As the beloved "christmas song" brings to mind, the chestnut is an endearing holiday treat. Yet in Europe, Asia and Africa, chestnuts are often used as an everyday potato substitute. Although they are wonderful straight from the oven or fireplace, you can make use of the winter chestnut crop in many ways, both sweet and savory. Before trying one of the many chestnut recipes, learn about chestnut history and how to store them.

Probably one of the first foods eaten by man, the chestnut dates back to prehistoric times. The chestnut tree, castanea sativa, was first introduced to Europe via Greece. The majority of the chestnut trees currently found in America are of native European stock, but native americans feasted on america's own variety, castanea dentata, long before European immigrants introduced their stock to America. In 1904, diseased Asian chestnut trees planted on long island, new York carried a fungus hitchiker that nearly devasted the American chestnut population, leaving only a few groves in california and the pacific northwest to escape the blight. Nowadays most of the chestnut food crop is imported from Japan, China, Spain, and Italy. Chestnuts are known as marrons in France and some parts of Europe.