Chestnuts were a staple food around the world for centuries. Although species varied by region, chestnut fruits were valued for their high fiber content, chestnut wood for its hardness, and bark and husks for their tannins. In the United States, the native American Chestnut nearly became extinct in the 1900s after foreign chestnut trees introduced a blight fungus. Most of the chestnuts bought in stores today are from China and Europe, or harvested locally from European or Asian varietals. Early American settlers planted them all over the Pacific Northwest, so step outside and harvest some of your own!
Bark: Smooth when young, furrowed when older
Leaves: oval to lance shaped; toothed; pointed; top of leaves dark, bottoms lighter
Fruits: nuts encased by terrifyingly spiny husk that falls off trees and can be opened by squeezing them between your foot(wear a thick soled shoe) and the ground. There can be up to four nuts in a husk and each nut has a hairy white tipped "tail".
Uses
Nuts are edible raw but are often roasted or steamed. You can grind them into meal or flour when dried. Bark and husks are high in tannins and great for bark tanning.
Warning! You may see the similar but unrelated Horse Chestnut around town - please don’t eat these, they are considered poisonous. Horse chestnuts are rounded, encased by a drastically less spiny husk, and often times ripen earlier than the edible chestnut.
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