Chestnuts - Kasztany

I did do other things in the Village those 10 years ago than just try to pick up boys. I also went for walks ;)

I am not very good at finding my way around so I started on mini-walks using the big church (close to my home) as a reference guide. Then as I got to know more of the Village, I ventured further and further away. If I had realized then what a beautiful place I was living in, I certainly would have bought a bike (and perhaps a map) and explored.

I was interested in seeing everything that was different- the different architecture, the different birds and animals, the different trees and plants. I was very happy one day to discover an enormous chestnut tree which had dropped a carpet of chestnuts on the sidewalk. We have a lot of chestnut trees in my hometown in the US and my part of my hometown is even named after the chestnut. I was pretty excited (C’mon, I didn’t have a TV).

At that moment, I decided that Polish people were wasteful, allowing perfectly good food (chestnuts) to rot on the street. I collected a couple of handfuls of chestnuts and took them home.

As you can probably gather, I had brought home so-called horse chestnuts. They look different than edible chestnuts, but I thought it was just a different kind of chestnut (like cabbages in Poland - they are huge!) The sad part is it took me to my third chestnut to finally decide that there was something wrong with these chestnuts.

Horse chestnuts are edible (I think, ‘cause I ate 3 and didn’t die), but terribly bitter.

Smacznego.

Horse chestnuts are good for making little creatures with match stick legs.