Monday 11 October 2010

Chestnuts - Horse and Sweet



I would really hate anyone to be poisoned by confusing chestnuts beause of my photo! In the UK, the above are called Horse Chestnuts, I don't know what they are called in the US and Canada, but they are poisonous!




The Sweet Chestnut is what you can eat. The spikes go brown when the nut is mature, and then you can go a-roasting!

The cases are very different, there being lots of spikes, like a hedgehog, and prickly!

Both these photos were taken from web sites, and are probably copyright.

5 comments:

CorvusCorax12 said...

where i grew up in Germany we had non edible chestnut trees in from of our house...we loved them for crafts. Never seen a chestnut tree around here and had to look up if they grew in our region but i guess they almost got wiped out by a blight (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Chestnut)

kenju said...

The only time I have ever eaten chestnuts was from a street vendor in Rome - and I didn't like them at all. Maybe it is an acquired taste.
There's no danger of my getting poisoned by them....lol

Diane said...

We were eating tons of these yesterday in our park. You can always tell when winter arrives as the Roast Chestnut man arrives in Fargate in Sheffield. xxx

KathyA said...

Whoa! Thanks for the clarification. Except for the hull -- they look the same!!

Greener Pastures--A City Girl Goes Country said...

Roasted chestnuts remind me of Christmas. That's the only time I saw them here in America. The vendors on the streets in New York city would have them. Then when I moved to the country in Virginia, I discovered I had a chestnut tree on the property. I heard they are rare though--I think some kind of disease wiped them out here a while back.