Concerning chestnuts:

We all know that early in the 1900s the American Chestnut, castanea dentata, was almost wiped out by a fungal blight. A while back I learned that there has been some significant progress made in breeding the few remaining American Chestnuts with disease resistant Asian Chestnuts such as Castanea Crenata and Castanea Mollissima. These hybrids appear to be disease resistant while tasting more or less like original American Chestnut.

Of course, I simply had to try a food that almost went extinct. I bought a pound or two of these chestnuts from my local grocer. I had intended to eat them with my family over Christmas, but the time never presented itself. So I decided to roast them after the holidays back at my house.

I expected them to pop while roasting in the oven. However when they didn't I chalked it up to their loss of moisture because it had been more than a week since they were purchased at the store. This was a dumb move on my part. I pulled them out of the oven, set them on the range, and, figuring that they weren't getting any hotter, began to inspect them with my face about half a meter away. This was an even more dumb move on my part.

As Murphy demands one of the chestnuts chose that precise moment to explode in my face. I am very lucky that I didn't suffer any eye damage. After I realized that I wasn't hurt I began laughing and Sara grabbed the camera for documentation. If you click on the picture you can get a nice large version showing bits of Chestnut flesh in my hair.