Chestnuts 栗子

栗子

there were lots of chestnut trees in Devon and Cornwall. When I went to Plymouth to study, I enjoyed picking them My friends who were all English teachers also enjoyed singing the song, "Under the Spreading Chestnust Tree..." We had a lot of fun.

.

My father used to tell my siblings and I about the lovely roasted chestnuts in the streets of Beijing. And also how in the cold winter he would stand with his friends near the stove, to warm their hands...and slowly they would buy some chestnuts...

He could have written a lovely short story based on those moments.

No wonder he liked chestnuts so much. My father actually did not have very good teeth so he liked to chew his food very very slowly. He would take his time to chew his rice dumplings slowly and he would use his chopsticks to pick out the lovely chestnut to admire. He would even dip his chestnut in soy sauce to add extra taste.

Today tourists and locals still flock around the chestnut sellers in the street corners of Beijing in winter. I never had a chance to experience that.

Chestnuts  or li zi (in Foochow) are very popularly used in making meat sweet in stews, in zongzi fillings, etc.

My maternal grandmother used to boil dried chestnuts in soy sauce and 5 spice with some belly pork and dried mushrooms...that was quite a memorable  Foochow dish.