Chestnuts (Part 1)
We all live in hope of the revival of the American Chestnut. Despite the fact that parts of the forest root mat of the primeval eastern Chestnut forest still lives and sends up shoots, the blight ruins all that sprouts above ground. A subterranean scourge also troubles the Chestnut and its dwarf cousin, the Chinquapin, Phytophthora, a water-borne mold—oomycete—that rots the roots of the trees. The root rot had destroyed the chestnuts in the midlands of NC and SC in the 1860s and 1870s. Sometime shortly after 1900 a fungus (Chryphonectria parasitica) in imported Asian chestnut trees (Castenea crenata) spread to American chestnut trees (Castenea dentata) in the northeastern hardwood forests. Arborists identified the blight in 1904 and to their dismay discovered no remedy could counter its lethal corruption of the cambium beneath the tree’s bark. It spread steadily, first in the northern chesnut forest from Maine to Maryland, then in the 1910s, down the Appalachian ridge, until the whole eastern range of the tree sickened and died. 1928 was the last year of harvest in the Carolinas. The dominant tree of the eastern uplands expired in an ecological disaster that still haunts the minds of those who enforce biological security in the United States.
Animal populations who had depended upon the autumnal nut fall for sustenance came under stress. Deer and raccoons turned to the upcountry cornfields to survive. Certain human foodways of great antiquity disappeared as well—the masting of hogs in October beneath chestnut groves—the making of Native chestnut breads from nut meal (a practice that ethnographer James Mooney recorded as being common among the Cherokees in the decade before the outbreak of the blight), the boiling and mashing of chestnuts into spoon meat, and the making of chestnut gruels and grits. To these common dishes of common people one could add the refined preparations that graced the side tables of eastern households during the holidays—chestnut soufflés and chestnut puddings (often made doubly aromatic with a splash of rosewater). All that remained after the blight was the Christmastide appearance of imported “roasting chestnuts” and perhaps a few additional nuts for the turkey’s dressing.
Blight did not destroy the Asian Chestnuts that had carried the disease to America, and since that time breeders of various sorts have attempted to mingle the genetic resistance to blight imbued in Asian varieties into the vulnerable American species. The American Chestnut Foundation organized to replant the country with a disease resistant American Chestnut. It was not the culinary desires of the Foundation that drove this campaign. The American Chestnut was the fastest growing, tallest straight hardwood tree known in North America. None of the Asian or European varieties approached its quality as a timber resource. Yes the revivalists knew that the nuts were sweeter, albeit smaller, than the Asian and European varieties, but they were substantially harder to harvest on taller trees. The blight hit at that moment when nut breeders were intent in going away from the wild forage of a forest to groves of more modest height. The USDA Manual of 1937 devoted to nuts documents these breeding efforts.
Whatever the case, there was no major planting of trees with American Chestnut genetics until the post 1960 plantings of Dunstan crosses between Asian and American Chestnuts. These had been developed in Florida to restore an edible landscape for wildlife. One grower of Dunstans in Florida, Joel Kersey, one day discovered two wild shoats grazing beneath his trees. They haunted his grove eating nutfall. So while they were contentedly grazing Kersey erected a fence around the pigs. They were captive feeders.
Chestnut Pig Barbecue November 16, 2013
In 2010, the Carolina Gold Rice Foundation determined to research and revive the chestnut foodways of the South. Those foodways had been reduced to holiday “chestnuts roasting o’re an open fire” and chestnut stuffing for the Thanksgiving turkey. We have recovered recipes for chestnut grits, chestnut skillet bread, chestnut soufflé, and chestnut pudding (with rose water). But as glories of the southern table went, none of these dishes competed with the most cherished dishes—chestnut fed pork barbecue
I had some sense of the splendors that might be had. The famous prosciutto di Parma is made from pigs who grazed on chestnuts and acorns. I’ve sampled Lardo di Arnaud, the cured fat of chestnut fed pigs. I had also tasted cured hams from pigs who had fed on chestnut mast for much of their lives, rather than a month of finishing feed before slaughter. Instead of pink fat, those that had fed long on chestnuts had yellowish and it was more profoundly unctuous. I had not tasted the Chestnut hams of Malaga, a recent innovation in Jamon Iberico.
When word filtered up from Florida that two wild pigs had been sequestered in Joel Kersey’s Dunstan grove, Glenn Roberts, president of the Foundation, sent a request to buy them. And so two pigs gorged on fallen nuts until they had grown sufficiently fat to warrant a truck trip southward. Glenn hauled two ornery fat pigs into South Carolina, and on November 14, 2013 they were handed over to 601 Deer and Hog Processing in Fort Motte, South Carolina for butchering. One of the pigs would be handed over to Chuck Ross and James Helms for barbecuing. Master charcuterer Craig Diehl drove up from Charleston to take charge of the second pig for curing.
I arrived at 601 Processing at 3:00 on November 15 and found the son of the proprietor and Craig deep in a consultation on the quickest way to cut certain venison joints. These weeks in November constitute the crush time of 601. In the twenty minutes I was present, two and a half deer were disemboweled, skinned, and broken down. The bloody skeletons lay stacked in a corner crying out for a chef’s stock pot, but because of the game sale laws . . . no go. I did, however, learn that a substantial portion of the deer harvest is donated to Harvest Hope. That charity does not waste its materials.
The barbecue hog had been skinned when we arrived. (Alas, no cracklin’s for the guests.) The second was reserved for Craig to be used in charcuterie. Craig was tremendously enthused about the fat quality of the pig. It was admirable and the meat itself robustly red-pink. Craig sliced through it quickly, his knife work singularly precise and quick. I told him to do his curing of the meat in ways that seem appropriate to the quality he found. We parted, and the proprietor commented that quite a number of chestnuts grew on a nearby ridge, and that he has seen wild hogs in the vicinity. He then informed me that he is one of only four processors given a state permit to process wild pigs.
