Never done it before, never even eaten one, but after chatting with another customer at the Italian market, I decided to give it a go.
As I have no open fire to roast 'em, I’m using a 425 degree oven (as per the interwebs) Wish me luck! 
Watch out for richochets.
I was really paranoid about that, and scored them very deeply (Like, almost cut in two. Ooops)
The 20 minutes is up. They smell odd. What are they supposed to take like?
verdict: Weird!
kind of a nutty, sweet, tiny, dry baked potato. Hmmmmm…
Don’t expect me to pull them out of the fire!
My father “roasts” them in the microwave. I think he pokes a hole in each first. He always offers them to me, but I never found them appealing.
You can wrap them in foil to contain the explosions.
Are they supposed to taste like this? a vaguely mealy, bland sweetness?
Some of them WILL NOT release from the furry part - are they undercooked?
Yes.
OK, as long as my results are consistent with what they’re supposed to be.
I’ll chalk this up to “chestnuts - not a fan”
thanks for the input, everyone!
I’m definitely not a fan, either. My wife likes 'em, though.
One of the big letdowns in my life was having roasted Chestnuts for the first time. But, but, but, they sounded so good in the song and I love nuts in general. Roasted chestnuts simply aren’t very good. Best case, they taste vaguely like something that would have been good if you hadn’t gotten some of the spoiled or rottens ones but, nope, that is just the way they are. Just little hard to eat treats of semi-sweet mealy mush.
I know! “chestnuts roasting, on a open fiiiiiire…” it sounds lovely, right? Oh well, I’m only out about a dollar’s worth of chestnuts and 20 minutes or so.
I like 'em. They’re really great in turkey stuffing.
I am told by a local chestnut grower that the vast majority of chestnuts available in the US are imported from Italy, and are the grade of nuts that the Italians use for animal fodder, reserving the good ones for themselves. Thus poor quality, perishable nuts are shipped to the US, incurring spoilage en route, and are eaten by curious Americans who then say ‘nope, not having that again’. Of course, the dude is trying to sell his own local product, so take that with a grain of salt. I have eaten chestnuts from him, fresh from the tree, when they are crispy, and I’ve roasted them as well, and all in all I prefer them fresh. They are very much like a sweet potato when roasted, but then I like that kind of mildly sweet starchy flavor - I just think that they’re better with a little crunch.
I think I’m going to outsource this to the dude who sells them outside the museum. My only experience with chestnuts is poaching them from the park across the street from my old place and taking them to my dad’s so he could feed them to the squirrels.
I think that the squirrel that hangs out on the power pole outside my window might like them better than I do. He was watching the proceeding very, very closely.
I’m a little afraid of him, to be honest. Perhaps I should appease him with chestnuts.
If you can find a chestnut tree that is fruiting, try to harvest those instead of buying in a grocery.
There is actually a bit of a flavor difference in roasting the nuts over coals and in an oven - the smoke adds a ‘something’ to the overall flavor.
Once you have finished roasting them, cool and peel them. I personally prefer dicing them coarsely and using them in stuffing, but you can candy them by simmering in a sugar syrup then cooling off. If you coat them in several layers of brandy sugar [I cheat and use commercially available brandied hard sauce] letting the sugar harden between layers you end up with a sort of cheating ‘nipples of venus’ sweetmeat.
They are rather odd, only vaguely sweet and somewhat mealy in texture so I don’t tend to eat them plain, but as an ingredient they are pleasant.
[i think you can buy them already candied in the us, i have seen them available in europe canned in syrup]
Is that what they’re calling it these days?
I always think of the Carpenters doing that song “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.” Too bad Karen did eat those chestnuts instead of singing about them 