Conker Season

[jim]

Not really a food topic but it is foraging.

The kids round here don't seem to play conkers. Never mind, all the more for the old woodburner!

Just 10 minutes gathering will get you loads. (Probably enough to fill a couple of those blue and white gaily striped carriers they give out at Dame Shirleys Grocery Emporium. Feel ashamed of yourself if you go there!)

Get them home and leave them to dry for a couple of weeks. It aint cold enough to light the burner yet anyway. Due to their high oil content they burn hot and bright. It's free and sustainable. And if you've got a bit of string you can have hours of innocent fun playing with them,

Love and Peace
Jim

[Shirley]

I'd just like to point out that I'm not the Shirley referred to here... I hope :D I run a food co-op though, but we don't use stripy bags hehehe

Not seen any conkers here but when we do we'll be playing conkers with the kids.

[Big Al]

Not really a food topic but it is foraging.

The kids round here don't seem to play conkers. Never mind, all the more for the old woodburner!

Just 10 minutes gathering will get you loads. (Probably enough to fill a couple of those blue and white gaily striped carriers they give out at Dame Shirleys Grocery Emporium. Feel ashamed of yourself if you go there!)

Get them home and leave them to dry for a couple of weeks. It aint cold enough to light the burner yet anyway. Due to their high oil content they burn hot and bright. It's free and sustainable. And if you've got a bit of string you can have hours of innocent fun playing with them,

Love and Peace
Jim

Now what's the difference between sweet chesnuts and conkers?? Can conkers be eaten and if not do sweet chesnuts have the same protective spiky case as conkers??

[Shirley]

conkers (horse chestnuts) can't be eaten, but sweet chestnuts can! Sweet chestnuts do have a spiky case - but it's much more spiny and sharp - like a porcupine.

[Loobyloo]

Just to tangent a little further into sweet chestnuts:

I found a load at the weekend which I duly picked up and put in my basket. However they are well and truly sealed and so I'm assuming not ready for eating yet? Where should I keep them to enourage them to ripen?

If I'd left them in the woods they would all have been munched before they were ripe.

x

[jim]

Dear Loobyloo,

Found the same last week, they're still growing. Leave them on the tree for another week and try then, they should be closer to eating by then. Put the ones you've gathered in the shed or conservatory 'til they open. They'll prabably be a bit smaller though,

Love and Peace
Jim

[Loobyloo]

Thank you!!

I probably wouldn't have gathered them so early but there were loads of them strewn accross the path in front of me and I couldn't help myself!

[gdb]

The Sweet Chestnut and the Horse Chestnut (Conker tree) are not related at all as far as I know. Even though both are called chestnut and both are nuts inside a spiky shell....

Both grow in the UK but only the Horse Chestnut really does well. And what nuts a Sweet Chestnut may produce are often barely filled - in other words, theres often nowt inside to speak of.

In France (Limousin for example) it's the other way around; the Horse Chestnut is pretty unusual. Whilst the floor of the woods in Autumn is inches deep in well-filled chestnuts of the edible kind. Because the Sweet Chestnut prefers a warm sunny climate whilst the Horse Chestnut quite likes a bit of rain.

As wood, for using, the Sweet Chestnut is one of the best in the world. Very strong. Very durable. Very attractive too. On a par with all but the best Oak. (When I had a house in France all the old timbers were of Sweet Chestnut - and nearly 200 years old and going strong!)

Sadly, here in Sweden, it's pine, beech, birch or moss......

[Rod in Japan]

gdb, it's the same here in Japan. There are no conkers at all, but sweet chestnuts are found all over the place, and chestnut is a common autumn food.

My son was well taken with conkers when he first encountered them, and I was forced to recount all my childhood conker lore for his delight (including baking in the oven and non-Queensbury antics with superglue).

I have an acorn tree in my garden, and killing the baby acorn trees in the spring is a real hassle. Drying and burning them seems like a good idea.

[MikeM]

The Sweet Chestnut and the Horse Chestnut (Conker tree) are not related at all as far as I know. Even though both are called chestnut and both are nuts inside a spiky shell....

Both grow in the UK but only the Horse Chestnut really does well. And what nuts a Sweet Chestnut may produce are often barely filled - in other words, theres often nowt inside to speak of.

erm, I work in a woodlands full of sweet chestnuts. We have so many that the thousands that fell down in the storms of '87 are still being harvested for use on the estate. As for the nuts, I get bagfulls of the things every year.

[Millymollymandy]

I was under the impression that sweet chestnut trees didn't grow in areas where the soil is alkaline.

[MikeM]

well, the soil where I work is clay on chalk. I've never tested it, but I'd guess it's pretty alkaline.

[gdb]

The Sweet Chestnut and the Horse Chestnut (Conker tree) are not related at all as far as I know. Even though both are called chestnut and both are nuts inside a spiky shell....

Both grow in the UK but only the Horse Chestnut really does well. And what nuts a Sweet Chestnut may produce are often barely filled - in other words, theres often nowt inside to speak of.

erm, I work in a woodlands full of sweet chestnuts. We have so many that the thousands that fell down in the storms of '87 are still being harvested for use on the estate. As for the nuts, I get bagfulls of the things every year.

MikeM, it's true that there are place in the UK - especially southern England - where the Sweet Chestnut does very well. But as a rule it doesnt produce full nuts because, in the average year, it doesnt get enough warm sunshine in autumn. Of course nature doesnt know much about rules.

All the same you're very fortunate to have them in such abundance.

[jenko]

jus out of curiosity,
i know that u cant eat horse chesnuts (conkers), and at the start of this topic, you can burn them well aswell, but do they have any other properties, other than feeding the friendly nabour hood squirel, and keeping the odd spider out of the corner of your windo (old wives tale, but works), i meen can you use them atall for medicanal purposes or even to help the taste in alcohol or other presering techniqes, i bet there good when smoking fish and meat.

[Ellendra]

Some tribes used them as fish poison. It stunned the fish temporarily, causing them to float up where they could be gathered by hand. When it wore off, the little fishies would just swim away.