On the evening of the 15th a film and acoustic crew from the University of South Carolina appeared, Michael Peterson of Eastover Nut Farm was present, Chuck Ross, James Helms, and two other members of the crew who prepared the wood. I had a splendid plate of venison cube steak, a dish of rice, and a good conversation. After dinner, in the dark, the crew went with James to 601 to pick up the pig.
On Saturday morning of the barbecue I made three of the four bbq sauces—the standard Lowcountry mustard, the classic Hemmenway SC vinegar & pepper, muscadine vinegar sorghum tomato & pepper, and there was blueberry as well. I wound up using Joseph Trapp’s sorghum rather than the Lindler. I brought several jars of Bradford watermelon pickle. I also made a cucumber, tomato, dill and onion salad dressed with benne oil and good madeira vinegar. I arrived at Oldfields Plantation in Hopkins, SC, the site of the barbecue at noon. Mike Davis of Terra Restaurant was already present with the chestnut skillet bread. The pig had been smoking for a good while and the compound was fragrant with the smell of smouldering chestnut husks. Much of the next two hours was consumed in setting up water stations, scrubbing down the tables, laying out the food displays. Chuck had begun the process of cutting the meat off the lustrously browned hog. He was the soul of self-control, refusing to taste until I, James, and Heidi Cooley, the head of the film crew, had partaken. Glenn Roberts, the provider of the pig, alas, was out in the field, unable to be present. So I had to report long distance that there was a distinct quality to the meat, an earthly basic flavor, a fine, almost floral fatty sweetness, and a long finish in the mouth. It was moist, tender, and the caramelized portions startling in their nuttiness.
There was, of course, hash with Carolina Gold Rice.
The first guests to arrive—some of host Ted Hopkins’s friends—senior neighbors—were fascinated with the stories connected with the food, and ready with their cups when I broke out my sake bottle. (Sake is better than beer or bourbon as a complement to barbecue). Nathalie Dupree, her husband Jack, and their passenger, Hanna Raskin arrived precisely at 2:00 and Nathalie went directly to the cutting station, going for some gnawing bones. For a half an hour the guests arrived, milled about, oogled the food (the panniers from the Palmetto Pig were covered, but the salads, cured loin I brought, and pickles were available for nibbling). Most guests gravitated to Michael Peterson’s chestnut basket where he peeled and hand fed a cluster of eager eaters. After Ted Hopkins arrived at 2:25, we were ready to begin. By this time there were approximately 50 persons present, including numbers from the press.
After a blessing, the panniers were uncovered, the lines quickly formed. The rhapsody on chestnuts and chestnut fed pigs had people’s gastric juices percolating. Chad Carter appeared suddenly bearing a number of Bradford Watermelon pickle varieties and gummi-treats.
James Helms made sure a portion of the meat and sauce were secured for pig provider Glenn Roberts upon his return. There was not much left at the end of the feast. We had gauged the invitations to food ratio well. It took a little over an hour to clean up. A splendid sunny day turned to dark slowly with a spectacular sunset over a wonderful countryside.
Southerners had tasted that day the first chestnut fed barbecued pig available in the South in a century.
A Walk in Joel Kersey’s Chestnut Grove September 2014
There is a scene found frequently in American novels of the 1800s or told by travellers in their Tours of the eastern United States. The solitary sojourner ventures into an old Chestnut forest to collect his or her thoughts in late September, on the verge of autumn. The cathedral quiet of the visitor’s walk is suddenly shattered when a breeze kicks up by a cannonade of falling nuts.
I had as close an experience as one can have. Florida chestnut grower Joel Kersey invited me to walk a widow grove of Dunstan chestnuts growing near Gainesville, FL, and to view his 15 acre organic chestnut forest. His Dunstans were a 2nd generation cross between the American and the blight resistant Chinese chestnuts planted in the 1960s by a physician in Alachua County, Florida. They tended to have the shorter stature of their Asian forebears. But the taste had some of the sweetness of the American parent.
Because they taste less bland than most Asian strains of Chestnut, and are more shell stable fresh cured than most European varieties, the Dunstan nuts have appeared in grocery store bins during the holiday Season. Kearsey himself has sold to Whole Foods and other chains.
But there is a kind of stupidity to the chestnut market. Marketers only want the nuts after November 1, when the “chestnuts roasting on an open fire” associations begin to kick in. The nuts begin to fall in Florida during the 3rd week of September. Fresh nuts will spoil—when cold stored they can harden and dry out. Because we have forgotten how in parts of this country chestnut was a year round crop—with chestnut meal and flour, preserved chestnuts, pickled chestnuts and dried nuts pantry staples—the gatekeepers of the food system can’t accept the chestnut in its natural season of harvest.
So what was it like to walk a chestnut grove? Peaceful. Yet disturbingly tempting when low branches are laden with fat burrs of nearly ripe nuts. It was a sunny day when I walked the widow grove—and sun is needed for the nuts to form, so spacing and limb length is managed to let light shine between the trees. Yet in the more mature organic grove the trees have grown together, necessity a canopy cutting project in the coming year.
Joel was kind enough to bestow some chestnuts on me—also the chipped roasted nut meats intended as flavoring for beer.He’s trying to interest local brewers to consider an autumnal alternative to the ubiquitous pumpkin beer.These chestnut chips—very aromatic!
Illustration: American Chestnut Seeds 2017, Virginia