At least in France, we do. During winter there are plenty of people selling roasted chesnuts on street corners (although they usually aren’t that good nor correctly roasted. You’re better off buying them and preparing them yourself).
Peanuts, cashews, pistachios and almonds are all better roasted. I am not sure who would rather eat any of those raw. When they are sold raw, they are for cooking.
Have you ever tried peeling a raw chestnut ? It’s a right pain in the… well, fingers, actually :). Roast or boil them however, and the shell comes off nice and easy !
As **clairobscur **says, we French most certainly do. They’ve been traditional peasant & winter fare for ages, for the same reason 'taters became so after they were brought over - easy to grow, easy to cook, keeps forever and they “stick to your ribs”, as my grandma would say.
We make hooch out of them, too (of course we would 
). Very sweet, but it’s sadly hard to find outside of Corsica.
Who eats raw potatoes?
No, I meant I haven’t heard of them snacking on the raw nut, as perfect as when it was snatched from the tree.
Actually, it sounds like a catholic penance.
This baffles me.
I have been eating chestnuts raw my entire life, as has my extended family. These are American chestnuts from a tree my Aunt has that still survives and bares nuts most years. It is a rare treat. Maybe the European and Asian varieties are different.
Once you make you way through the burr, and the shell and the extremely bitter husk, the meat is sweet and tasty. I have tried roasted chestnuts and never understood the appeal except that roasting makes it easier to get the husk off.
Are raw chestnuts as mealy as roasted chestnuts?
I don’t think our chestnuts are different here in the UK. I used to go chestnut harvesting with my Dad, eating some raw on the go and then roasting some in the hearth back at home.
I rather like them raw, but find peeling them a pain (the skin is super bitter). They are easier to peel when cooked.
No, not at all. Mealy was how I described roasted chestnuts the first time I tried them. Didn’t see any reason to try another.
The ‘fuzz’, the skin on the nut inside the shell, is indeed super bitter and a pain to remove completely. Even a tiny piece can ruin the whole thing. The meat is sweet and tender in my experience, although a little nostalgia may bias my taste buds.
So, no difference then? Why bother roasting them? Roasted chestnuts, for those that have never had them, can best be described as odd but technically edible in the most charitable case to an abomination in the more truthful sense. They don’t taste anything like other roasted nuts. The best way to describe them would be mealy and slightly sweet in a earthy, decomposing kind of way.
I was excited to try them for the first time as an adult because of that (lying) song but my joy turned to pure hate as soon as I popped the first one in my mouth. At first I thought it might be a sick joke but it wasn’t. They didn’t taste anything like they were supposed to and the texture was way off from anything that you would willingly eat. I an a glutton for punishment so I have tried them again several times since then to please Italian hosts. I am no longer shocked and disappointed like I once was but the best I have ever gotten out of them to this day is mild regret.
I’m not really a fan either, but they are definitely better roasted than not.
Ah-ha!
Where I come from, about half of the people who prepare the meals eat some while, um, preparing them. Or did when I was young. And anyone walking by is likely to take or be offered some. And a raw potato while on the go, or on the lam, is not unheard of.
I admit it’s not as big a thing as, say, eating apples either raw or cooked. But there’s nothing crazy or pica-ish about it.
In fairness, the song doesn’t say anything about eating them. It’s possible (from the lyrics) that they are an aromatic incense.
This discussion reminds me of the cheap beer we drank back in college - we’d always tell people it was tasty. It wasn’t a good taste, but there was a lot of it.
Again, Chestnuts aren’t like other nuts. Most nuts are full of fat and protein. Chestnuts are full of starch.
Just in case you Europeans don’t know, Chestnuts are very rarely eaten in the US because our native chestnut forests were almost completely wiped out by a blight in the early 1900s.
In my opinion, despite the celebration of chestnuts in story and song, we aren’t missing very much. Chestnuts taste like a dense mealy crappy potato with very few redeeming qualities.
Ah, sorry. Then, indeed, it’s not particularly common. I do it sometimes, and I’ve seen other people eating them raw too, but it’s unusual.
ETA : And they don’t taste awful when eaten raw. Less sweet, maybe.
I also prefer them raw, or at most blanched briefly so as to make the fuzzy membrane easier to peel away.
Raw, they have a crunch and a sort of fresh, green, grassy flavor. Roasted, they are like a dry, mealy sweet potato. They’re more like a grain that grows on trees as far as their starch/protein/fat makeup.
Cooked turnips are inedible, while small white ones, sliced thin in vinegar and soy sauce are delicious. Young zucchini raw is the only edible kind.
What I don’t get is, what’s with boiling fresh green peas? The high point of the gardening year is picking plump snap peas and eating them pod and all on the spot.
I’ve tried cutting an X in raw chestnuts, which is what the recipe told me to do before roasting them. I decided to eat other kinds of nuts.
This. Part of the cook’s privilege is to eat a slice of raw, salted potato when prepping potatoes. I don’t know that I’d want to eat a whole raw potato, but a raw potato slice is kind of tasty.
They don’t taste very good roasted either (to me blecchh).