Thanks for your video,, I found a very large sweet chestnut tree near where I live in Bingley, west yorkshire. [5 mins walk from my house] I have never seen it before but I knew it was not a conquer tree [had thousands of them when I was a kid back in the 70s],, I'm now sure that it is a sweet chestnut tree. I took 6 large ones home and cooked them in the oven, They were very nice and I didn't get any upset belly or any signs of being unwell...I will be back for some more.Thanks Dave.
I have been collecting them too this year, they are not always good enough this far North, it just depends on the weather. You would find Horse Chestnuts (conkers) very bitter. Sweet chestnust on the other hand can even be eaten raw, I have been munching on them in the woods the past few days. They are slightly bitter but I am now used to bitter so they taste OK to me now raw. I take some leather gloves with me as they are a bit spiky. All the best and thanks for the feed back
Great video. I live in the U.S. where Almond, Pecan, Pistachio, and believe it or not, English Walnut is far more common of a nut grown out here. We do have of course the American Chestnut, which is delicious, and used to be the most dominant nut tree in North America. Unfortunately, this tree was almost rendered extinct by a fungus blight. We've made attempts to get the population back and it's coming back slowly. Regarding Italian Chestnut, my family is from Italy and I grew up roasting Chestnuts in the winter, especially around Christmas. The nuts came from family tress in Abruzzo Italy. I had no idea until I was older that that American variety were just as good. I know seek them out wherever I can find them. They are not native to the Western U.S., where I live.
It is good that people still know what we can harvest, we are far too reliant on supermarkets, but then there are a lot of us now. I am just finishing on harvesting apples, mostly to bottle/can but we also freeze some. I may experiment next year at dehydrating them but really we rarely get the weather for it to be a viable preserving option but I will just try it to see. As for Sweet Chestnuts the trees here only bear usable nuts about once every three or four years probably dependent on the weather. In the south of England they are much better off as it is always up to four or five degrees warmer. Acorn from the Oak are always good and make flour but you have to mix it with some regular flour as it has little gluten in it. Well have a good weekend and thanks for your comments we are all just learning little by little 😀
I just bought some Italian chestnuts and for some reason it says not to eat raw, and I'm not understanding that. Can you tell me why. ? I've always eating chestnuts raw as they are my favorite that way.
Know your chestnuts. We've not got a massive crop down here in the South UK this year. As a boy, my friends and I spent many hours collecting and eating sweet chestnuts - raw. When they're cooked correctly, the inner skin, which is bitter and sticky, comes off very easily. Big tip for boiling: make sure you under-cook them, otherwise when you peel them, you also mash them and the whole shooting match turns into a cross between mashed potato and wallpaper paste! Great video as per usual, chestnuts are my favourite foraged food 🌰🌰🌰🌰🌰🌰🌰
Unfortunately we visit Bisley at the wrong time of year but I have been in October and got a fantastic haul of sweet chestnuts but I can't see us changing our schedule any time soon. I did try one of the conkers off camera, tasted a little bit like soap, but more research needed on that one, I have poisoned myself enough I think. All the Best and thanks for your valued contribution.
Thank you so much for this. I was walking to the store with my family yesterday and the stroller ran over what I thought were giant acorns at first glance. Then I saw some of them looked very furry looking. I had never actually seen a chestnut. Only heard songs about them. They were all over the sidewalk in a low traffic area. I want to go collect some. I didn't want to poison myself though. Lol
The sweet chestnuts are fairly easy to distinguish from the horse chestnut once you get your eye in, from both the outer "husk" and the seed itself. Split the skins a little and boil them for 10 minutes or so, they should be fairly sweet if you peel all the "skin" (including the dark membrane around the light colored seed), you might have to let them cool down a little. Do not eat too many at the first helping. Never rely on one you-tube video for your information though, always check a few out. All the best and enjoy your harvest.
Yes it is, but as I say they used to eat them in the Netherlands during the second world war as a famine food so perhaps they can be made edible with some processing but I have yet to find out how. Thanks for watching and thanks for commenting. All The Best
@@GrasshopperOutdoors my dad actually used to boil and bake them so they can be eaten to some extend, I don't remember dying from them and I was just a little kid. Also I don't think my dad would feed me something I could die from. That's actually why I'm watching this video, because people are saying they are actually poisenous! I was pretty confused, but I am from the netherlands however where they grow a lot.
