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But first let's find out more
about growing this unique and
flavorful Iowa ingredient.
Roast them, boil them, puree
them or even microwave them.
Chestnuts are a power food that
can grow right in your backyard.
And don't be fooled by that
intimidating exterior.
Inside that shell lies a
delectable treat.
Kathy Dice: Chestnuts are like
almost the perfect food.
It has a very high quality
protein in it.
It's low in fat.
Halfway between Muscatine and
Burlington, near Wapello,
husband and wife team Tom Wahl
and Kathy Dice own and operate
Red Fern Farm.
Spend one afternoon with them
and you can learn everything
there is to know about growing,
harvesting and eating chestnuts.
This isn't your ordinary farm,
however.
Tom and Kathy specialize in
promoting sustainable
agriculture with tree crops.
In addition to chestnuts, Tom
researches and experiments with
other tree crops and forest
farming systems that may be
sustainable in Iowa.
Dice: It's always great when you
have food growing close at hand
because then you're going to
have access to really fresh food
and the fresher it is the more
you can be assured that you're
getting all the vitamins that
are available.
However you use chestnuts you
can be sure that this ancient
food is going to be a nutritious
and delicious choice.
Tom Wahl: The hard part is
getting the trees established in
the first place and they do
require certain soil conditions,
they require well-drained soil
so that's where the real labor
is, getting the trees
established.
American chestnuts were once
common all over the eastern
United States.
However, in 1904 a deadly fungus
nearly drove this native species
to extinction.
Fortunately, the American
chestnut's Chinese cousin grows
quite well in Iowa's climate.
Wahl: That's really the only
kind of chestnut that is
commercially viable in this part
of the world.
The Japanese and European
chestnuts just aren't suited to
a continental climate, they're
suited to a Mediterranean
climate.
They don't do well here.
Chestnuts are called the un-nut
because nutritionally they
hardly resemble other nuts.
Unlike pecans or walnuts,
chestnuts contain just trace
amounts of fat while delivering
a potent amount of vitamin C.
Dice: It's more like a grain
like corn than it is a nut.
As the Christmas song suggests,
roasted chestnuts make the
perfect holiday treat.
But they're also great on less
festive occasions.
In Europe, Asia and Africa
chestnuts are an extremely
popular food and are often used
as an everyday substitute for
potatoes.
Dice: Well, amazingly our
biggest demand is for people who
are recent immigrants to this
country.
People who were born in America
and don't have a cultural
experience with chestnuts only
know it from the song and
they're like, oh I've heard of
those, what do you do with them?
And they might buy 5, 10 pounds
at the most whereas if you get
people from western Bosnia or
Laos or Vietnam they will buy 50
to 400 pounds at a time.
Wahl: The peak of the season
they can be so thick on the
ground they were like
cobblestones.
Harvesting chestnuts is quite
easy.
The first rule is that you never
pull them off the tree.
Let them fall to the ground.
Then it's just a matter of
picking them up.
Wahl: Worldwide most chestnuts
are picked up by hand but we use
a machine called a nut wizard, a
wire basket that rolls over the
nuts and the nuts pop inside the
basket and it's about ten times
faster than handpicking and
works better than motorized
machines that cost many
thousands of dollars.
And once you figure out how to
penetrate their hard, mahogany
exterior you'll be well on your