Have you ever seen chestnuts growing on trees? People who have not seen thought chestnuts and potatoes as long as the soil, chestnut appearance is brownish-red shell, but it turns out that the chestnuts on the tree like a hedgehog curled up into a ball, and the root of the thorns are green or brown. When the curled hedgehog cracked mouth, revealing the chestnut brown-red shell.

The chestnut tree is a tree, about 20 meters high, the fruit of the chestnut tree - chestnut, long in the tree is like a curled hedgehog, in it fell to the ground, did not reveal the brown-red skin before, how do people know it can be eaten?

Thinking of this, can not help but marvel at the magic of nature, we need to survive: air, sunlight, water, a variety of plants, including chestnut trees, nature has long been ready for us. So, what is the first person to eat chestnuts?

Some people say that the first to eat chestnuts is Shennong's, is not there Shennong tasted a hundred herbs? Shennong's in order to find plants that can be eaten by humans, tasted all the flowers, fruits, stems and leaves. This inference, also makes sense, but the chestnut is not Shennong's tasted, there is really no written record.

Chestnut tree, the earliest written record is the "Poetry Classic" Yong Feng - Ding's Fangzhong: Ding's Fangzhong, made in the Chu Palace, premiered to the day, made in the Chu room, tree hazelnut, chair Tung Zi lacquer, I cut the piano mulberry. The "hazelnut and chestnut" refers to the hazelnut and chestnut trees. It means that 3000 years ago, our ancestors have planted chestnut trees, and found that the wood of the chestnut tree has a variety of uses.

Chestnut tree, the wood is dense and hard, clear texture, wear-resistant, corrosion-resistant. Until today, chestnut wood is still a high-end raw material for solid wood furniture. The ancients planted and used chestnut trees, is the best use of things, chestnut wood used to do utensils, the fruit can be eaten.

When did the ancients start to make chestnuts for food?

The Records of the Grand Historian records that Su Qin lobbied Yan Wenhou, saying "the South has the Jieshi Yanmen's raison d'etre, and the North has the benefit of the jujube and chestnut, although the people do not tenant work and enough to jujube and chestnut carry on." Su Qin lobbied six countries against the Qin, is the period of the Warring States, then, the ancients have been chestnuts and jujube juxtaposed, jujube and chestnut for the same wood, its fruit is also the same as food.

Chestnut tree from ancient times to today, its use is still to do wood, with food, and ancient times is different: chestnut wood to become a high-end high-quality wood, there are more ways to eat chestnuts.

How did the ancients eat chestnuts? Boiled, roasted, or fried? Do they make fried chestnuts with sugar?

A series of Yuan and Ming era murals in Guangsheng Temple in Hongdong County, Shanxi Province, depicting scenes of life in society at the time, include a painting of a maid roasting chestnuts under a charcoal fire. It is said that they were also eaten boiled, but roasted chestnuts have a more flavorful taste. Fried chestnuts are eaten by the working people in their lives, and slowly work out a more delicious way of eating them, which was later perfected until it developed into today's fried chestnuts with sugar.

The eating method of chestnuts roasted on charcoal fire, which reminds people of the idiom "chestnuts in the fire". Previously, it was thought that the idiom came from an old Chinese story, however, the idiom "chestnuts in the fire" comes from the 17th century, the French poet La Fontaine's fable "The Monkey and the Cat".

This is a new discovery, the original chestnut tree is not only China, foreign countries also have, America, Europe and other regions of the Earth's climate is suitable for chestnut trees. The difference is the variety of chestnut trees, and the way to eat chestnuts.

The most common way for foreigners to eat chestnuts is to roast them, without sugar, directly on the grill. Chinese people eat chestnuts in many different ways.

Simply eat chestnuts, boiled, roasted, fried, air-dried to eat, in addition to our often eaten sugar fried chestnuts, and pulling the chestnuts of the delicious is also worth trying.

Chestnut flour as fancy staple food, chestnut flour steamed buns, rolls, if you do the filling, plus other seasonings, chestnut red date buns, chestnut pumpkin cake, chestnut dumplings, etc., or with a variety of grains with the porridge, is also a good taste.

If you are balancing the nutrition of chestnuts, you can match the vegetables and meat dishes, there are chestnut roast chicken, chestnut roast duck, chestnut roast meat, etc., with a variety of meat mix and match, increase protein nutrition.

There is a centuries-old dish called: chestnut roasted vegetables, once known by the ancients, into the dish plate similar to the mushroom heart, but its taste is the sweetness of the chestnut, and the heart of the soft fragrance, eat a kind of extreme flavor.

This is a famous dish in Hunan cuisine, born more than 1000 years ago. It is said that the famous literary wizard of the Western Jin Dynasty, Lu Gui, a famous Luoyang writer, commented on this dish: "Chestnut, all the five parties, but Yuyang Fanyang born of the sweet and delicious long, the place is not as good as also." ? dish with Yuyang's chestnuts, that is, today's chestnuts in Xinglong, Hebei, chestnuts are local specialties, no wonder they were praised by the ancients.

Just don't know where the ancients used the heart of the vegetable, if you use the Shanghai green to match the chestnut of this famous specialty, intoxicated by the delicious ancients how to praise this delicious it?