Chestnuts, more than many other things, make me happily nostalgic for the time I spent living in Italy. Although I knew the refrain well from Christmas carols, I’d never actually eaten a chestnut until my Italian mamma Maria Teresa made them for me. At the time, I was studying in Florence and coming down to Rome on the weekends for a visit. At one point, she stated that it was chestnut season, noting that Tuscan chestnuts were sweeter and thus preferable to those grown in Lazio. I proceeded to bring her several kilos every weekend for the rest of chestnut season.

The first time I brought them to her, she excitedly put them in a frying pan on the stove, after slicing the dark brown part against the grain. She covered the pan and let them heat up, and when we started to hear a popping sound, she removed them from the heat and put them on a plate. After admonishing us to wait until they cooled to dig in, she finally proffered one to me — and I promptly put the entire thing in my mouth. Every Italian around started either to laugh or lunge in horror as I began the spit it back out…ma lo devi sbuciare prima! You must take the shell off first! What did I know? I’d never had one before. Choking and laughing aside, I finally dug into the surprisingly sweet meat of the nut. Then, I finished off the plate.