Friday 4 November 2011

Roast chestnuts

At this time of year the smell of roast chestnuts is everywhere.

For two or three euros you can buy a dozen roast chestnuts off a street seller and fill up your stomach with stodgy loveliness that warms up chilly hands to boot. These days they'll also sell you half a dozen... times are tough.

When you approach the chestnut "cart" the seller gets a sheet of telephone directory paper fashions it into a cone and drops in the chestnuts giving the cone a final twist to seal the heat in.

The chestnut sellers have a wonderful contraption especially designed for roasting the nuts - the design of which has probably not changed much in 150 years - that is oftentimes mounted on the back of a motorcycle. You only see them at this time of year - chestnut season - and I suspect that they've been under lock and key whilst their owners have been selling ice creams over the summer.

Hurrah for little warm parcels of Portuguese autumn pleasure!

4 comments:

  1. Hurrah to chestnuts, portuguese chestnuts from Trás-os-Montes, all roasted and hot!

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  2. Delicious... just have to convince somebody to set up a cart outside my house!

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  3. ... or outside mine in Notting Hill! It's cold enough for them over here!

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  4. Quando você fez este post, em 4/11/2011, eu chegava em Portugal (Porto) pela primeira vez em 18 anos! E neste exato dia, um amigo comprou na rua e me ofereceu as primeiras castanhas assadas que eu comi na vida. E ainda posso sentir o gosto, só de comentar!
    Que SAUDADE! (nossa mais bela palavra)
    abraços de um carioca que se considera tuga-voluntário.

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