@@nem3sis.yt_ Thank you, I have read that conkers were used as a famine food in times of extreme hardship. The main chemical of concern (toxic) is aesculin. It may be water soluble so I have considered processing them to be edible in small amounts but have to do more research before I try this myself. Your comments are useful, again thank you for sharing your experience, it is good to know.
Sir, thank you so much for showing us the difference between the poisonous and the edible. It looks like the leaves are also a little different. I really love the chestnut but they are so expensive in the stores here in Oregon. There were a couple of edible chestnut trees about 8 miles where I live and mother and I would gather the nuts and bring them home to cook. That's been a few years back but now they are gone, so very sad. I am going to see if can buy a couple of trees and plant them in our pasture. Thank you again for taking time to explain.
Yes you are right, the leaves are very different so that is also a good aid to the correct identification. The leaves here in the UK have now pretty much all fallen off the deciduous trees, everything is starting to look pretty dead, but if you look close you can see next springs buds have already formed. I think it will be a lot of years before a sweet chestnut tree starts to bear fruit, between 15-25 years old I would say. In the mean time you will have to search out some more mature ones to harvest in the autumn/fall. Best wishes.
Thanks and you are welcome, now if I can't find out how to make these conkers safe to eat I guess I will just have to use them to wash the clothes with :-)
Nuts! Yes my friend, you certainly are! ;-) keep up the good work and stop eating poisonous stuff! ps, we really need to have an autumn outing of forraging and merryment.
You don't think I did not try the conkers do you, I tried them and they tasted like soap. Anyway I found out how to process them to eat but at the end of it there is very little nutritional value left so it really is a last ditch famine food. As for the fungus I have been eating plenty of that as this is the time of year for fungus.
Many thanks, now what do I do with all these horse chestnuts (conkers). I am thinking it might be worth trying to detoxify them but have found that after the process the nutritional value is not a lot :-) Maybe I should just plant them instead ?
@@BushCraftBums Amazing how all these things were used hundreds of years ago, very interesting. We forget most these fancy chemicals are there in nature.
I do not think you would have eaten very many, unless you put them in something else, as the horse chestnuts taste pretty bad. The sweet chestnuts on the other hand are fairly sweet if you take care to get all the husk and skin off them. You did your research anyway so you can not be faulted. All the best
I was once in an out of the tourist part of Morroco (Safi) in a real bazaar talking to my brother and someone piped up, I know that accent, you are from Stockton, well close, Southern Outskirts of Middlesbrough. So I know Redcar or at least the South Gare Very well.
Great info. I didn't know about the soap uses from horse chesnuts/conkers. I did hear that the toxin is water soluble and that Native American people processed them for food. I wouldn't risk it as long as other food can be sourced. Cheers
You are quite right, in the second world war conkers were considered as a famine food after processing. I was going to try it out this year but left it a little late but I would not recommend processing and eating too much. When I can harvest conkers I can also harvest acorns which I have concentrated on this year. I make four with them but it is best to mix it about 40/60 with wheat flour as it does not bind too well. All the best
@@GrasshopperOutdoors thanks for your reply. I've heard that you'd have to blend it in a flour since there's no gluten. This is all great info to know just in case it's ever needed. Nature is amazing if you take the time to learn. Best wishes to you and yours
@@michellesovereign4564 This is true but like all things it is best to try it before you need it, there is always the unexpected :-) A bit like knowing how to start a fire using a bow drill set, it is not as easy as it can look and sometimes you have to know when you are flogging a dead horse :-) All the best
Educating myself as well by learning from others and from my mistakes, most of them sweet chestnuts were quite OK but a few were a bit cremated. My excuse though is filming makes it harder :-)
I know as we get older we get slower at learning (the computer gets full I guess) but we need to keep trying, if only to save ourselves a bit of money :-)
Excellent, it is great to be able to collect them to roast on the cold frosty nights. It has not been a good year for them up here this year, conkers and acorns yes, but beech nuts have not been so good either, I think they have a strategy of a bumper crop ever 3 - 5 years just to thwart the squirrels :-)
Indiana knows the horse chestnut as a buckeye we knew they were poisonous I didn't know there was any different not known the sweet Chestnut I learned something chestnuts can roast on an open fire LOL
sir can u plz answer that I bought a plant and the seller said its sweet chestnut but I dont know if its sweet or poisonous,it has 5 leaves set...is it edible
The horse chestnut has 5 to 7 lobes like a palm while the sweet chestnut has single elongated and serated leaves, this is a good way to tell them appart. All the best
Don't eat the horse chestnuts, they need an awful lot of processing before you could eat them and even then they are still very risky. It is a shame as there are so many of them at this time of year.
