its a newer tree. Then, I put them on top of the fridge and didn't much more of them. Until today.
So, today I noticed these grubby looking white worms crawling on my kitchen floor - more than a dozen. YUCK. Ruled out the box of apples. Ruled the battered box holding the apples. Ruled out the yard sale book shelf I had just brought in. Did some googling could be a moth larva? Looked at my cornmeal, that's fine. Started looking on top of the fridge and then I saw the bag of chestnuts. Hmmm maybe, open it up there they were. Back to google. Yup, Chestnut Weevil larvae. The blight that wiped out chestnut trees in our area a long time ago. All afternoon while conducting my research and looking for the infestation site I couldn't help but think this is just my luck and remembering my first Chestnut Kerfuffle.
Which frankly I was shocked that I never blogged about this! I thought for sure I had.
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| Actually caught one crawling out of its little chestnut hole. |
From September 2006
The Chestnut Kerfuffle
Only close friends and family know about my kerfuffle last
year of roasting chestnuts in the oven.
It all began one fall afternoon while taking my after work
walk in the woods, I noticed these beautiful chestnuts on the ground. Like a true
hunter and gatherer, I squirreled away chestnuts into every pocket on me. I set
them in my blue pottery bowl for decoration. Then, one night I decided it was
time to roast them. So I read online how to roast them. Careful to cut slits in
them so they wouldn’t explode, set them in the oven and then went upstairs to
make a phone call.
As were talking, I heard an explosion. “Gotta go, I
think my chestnuts are exploding!” I hung up and ran. I heard a few more
explosions and turned off the over. Then carefully, ever so carefully I opened
the oven door only to have a chestnut come exploding past my face leaving
chestnut flicks in my hair! Quickly, I shut the oven door -not sure whether to
laugh or cry. I almost lost my eye to a whizzing chestnut!
I was so disappointed. Most of my chestnuts exploded in the
oven the others were so charred that they weren’t edible because I couldn’t get
them past my nose! Eventually, I got the oven cleaned out; vowing, “Next year I
will try again and make deeper slits so they don’t explode!”
So last week, I gathered in plenty. Filling all my pockets
and emptying them in my blue pottery bowl when I got home. They look so pretty
and fall-ish. I anticipated lighting the fireplace with my new roommates some
night and roasting them there. Like in that Christmas Carole, “Chestnuts roasting
on a open fire…”
That brings me to yesterday. I stopped by the creek before I
went to pick up a friend at the train station. “I’ll pick up a couple for him,”
I said to myself.
“I picked up some chestnuts for you.” (I had told him the
exploding chestnut story.)
And I presented him with 2 chestnuts. Guess what his reply
was?
“These are buckeyes!”
(He is from Ohio
home of the Ohio State Buckeyes he would know.)
He said, “These are poisonous; only squirrels know which
side is safe to eat.”
Note to self: Before foraging in the forest for food verify
with an Audubon Society book (or google) before you eat anything!
Needless to say there won’t be any roasting of my “chestnuts” this year, which will
prevent the accidental deaths of my roommates and me. I’ll buy my chestnuts at
the grocery store where things are nicely labeled!
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The sort of funny thing is that the reason why I know about the chestnut blight and why I thought it strange that there are local chestnuts available is because I happened to mention to my co-workers at the time that I had found "chestnuts" at the park. They had thought it strange because they knew about the chestnut blight and how there are no chestnut trees in the area anymore. I just figured one tree survived because I was sure they were chestnuts. So, now I have a container of Chestnut Weevil larvae that my children think are "cute" that I need to dispose of and a bowl full of real chestnuts that I need to roast or something before they explode with more weevils.
Full circle folks full circle.
Exploding chestnut kerfuffles.
