Châtains, anyone?

Do you know what châtains are? If not, don't worry. I didn't know exactly what they were either until I'd spent almost two hours picking them off the ground with my host mother in the middle of a random forest in Alsace a few days ago.

With all my blog posts about Ireland and my trip to the opera, I forgot to mention that I woke up late last Sunday morning planning to get a lot of work done after my week-long trip, yet was thwarted at breakfast when my host mother asked me "Est-ce que tu voudrais ramasser des châtains cet après-midi dans la forêt?"

And I responded "Bien sûr!" Because really, when else do you have the opportunity to pick whatever the heck châtains are in a forest on a Sunday afternoon? I know I've certainly never been offered that opportunity before, so I seized my chance to get cultured (?) or at least to learn something new, and I said yes.

Which is why, a few hours later, I found myself standing in the middle of a random forest in the middle of nowhere, Alsace, France, with my host mother, one of her neighbors, and Ella, the other college student who is staying with my host family this semester. And we were looking for châtains, whatever the heck they were. Marlene handed my thick gloves, telling me that I don't want the prickly spikes to hurt me (what is it that I'm looking for??) and a bag to keep the gathered châtains in.

Ella was the first to find a few châtains, but I wandered around the forest for a good five minutes before discovering any. Using a stick, I brushed away the leaves that coated the forest floor, and then... voilà! They look exactly like garlic cloves that are brown in color, and they can be found in a prickly shell that is actually pretty easy to spot among the fallen leaves. After a bit, I caught on very quickly, and scoured the forest floor looking for more châtains. I felt like a squirrel. I felt awesome. It was a huge treasure hunt for these châtain things (obviously some sort of nut variety, but not ones I had ever really encountered before).

We were in the forest for about two hours total. My back started to hurt after a while, so I'm glad the hunt didn't take all day, but I was proud of how much I had collected. My host mother's neighbor (who seemed like the expert in searching for châtains) estimated that I had found about 1.5 to 2 kilos of these nuts--which means anywhere from 3.3 to 4.4 pounds! Ella was the big winner though: she managed to find about 3 kilo (6.6 pounds)!

My host mother and her neighbor kept talking about how exactly they were going to preserve the nuts until the holidays, and it clicked in my head: these châtains must be chestnuts! (Indeed they are.) It hit me when I thought of a lyric to that old Christmas song: "Chestnuts roasting on an open fire...."

After we arrived home from our successful chestnut gathering, the four of us drank bowls of hot chocolate (yep, the French use bowls for their hot chocolate and coffee) until Ella and I had to go start our homework. Oh, life in Alsace. Such a lovely afternoon.