The Chestnut Grower

I like chestnuts. And I like to eat chestnuts.

In our family, we eat them lots of different ways. Paola likes the traditional Italian caldarroste. Emilio prefers them as a soup (his favorite chestnut soup recipe is in “The Joy of Cooking.”) I eat them boiled. Tonight I fixed chestnuts in a spicy fish curry with coriander and coconut milk. Some friends of ours, Anita and Kate and Ben, had harvested the chestnuts locally and gave them to me as a gift. They were the first ripe chestnuts I’ve seen this season and they were really tasty. I look forward to preparing and tasting many more chestnuts in the coming few months. Some will be picked locally and others will have journeyed around the globe to get to my table.

I am flattered and humbled by my election to the office of President of the Chestnut Growers of America. Chestnuts can be, and should be, a part of a healthy diet and a healthy agriculture. As chestnut growers in the United States, we face challenges unique to our crop, but that we share with chestnut growers worldwide. Problems of cultivar choice, propagation, disease and pest control, harvest, handling, storage, and marketing are issues that we face together. Chestnut trees are being planted, all over the world, in the places that chestnuts have been grown traditionally, and in the places where chestnut growing has been only recently introduced.

Advances in plant breeding and molecular biology promise us blight-resistant and phytophthora-resistant chestnut trees. New (and newly rediscovered) knowledge about the ecological benefits of tree crops makes the chestnut more important now than ever before. Exciting new marketing opportunities are opening up to chestnut growers around the globe that allow farmers and consumers alike to benefit from locally grown and locally processed chestnuts. Our organization is the fulcrum for the lever of change in North American chestnut growing, and I am excited to be a part of it.

Hill