On 'Triggering' Joy!
- Pete
- Dec 15, 2024
- 7 min read
Updated: Jan 11, 2025
I recently read an article by Dr. Nicole LePera discussing emotional 'triggers' and how they can affect our lives. I know I've got my fair share of triggers from a childhood filled with back to back traumas, and maybe you do as well... but I want to share a different experience with triggers, a much happier one! An experience that brings me great joy, so much in fact that I can physically feel it!
As a young child growing up in the city of Toronto, Ontario, I got to experience a full four seasons each year. That's significant to me since where I now live we really only experience two seasons, summer and winter, the rest are 'shoulder seasons' that happen literally almost overnight. Here on coastal Vancouver Island, close to sea level, the summers are cool and the winters are milder and WET. We rarely get temperatures below zero C and snow falls once or twice a winter and lasts for only a few days at elevations below two hundred and fifty metres. I miss the snow and freezing cold sometimes... I grew up with snowy winters and spent a fair portion of my later adult life guiding and playing in the high alpine! So 'winter' is a season that does hold some fond memories for me. A trigger to one of those memories is what I want to share withy you today!
Yesterday I was at the grocery store picking up some fresh veggies for dinner. As I walked into the store my senses came alive! I caught the scent of something in the air that literally gave me a warm shiver up and down my spine... fresh roasted chestnuts! That scent had acted as a trigger for certain emotions I had subconsciously pushed deep down with most of my other not-so-great childhood memories. The memory flash was my dad and I walking along the streets in downtown Toronto, oh circa 1972ish, looking for Christmas gifts for my mom and Babba. Street cart vendors were common back then and most of them roasted on-sight and sold hot roasted chestnuts that came about five or six in a wee paper bag. I remember that warm, sweet-nutty smelling bag being SO nice to hold in the cold winter air! We would walk along, my dad holding my hand, and munch on warm chestnuts! Up until a few years ago, I perceived triggers to be my enemy. I avoided them, pushed them away and literally ran from them... too much pain to constantly bring forward and re-live in my mind. Somewhere along the way I realized that triggers were not a bad thing and that instead of viewing them as a negative experience, I began diving into them head first! I worked through them, identifying what they were, making peace with the emotional battlefield that they seemed to regurgitate, and laying them to rest, one at a time. Do I still get triggered? Yes. But the process of healing has become an intuitive habit now and this happens in a negative way much less than before! So, back to roasted chestnuts! I want to share the amazing health benefits of roasted chestnuts and give you a solid recipe to enjoy these yummy nuts yourself! This may even create a joyous trigger for you in years to come!
Please keep in mind that we are talking about Castanea sativa and not the common North American Horse Chestnut, Aesculus hippocastanum which is toxic if eaten. The consumption of roasted Castanea sativa dates back to millennia BC in China and other places of the world. They are a super popular item in many European countries (Italy, Mediterranean, Portugal, Spain) and even caught on in the Americas as European immigrants brought many of their customs and foods with them. Popularity in North America waned early-on as the chestnut trees themselves had a hard time surviving diseases in their new environment. These little snacks are tough to beat when it comes to nutritional value! They are high in fibre, antioxidants, manganese, copper, B6, potassium, Vit C, thiamine, folate, riboflavin, and magnesium to mention a few! Chestnuts are naturally gluten free, and contain a healthy source of fibre. Their fibre is mostly insoluble which means it is more difficult to digest and acts as a scrubber of sorts in your digestive system (a good thing in moderation). This is of importance to those with IBD, Crohn's (if you have strictures that can cause a blockage) and other digestive diseases... just avoid eating too many at once, or eating them too frequently. I have Crohn's disease and eat up to five or six at a time, and maybe once or twice a week when they are in season. So where does one find and buy these yummy nuts?
