When I was little, I remember we always had a Christmas Day lunch in family, on 25 Decembers. Sometimes, it was celebrated at my sister's appartment - she was older -, some others at ours, and many times we were going to my grandparents appartment. I don't remember exactly how many times we've celebrated Christmas around their table, but enough for me to remember all the details of their elegant living room and their little serving hatch to the kitchen, cutely decorated with white mosaic squares.
There is one thing I noticed, as an adult. My grandparents were always serving chestnuts, as it was just "likely" when Christmas lunch was taking place somewhere else. I even remember times when we "only" had long beans and potatoes along the chicken, or turkey, or whatever meat was served. Actually, I found chestnuts delicious, even they were canned. I reacted to them like when you give a candy to a kid : "Oh, chestnuts, yum !" The fact that it was unusual was self-going : I had never thought about it.
It only is when I had my words to say about Christmas organisation that I noticed this consciously. Why ? Why would my grandparents stick to serving chestnuts, but not always the rest of my family ? Since we were all living in the same city, the trips to visit each other wasn't too long, and all our family members could meet in a regular basis. In theory, at least. And then I forgot about it, until last Christmas.
Something to be known about chesnuts is that : when the wheat has stopped growing, at the beginning of the cold days of Autumn and Winter, these fruits fall from the trees. They may have spikes to endure, but daring to hatch it rewards you with a big, heavy and nutritious fruit, with a very sweet taste. I let you imagine how much popular it was as a foodbase, in the past ! I will probably never know, but I believe there might be the possibility that chestnuts were commonly eaten at Christmas, as it was the most abundant food, and that my grandparents servec them because they used to. I'll probably never know if I am right or wrong.
When you cook your chestnuts, you should always cut a deep cross through their two skins. It's alright if it cuts through the fruit. It should look like this (mock me if you want : you'd be right !) :
Chestnuts will burst when you cook them, so violently that "donner une chataigne" familiarly means "to punch someone powerfully". Making this cross will help them to burst only where it is made. Impressive, right ?
These are all the reasons why I like chestnuts, and decided to make "Chataigne" my first nickname in the html-osphere.