@@celiamonks5496 There is not a lot to loose by giving it a go, get a decent bed of hard wood coals and a baking tray with a little oil or butter on a decent evening and just give it a go. Remember to split the skins and just enjoy being outdoors.
Thanks for your video,, I found a very large sweet chestnut tree near where I live in Bingley, west yorkshire. [5 mins walk from my house] I have never seen it before but I knew it was not a conquer tree [had thousands of them when I was a kid back in the 70s],, I'm now sure that it is a sweet chestnut tree. I took 6 large ones home and cooked them in the oven, They were very nice and I didn't get any upset belly or any signs of being unwell...I will be back for some more.Thanks Dave.
I have been collecting them too this year, they are not always good enough this far North, it just depends on the weather. You would find Horse Chestnuts (conkers) very bitter. Sweet chestnust on the other hand can even be eaten raw, I have been munching on them in the woods the past few days. They are slightly bitter but I am now used to bitter so they taste OK to me now raw. I take some leather gloves with me as they are a bit spiky. All the best and thanks for the feed back
Amazing video man. I could watch this for hours.
Thanks for that I watched people collecting them by where I live and just wanted to double check before I gathered some. Hope there’s some left.
This is so interesting and very informative,thank you for sharing this video.
Great video. I live in the U.S. where Almond, Pecan, Pistachio, and believe it or not, English Walnut is far more common of a nut grown out here. We do have of course the American Chestnut, which is delicious, and used to be the most dominant nut tree in North America. Unfortunately, this tree was almost rendered extinct by a fungus blight. We've made attempts to get the population back and it's coming back slowly. Regarding Italian Chestnut, my family is from Italy and I grew up roasting Chestnuts in the winter, especially around Christmas. The nuts came from family tress in Abruzzo Italy. I had no idea until I was older that that American variety were just as good. I know seek them out wherever I can find them. They are not native to the Western U.S., where I live.
It is good that people still know what we can harvest, we are far too reliant on supermarkets, but then there are a lot of us now. I am just finishing on harvesting apples, mostly to bottle/can but we also freeze some. I may experiment next year at dehydrating them but really we rarely get the weather for it to be a viable preserving option but I will just try it to see.
As for Sweet Chestnuts the trees here only bear usable nuts about once every three or four years probably dependent on the weather. In the south of England they are much better off as it is always up to four or five degrees warmer. Acorn from the Oak are always good and make flour but you have to mix it with some regular flour as it has little gluten in it. Well have a good weekend and thanks for your comments we are all just learning little by little 😀
I just bought some Italian chestnuts and for some reason it says not to eat raw, and I'm not understanding that. Can you tell me why. ? I've always eating chestnuts raw as they are my favorite that way.
Know your chestnuts. We've not got a massive crop down here in the South UK this year. As a boy, my friends and I spent many hours collecting and eating sweet chestnuts - raw.
When they're cooked correctly, the inner skin, which is bitter and sticky, comes off very easily.
Big tip for boiling: make sure you under-cook them, otherwise when you peel them, you also mash them and the whole shooting match turns into a cross between mashed potato and wallpaper paste!
Great video as per usual, chestnuts are my favourite foraged food 🌰🌰🌰🌰🌰🌰🌰
Unfortunately we visit Bisley at the wrong time of year but I have been in October and got a fantastic haul of sweet chestnuts but I can't see us changing our schedule any time soon. I did try one of the conkers off camera, tasted a little bit like soap, but more research needed on that one, I have poisoned myself enough I think. All the Best and thanks for your valued contribution.
Thank you so much for this. I was walking to the store with my family yesterday and the stroller ran over what I thought were giant acorns at first glance. Then I saw some of them looked very furry looking. I had never actually seen a chestnut. Only heard songs about them. They were all over the sidewalk in a low traffic area. I want to go collect some. I didn't want to poison myself though. Lol
The sweet chestnuts are fairly easy to distinguish from the horse chestnut once you get your eye in, from both the outer "husk" and the seed itself. Split the skins a little and boil them for 10 minutes or so, they should be fairly sweet if you peel all the "skin" (including the dark membrane around the light colored seed), you might have to let them cool down a little. Do not eat too many at the first helping. Never rely on one you-tube video for your information though, always check a few out. All the best and enjoy your harvest.