Most good grocery store produce departments will offer fresh chestnuts in the late fall and early winter. Here in Wester Canada, most chestnuts are imported from China or Italy. I personally find the Italian chestnuts to be my favourite as they seem to be much easier to peel once roasted properly (more about that in a bit). It is quite rare to find North American edible chestnuts at the grocers here in Canada. Avoid just throwing a handful into a bag! Choose your chestnuts one at a time to escape mouldy or 'bad' ones. Avoid chestnuts that are cracked open, with dark spots, visible mould, or that are badly bruised. A good chestnut should be fairly firm, brown and fully intact. Ten to fifteen nuts should be good for your first adventure... you may or may not like them! Everyone has a different experience with taste, texture and nutritional value. Ok, you chose them, bought them and are home and ready to dive right into preparing them! Here we go... this is my Babba's recipe which originates with an old society of people, the Volga Deutche who lived in what is today western Ukraine.
I'm going to bullet list the cooking steps to make it easier to follow:
Wash your chestnuts in cold water. I scrub them with a produce brush. You may find that our modern chestnuts have a white powder visible on parts. I'm pretty sure that's some kind of preservative (no conspiracy theories here), so wash/scrub it off;
Use a dish towel to dry them before moving to the next step... cutting wet, slippery chestnuts with a sharp knife is NOT a good idea! *Bandages handy!
Disclaimer: This is the most difficult part of prepping chestnuts for roasting. Please use a sharp knife (I prefer a serrated blade) and be very mindful of what you are doing.
Look at each chestnut. Usually one side is flatter, the other more rounded. Turn the chestnut so it lies on the flat side with the rounded side up. If both sides are flat, choose one side you're happy with. Hold the chestnut with one hand firmly while pushing down. With your dominant hand slowly make the cut. Using a sharp knife, cut across the long side only skin deep (if you cut a bit deeper, no worries it gets better with practice!). This won't work with a dull knife. Sometimes easier with a serrated blade.
Now turn the chestnut ninety degrees, hold firmly once again and make a second, shorter cut from top to bottom - like a small cross. There, the most difficult part is done! Yaaaay!
The step most people forget or skimp out on - Place your cut chestnuts into a pot of cold water and let soak for ONE hour. This step will make it so much easier to peel your chestnuts once they are roasted!
Pre-heat your oven or toaster oven to 400 - 475 F (204 - 246 C). Place your chestnuts spread-out on a flat oven-safe cookie tray on a piece of baking parchment paper with the cut side up. Put in oven and bake for 20-30 minutes, turning two or three times throughout that time. *When you get to the 20 minute mark, check them frequently to get them just right. The shell should be curled up where cut and slightly burnt there. The inside should be a tan brown but not burnt.
Do this step to make your chestnuts easier to peel. Take them out of the oven and immediately wrap them up in a tea towel let to steam for 10-15 min. Unwrap from tea towel and get ready to peel and enjoy the warm nutty tasting meat!
What am I eating? Peel the thicker skin entirely, don't eat that. If the meaty inner part of the nut is covered in a finely fuzzy, thin inner skin, that's ok. It's ok to eat that. If you suffer from a GI disease like IBD or Crohn's, avoid eating too many like this (I find 5-6 at a sitting to be plenty). In my experience, chestnuts of Chinese origin often don't peel that thin inner skin. Chestnuts of European or Italian origin are I find, much easier to peel in their entirety.Your roasted chestnuts should look a shade of tan brown inside and meaty with some darker marks. It's ok if they are a bit hollow in the middle. They should not be dark or black in colour. That indicates a 'bad' chestnut and should not be eaten. It happens, it's natural or if many are bad, it may indicate that the chestnuts you purchased were quite old already, or improperly stored during transport.
So, all this from a scent trigger walking into a grocery store! Life truly works in mysterious ways, right! I hope you've enjoyed my article and recipe! Chestnuts are wonderful to snack on during winter storms while curled up in front of the wood stove with a great book and a nourishing tisane!
Please feel free to share... spread the love! Remember, a wonderful tisane of your choice after a good meal and during the colder winter months just soothes the soul!
Mia and I thank you for following along and hope you enjoy our roasted chestnut recipe. 'Like' the article, and please feel free to leave comments here on the blog (register with our website first) or e-mail us.
RESOURCES:
The history of Roasted Chestnuts
About Roasted Chestnuts
Dr. Nicole Lepera on 'Dealing with Emotional Triggers
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