Nat King Cole made the line famous but I'm pretty sure the tradition predates him. I've never seen chestnuts roasting on street corners in the U.S. (maybe they do it in New York?) but here it's a definite sign of fall. The sight's a little prosaic -- a grocery cart, an old metal container to hold the coals, and what looks like the top of an oil drum for a stove and almost always a fellow of South Asian background doing the honors of continually turning the nuts so they roast perfectly on all sides. I had to wait a bit to catch this photo as Monsieur here spent a good five minutes folding a newspaper into the right shape for use as a cooking utensil.
The French are pretty crazy about chestnuts. Me, I think the smell is lovely but the texture turns me off. (Now the creme de marron that goes into chocolate cake...that's another story.) So it works out perfectly. I get to enjoy it without ever shelling out so much as a euro for a paper cone of roasted nuts. Sweet.
5 comments:
It's so funny - to me, this is such a NYC thing! (Even though, I agree, the French are generally nuttier (ha ha) about chestnuts.)
I completely agree..it's the smell that gets me...don't care for the actual nuts to eat though...
I've never seen a South Asian, but I've seen a lot of Middle Eastern fellows.
Yes, I've only seen it in New York, on the carts they usually use for hot dogs.
But get some and make chestnut soup - no texture and the scent and flavor are still there.
my mom and i were in paris a few novembers ago and we tried a different crepe every day. at one point i tried creme de marron but didn't know what marron was. now i know!
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