Its a shame you cant eat conkers because they do look inviting and at the right time of year you could collect bucket fulls of them.
Yes it is, but as I say they used to eat them in the Netherlands during the second world war as a famine food so perhaps they can be made edible with some processing but I have yet to find out how. Thanks for watching and thanks for commenting. All The Best
@@GrasshopperOutdoors my dad actually used to boil and bake them so they can be eaten to some extend, I don't remember dying from them and I was just a little kid. Also I don't think my dad would feed me something I could die from. That's actually why I'm watching this video, because people are saying they are actually poisenous! I was pretty confused, but I am from the netherlands however where they grow a lot.
@@nem3sis.yt_ Thank you, I have read that conkers were used as a famine food in times of extreme hardship. The main chemical of concern (toxic) is aesculin. It may be water soluble so I have considered processing them to be edible in small amounts but have to do more research before I try this myself. Your comments are useful, again thank you for sharing your experience, it is good to know.
Sir, thank you so much for showing us the difference between the poisonous and the edible. It looks like the leaves are also a little different. I really love the chestnut but they are so expensive in the stores here in Oregon. There were a couple of edible chestnut trees about 8 miles where I live and mother and I would gather the nuts and bring them home to cook. That's been a few years back but now they are gone, so very sad. I am going to see if can buy a couple of trees and plant them in our pasture. Thank you again for taking time to explain.
Yes you are right, the leaves are very different so that is also a good aid to the correct identification. The leaves here in the UK have now pretty much all fallen off the deciduous trees, everything is starting to look pretty dead, but if you look close you can see next springs buds have already formed. I think it will be a lot of years before a sweet chestnut tree starts to bear fruit, between 15-25 years old I would say. In the mean time you will have to search out some more mature ones to harvest in the autumn/fall. Best wishes.
Morning buddy 😁 👍. Bloody interesting that. Thanks for sharing mate Andy 🇬🇧 👍 ☕
Thanks and you are welcome, now if I can't find out how to make these conkers safe to eat I guess I will just have to use them to wash the clothes with :-)
Nuts! Yes my friend, you certainly are! ;-) keep up the good work and stop eating poisonous stuff! ps, we really need to have an autumn outing of forraging and merryment.
You don't think I did not try the conkers do you, I tried them and they tasted like soap. Anyway I found out how to process them to eat but at the end of it there is very little nutritional value left so it really is a last ditch famine food. As for the fungus I have been eating plenty of that as this is the time of year for fungus.
As kids in England we would harvest the horse chest nut to play conquers at school
Yes as did I, probably banned now on grounds of ........
Thanks for sharing I love this
I love foraging for things you can eat, but be careful as some plants, and animals can make you very ill. All the best
You sir are a real man! Thank you!
Everyone should experience the outdoors and gain a little independence, start small and it is not hard. Atb
Very informative. Actually the most easiest on yt. Ty
Thankyou, your time taken to watch and comment is appreciated
Hey brother! Great information! Thanks for sharing. Have a blessed one.
Many thanks, now what do I do with all these horse chestnuts (conkers). I am thinking it might be worth trying to detoxify them but have found that after the process the nutritional value is not a lot :-) Maybe I should just plant them instead ?
@@GrasshopperOutdoors not sure of the legality but the 1st nations people here made fishing toxins out of them
@@BushCraftBums Amazing how all these things were used hundreds of years ago, very interesting. We forget most these fancy chemicals are there in nature.
Thanks so much for your video. We were so close to eat the poisonous chestnuts!
I do not think you would have eaten very many, unless you put them in something else, as the horse chestnuts taste pretty bad. The sweet chestnuts on the other hand are fairly sweet if you take care to get all the husk and skin off them. You did your research anyway so you can not be faulted. All the best
Thank u for sharing my friend..lots of informations as always..i never knew these & love the fire when u coocked them👍👌💖💚💙❤🙂💖👌👍
Many thanks, I did over roast them a little but I put that down to movie making, makes things twice as interesting :-)
Boy, with all that trouble towards creating a fire, I would think you were also going to roast a chicken as well.
The only trouble we ever have lighting a fire is that we are impatient, rushed and have not prepared properly, and did not practice EVERY Friday 😂😂😂
thank you for sharing this info!
I live in Redcar. You can’t be far from me with an accent like that.
