What is the use of adding sugar when frying chestnuts?

Purple rotten pear and red wrinkled jujube, but the chestnut is always sweeter than the Yi chestnut. In the increasingly bleak late autumn, the hot sugar-roasted chestnuts can be called a "gift". I believe that many people will ask themselves when they peel the sweet chestnut kernels with their hands and bite them with their teeth, and then put them into their mouths:

Why are chestnuts fried in a pile of sand? Why are the sand sprinkled with sugar that can't even penetrate the hard shell?

Sugar-roasted chestnuts | Wikimedia Commons

Sugar-roasted chestnuts have no sugar taste?

The first question is easy to answer - sand and stone have strong heat absorption capacity and can maintain a stable temperature for a long time, so that the chestnuts can be heated evenly . The same principle can also be used to fry peanuts in shells. Even Emperor Qianlong, a master of poetry and seals, would answer this question: "The small ones are cooked while the big ones are raw, and the big ones are cooked while the small ones are burnt. The big and small ones must be cooked evenly, and the fire must be adjusted. "

Although these rhyme-like poems represent his literary level, they are not his original works, but "borrowed" from the story of Xiao Han Jianu, a great Confucian scholar in the Liao Dynasty.

This person was in charge of Nanjing Liyuan. The Nanjing mentioned by Liao Dynasty was not the capital of Jiangsu Province today, but the area southwest of Beijing, which is exactly where chestnuts are produced. Later, when Emperor Xingzong of Liao asked Xiao Han's slave about what he had seen and heard outside, he used the trick of roasting chestnuts to talk about the view of "not one size fits all" in employing people: "I only know how to roast chestnuts: if the small ones are ripe, the big ones will be raw; if the big ones are ripe, the small ones will be burnt . Only when the big and small ones are cooked, will they be perfect." It seems that Qianlong only understood the literal meaning.

Sand is a necessity｜Pixabay

The sticky sugar on the surface of the fried chestnuts seems to have the effect of only dirtying your fingers, just like the drooping lettuce in the egg-filled pancake. Moreover, the thin syrup cannot penetrate the chestnut skin and does not increase the sweetness of the chestnut kernel. However, the store does not add sugar to the chestnuts to increase the sweetness. The role of sugar is to stick to the impurities on the skin , making the chestnuts look shiny and smell sweet. The name "sugar fried" also makes customers feel more tempting than simple "fried" .

A chestnut tree at home is like having a mine

The history of chestnut cultivation in China can be traced back to the Zhou Dynasty, and the history of collecting and eating chestnuts is even longer.

The character "栗" in oracle bone script vividly depicts the shape of a tree full of hairy chestnuts.

Chestnuts appear frequently in the Book of Songs. Not only do they grow on mountains and lowlands, they are also planted as roadside trees. Chestnut trees are also planted in the king's imperial gardens. Chestnuts are an offering for sacrificial ceremonies ["the food baskets (biān) are actually made of chestnuts"], and the wood is the designated raw material for making ancestral temple tablets .

Han Feizi recorded the story of the famine in Qin, when Fan Ju asked King Zhaoxiang of Qin to give chestnuts and acorns from the inner garden to relieve the famine. A family with a large number of chestnut trees had inexhaustible wealth, and "the people of Yan and Qin who had a thousand chestnut trees were equal to marquises with a thousand households ."

The chestnut tree is tall and lush. There is a "Hundred Knights Chestnut Tree" in Sicily, Italy, which still exists today. Legend has it that its branches and leaves once protected a hundred knights of the Kingdom of Aragon from thunderstorms, hence the name｜Wikimedia Commons

Chestnut wood is solid, so the word "栗" also means hard. Based on this, the phono-semantic character "慄" was created to express fear, such as "不寒而慄". Now the two characters are combined into one. The mausoleums of Han Dynasty emperors were originally made of a large amount of cypress wood, which was called "Huangchangtichou". Later, because the cypress wood was almost cut down, it was replaced by chestnut wood, which has a similar texture and thickness, but is darker in color, and was ridiculed by later generations as "Heichangtichou".

Guidelines for Eating Chestnuts

Ancient people usually paid more attention to the original flavor of chestnuts when eating them, and they could be eaten steamed, boiled, simmered, or raw. " A pile of chestnuts fried to a deep yellow color on a plate, guests came to talk for a long time and asked for wine to taste", and there were records of "fried chestnuts" at least in the Song Dynasty.

The poet Lu You not only loved cats but also chestnuts. When he was old, he wrote a poem lamenting that his teeth were loose, but fortunately he could still eat some roasted chestnuts as a midnight snack, and recalled the past when he ate chestnuts when he was young: "It evokes the dream of my youth in the imperial chariot, and the early morning court outside the Hening Gate." It turns out that when he was waiting to go to court, he did not forget to eat some chestnuts. Lu You also recalled an event in his notes. At that time, the most famous chestnut shop in Bianjing was called " Li He Roasted Chestnuts ", which was a level that could only be imitated but not surpassed. Many years after the fall of the North, the envoys of the Southern Song Dynasty went to Yanshan. Li He's two sons sent ten bags of chestnuts to the envoys from their homeland, which made them sigh.

Roasting is the easiest way, but be careful to cut a small hole first, otherwise the chestnuts will burst｜Pixabay

But the frying method at that time may be different from today's sugar-fried chestnuts. Lin Hong of the Southern Song Dynasty wrote in "Shan Jia Qing Gong" that the way to cook chestnuts is to put a chestnut dipped in oil and a chestnut dipped in water in a " diào " shaped like a teapot, then pile up 47 chestnuts, put the diào in the charcoal fire and heat it. When you hear a popping sound, it means it is cooked .

