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EATING LOCALLY, Part 13An extremely versatile food item, overlooked by most, is the chestnut. As most know, the American Chestnut, Castanea dentata, was almost totally obliterated from the landscape of the eastern half of the United States during the early 1900's, in part due to a bark fungus blight. Problem is that although the blight killed many, many of the trees and stunted many others, people at that time assumed it was 100% lethal so they began cutting down apparently healthy chestnuts, thinking "why bother?". It turns out that had they not begun destroying the remaining trees, interested parties today would have an easier time of trying to restore some chestnut populations here and there. In the meantime, some have planted the Chinese Chestnut, Castanea mollissima, native to both China and Korea, which seem to be resistant to the original blight. Then there are hybrids of varying types, possibly even including Spanish Chestnut. And last but not least if one is lucky, one can find a mature American Chestnut which survived the blight and which still produces chestnuts. The nut from these trees is highly nutritious, not only to deer and turkey, but to humans. After decades of indulgence in absolute junk food, so highly sweetened that flavors of any kind seem lost in the mire of high-fructose corn syrup, most Americans are not impressed upon tasting chestnuts for the first time, no doubt due to their jaded and abused taste buds. But if one is not expecting a jolt of intense sugar taste, there are many subtle and delightful nuances to be experienced in enjoying the chestnut. From this writer's point of view, an excellent use for the chestnut is for grinding into flour for flat breads and cookies (see EATING LOCALLY, Part 5). One picture accompanying this article shows the one, lonesome chestnut produced on one of our "oldest" trees, planted in 2001. Another picture shows the final product, chestnut flour, which is stored in the freezer when not in use. The third picture shows our pride and joy, an American Chestnut tree grown from seed/nut which came from an original surviving American Chestnut, still living in Pennsylvania. Missouri may be west of the Mississippi River where few if any original of these trees lived, but they can grow here, so maybe now is a good time to experiment. Enjoy.
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Chestnut sprouts
In the woods here in east and east-central Kentucky, you can often find significant number of American Chestnut sprouts in the woods. The grow from old roots, then die back after several years when the blight gets to them, and before they can reproduce. It's really amazing how after all of these years they still persist. They were by far the most dominant tree in the Appalachian forests, and not only provided immense amounts of food for people and wildlife, but the wood was incredibly rot resistant (almost as much as redwood). That's why you can still find some downed American Chestnuts here and there, particularly in the Smokies.
The breeding programs they've got going on are trying to cross the most resistant American stock with the Chinese, and cross it back to get a 90-something percent American Chestnut that will have the growth characteristics of the American with the resistance of the Chinese Chestnut. As I understand it, they've gotten pretty far with it and are working on test plots with mixed success.