It couldn't be any other way, Vall'doAido's first blog had to be about the noble product, CHESTNUT. The Martaínha chestnut is the first product we sell in our humble company!

“It is assumed that the chestnut tree comes from Asia Minor, the Balkans and the Caucasus, following the history of Western civilization for more than 100 thousand years. Along with pistachios, chestnuts made an important caloric contribution to prehistoric man who also used them to feed animals. The chestnut that we eat is, in fact, a seed that appears inside a hedgehog (the fruit of the chestnut tree). But, although it is a seed, like nuts, it has much less fat and much more starch (a carbohydrate), which gives it other possibilities for use in food. Chestnuts actually have about twice the percentage of starch as potatoes. They are also rich in vitamins C and B6 and a good source of potassium. Considered today almost as a seasonal “treat”, chestnuts, in times gone by, constituted a nutritious food supplement, replacing bread in its absence, when the rigors and scarcity of winter set in. Boiled, roasted or transformed into flour, chestnuts have always been a very popular food, the use of which dates back to Prehistory.”

Text taken from Wikipedia

It is said that there are at least 12 species of chestnuts. Our choice was the Martaínha chestnut, as they are sweeter, tastier, brighter and much easier to peel.

I'M SURE YOU'VE READ OR HEARD ABOUT DOP, YOU KNOW WHAT IT MEANS...

When a product has the DOP (Protected Designation of Origin) certificate, it means that this product genuinely originates from a place or region and whose quality or characteristics are due especially or exclusively to a geographic territory, and the transformation and elaboration must take place in these duly identified locations

In the case of chestnuts, there are 4 PDO regions in Portugal:
DOP – Castanha da Padrela
DOP – Castanha da Terra Fria
DOP – Soutos da Lapa
DOP – Castanha do Marvão

Graphic of Florestas.pt

Our Martaínha chestnut originates from Sernancelhe and is a PDO – Soutos da Lapa!

DID YOU KNOW THAT...

Every year, between May and July (depending on the species), the chestnut trees are in flower and these flowers are followed by hedgehogs. Do you know what the chestnut flower is called???

CATKINGS

…and did you know that male catkins come first and then female catkins… very interesting, right? …but we leave this topic here.

THE BEAUTIFUL ART OF MAKING CHESTNUTS…

With the arrival of Autumn/Winter and the cold, how could we not want a good roasted chestnut. Portugal has a tradition of roasting chestnuts on the street with charcoal, which turns them as white as a snowball… and we wanted to bring this tradition and promote it here in Switzerland.

In order not to lose any detail of tradition, the roaster was handcrafted in Portugal and imported for this purpose.

Our way of roasting chestnuts (I call it art) was very well accepted here in Switzerland! The big question that arose for most people was how the chestnuts got so white and had such a special flavor... to which I replied that these were some of the true flavors of “our little corner” of Portugal without revealing the mystery!

It was a success and more than that they asked me to continue with the tradition and that made me extremely proud. So see you soon…