I was once in an out of the tourist part of Morroco (Safi) in a real bazaar talking to my brother and someone piped up, I know that accent, you are from Stockton, well close, Southern Outskirts of Middlesbrough. So I know Redcar or at least the South Gare Very well.
Horse chestnut soap. That sounds amazing to me.
Great info. I didn't know about the soap uses from horse chesnuts/conkers. I did hear that the toxin is water soluble and that Native American people processed them for food. I wouldn't risk it as long as other food can be sourced.
Cheers
You are quite right, in the second world war conkers were considered as a famine food after processing. I was going to try it out this year but left it a little late but I would not recommend processing and eating too much. When I can harvest conkers I can also harvest acorns which I have concentrated on this year. I make four with them but it is best to mix it about 40/60 with wheat flour as it does not bind too well. All the best
@@GrasshopperOutdoors thanks for your reply. I've heard that you'd have to blend it in a flour since there's no gluten. This is all great info to know just in case it's ever needed. Nature is amazing if you take the time to learn.
Best wishes to you and yours
@@michellesovereign4564 This is true but like all things it is best to try it before you need it, there is always the unexpected :-) A bit like knowing how to start a fire using a bow drill set, it is not as easy as it can look and sometimes you have to know when you are flogging a dead horse :-) All the best
@@GrasshopperOutdoors fair point. Can't argue with your logic. I'm happy I found your channel and look forward to more of your videos :)
I gathered 3 bags of horse chestnuts and then something in me told me they weren't chestnuts I didn't belive it until this video so thanks
You are welcome, Horse Chestnuts will make you ill but they do not taste nice so I doubt you would have eaten too many :-)
Me toO
Educational as always thanks
Educating myself as well by learning from others and from my mistakes, most of them sweet chestnuts were quite OK but a few were a bit cremated. My excuse though is filming makes it harder :-)
It makes great content I don’t know everything but I now love learning again thank you
I know as we get older we get slower at learning (the computer gets full I guess) but we need to keep trying, if only to save ourselves a bit of money :-)
Thank you good review!
Hi! Where in UK are you from originally?
Many thanks for stopping by. North Yorkshire. ATB
Thank you for this, another fire starter is bacon or pork grease, it doesn't matter if it goes a bit old. I will make a fire even on wet wood.
Yes any type of grease or fat and still works for lubricating tools but does go rancid after time which is not quite so good.
Thanks for sharing. 🙂👍
Great fun and learning too, tasted them conkers and the tasted a bit like soap but they are poisonous so just eat the sweet chestnuts. All the best
Yup we have loads of em here Essex UK,, so acorn No, conca No, very fluffy spiked chestnut Yes, cool I'm getting loads tomorrow
Excellent, it is great to be able to collect them to roast on the cold frosty nights. It has not been a good year for them up here this year, conkers and acorns yes, but beech nuts have not been so good either, I think they have a strategy of a bumper crop ever 3 - 5 years just to thwart the squirrels :-)
Indiana knows the horse chestnut as a buckeye we knew they were poisonous I didn't know there was any different not known the sweet Chestnut I learned something chestnuts can roast on an open fire LOL
we got aroud us everywhere thanks for information
Sweet Chestnuts? collect them and store them dry and cool they will keep a long time.
sir can u plz answer that I bought a plant and the seller said its sweet chestnut but I dont know if its sweet or poisonous,it has 5 leaves set...is it edible
it has 5fronds of leaves...?
The horse chestnut has 5 to 7 lobes like a palm while the sweet chestnut has single elongated and serated leaves, this is a good way to tell them appart. All the best
Thank you for that, I just gathered horse chestnuts apparently and I thought they were the sweet ones...
Don't eat the horse chestnuts, they need an awful lot of processing before you could eat them and even then they are still very risky. It is a shame as there are so many of them at this time of year.
If you lived further south, your English might be better
You could be right, but we all use our brain power in different ways, influenced by our surroundings and experiences.
Hilarious 😂
Thankyou, I watched it again and I have to agree 😀 Have a great weekend
I'm encouraged to roast sweet chestnuts on the fire. Did them in the microwave one Christmas. Bang! Needed a new microwave anyway.
@@celiamonks5496 There is not a lot to loose by giving it a go, get a decent bed of hard wood coals and a baking tray with a little oil or butter on a decent evening and just give it a go. Remember to split the skins and just enjoy being outdoors.
@@GrasshopperOutdoors will do🔥💥