Wang Xiangjin of the Ming Dynasty recorded a similar method of frying chestnuts; choose two flat-bottomed chestnuts, wet the bottoms with oil and water respectively, put them together on the bottom of a pot, pile chestnuts on top, cover tightly and cook until cooked; or cut a cross in the bottom of the large chestnut shell with a knife, arrange them bottom down in the pot, sprinkle a pinch of salt around the pot, and heat and simmer until cooked.

More complicated ways of eating include "plum blossom breast" which is eating chestnuts sliced ​​thinly and olive slices together, "golden jade soup" which is stewing yam and chestnuts in mutton soup, and " chestnut cake " which is mixing chestnut flour with glutinous rice flour and steaming it with honey water. More recently, we are more familiar with chestnut braised cabbage and chestnut roasted chicken.

What? Chestnuts can be salty?

Japan and South Korea, both of which belong to the East Asian cultural sphere, also have a long history of eating chestnuts. These two countries mainly grow Japanese chestnuts (Castanea crenata Sieb. & Zucc.), which are different species from the Chinese chestnut (C. mollissima Bl.), the European chestnut (C. sativa Mill.), and the American chestnut (C. dentata Borkh.).

In Japanese, the word for removing the chestnut skin is pronounced the same as the word for victory, so ancient warriors believed that it symbolized victory. There are stories circulating in many places in Japan that "under the blessing of a certain celebrity, the chestnut trees here bear fruit three times a year ." The relevant celebrities include Master Kukai, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and Master Shinran, similar to the legend of the same food in China, which has its origins in Liu Xiu, Li Shimin, and Cixi. The traditional way of eating chestnuts in Japan includes desserts such as chestnut gold balls and chestnut yokan , as well as staple foods such as chestnut rice. Under the influence of Western tastes, chestnut cakes and chestnut ice cream have also appeared.

Chestnut rice | Wikimedia Commons

Chestnuts are also a must-eat food during the Mid-Autumn Festival in Korea. In ancient China, there was a utopian myth called "Peach Blossom Spring". Korea actually has one too, but their utopia is called " Chestnut Island Kingdom ", which is where Hong Gildong, a hero who resisted tyranny, lived after sailing away. This also shows the importance of chestnuts.

In Europe, chestnuts were once an important source of carbohydrates. The high starch content made it a staple food substitute , and the taste was much better than acorns, which also had a high starch content. It was known as the "poor man's bread." If you want to know how to eat chestnuts as a staple food, you might as well go to Corsica, Napoleon's hometown, to taste it. Chestnut flour can be used to make pancakes and doughnuts. Although it is not low in calories, we can hardly resist its delicious taste.

Mont Blanc Chestnut Cake｜Pixabay

In addition, there is also the famous chestnut cake. The cake shape we are used to seeing in China is to mix the delicate chestnut paste and cream, and then put it on the sponge cake slices. This method is called " Mont Blanc " in France, and the cream is the snow on the chestnut peak. There is another kind of chestnut cake that is baked with chestnut powder instead of flour, which looks quite solid.

Candied chestnuts are also a dessert with a long history. The peeled whole chestnuts are soaked and boiled in syrup with vanilla and brandy for many times, and the concentration of the syrup is continuously increased until the chestnuts absorb sugar to saturation, becoming real "sugar chestnuts". It is the favorite of the heroine of "The Lady of the Camellias".

Roasted chestnuts on an iron plate｜Pixabay

The "fundamentalist way of eating chestnuts" in Europe usually involves cooking raw chestnuts with fire , hence the fable of "picking chestnuts from the fire". In order to prevent the chestnuts from being burned, they are usually placed on a wire mesh or roasted in a clay pot with holes. Boiled chestnuts are mostly salty, usually cooked in water with salt and fennel . Catalonia still has a special "Chestnut Festival". In early November, people put dust on their faces and jump over the bonfire of roasted chestnuts to pray for good luck. Later, it was combined with some Halloween celebrations.

The end of the American chestnut

In North America, the distribution of American chestnuts was also very extensive, providing people with food and wood. Because chestnut wood has a high tannin content and is resistant to decay, in the 19th century, American railway sleepers, telephone poles, coal mine pillars, etc. were almost all made of chestnut wood, which can be said to have made great contributions to the development of industry.

But now, the American chestnut has almost completely fallen to the attack of chestnut blight fungus (Cryphonectria parasitica). The Chinese chestnut and Japanese chestnut are resistant to chestnut blight, but the American chestnut and the European chestnut are not. This pathogenic fungus was introduced to North America on imported Asian chestnut trees.

19th century American print depicting chestnut picking | Wikimedia Commons

Inspections in 1906 showed that 98% of chestnut trees in the Bronx, New York, were infected . The fungus can be spread through the air, and within a few decades, 3 billion American chestnut trees have become "living dead trees" - when the main stem dies, new shoots will sprout from the roots, which will continue to be infected, so they are classified as functionally extinct. Currently, only a few hundred trees survive, making it the first species to be endangered due to fungal infection .

The fate of the American chestnut is lamentable, and it also makes people feel that "it is better to cherish the chestnuts in front of you." So, why not have one?

Author: Yaohua

Title image source: Pixabay

This article comes from GuokrNature (ID: GuokrNature)