What is the difference between wild and tame chestnut?

Autumn is the season of chestnuts, a fruit tree that you can already find in city parks. Due to the good nutritional values ​​it contains, chestnuts are one of the favorite delicacies during autumn. Most people do not know that there are two types of chestnuts, wild and tame, which differ in many ways. It can be eaten boiled or baked, and in Serbia it is most often consumed in the form of chestnut puree.

Tame chestnut

The sweet chestnut fruit grows on a deciduous tree, mainly in the Northern Hemisphere and belongs to the beech family. Like the oak, chestnut tree can even experience 500 years due to its durability even in cold conditions, but unlike other fruit species, does not tolerate soils rich in calcium. However, in recent years there has been sudden decline number of localities with wild chestnut in the south of Serbia.

Chestnut honey: An extremely beneficial food with a sweet and bitter taste

Medicinal properties of the fruit, leaf and tree of the sweet chestnut

“Loner”as it is often called, or tame chestnut, is rich in medicinal properties, and its fruit is used as an additive in various food products.

Nutritious chestnut fruit contains over 60% starch, 17% sugar and up to 10% proteinso it is often used in combination with an apple or southern fruit by people who have problems with gastritis. It is specific to the chestnut that he the only nut that has vitamin C. In addition, the chestnut is rich in potassium and phosphorus minerals, and also contains calcium, magnesium, sulfur, chlorine, iron, copper and manganese.

Although it is rich in healthy ingredients, chestnuts have twice as much starch as potatoes, so they are often used in the form of flour, which is why in Asia got a nickname “Bread Tree”. Together with walnuts and almonds, chestnuts belong to the group of healthy foods that do not contain gluten. If you eat healthy, you need to know that in 100 grams of raw chestnut there is only 200 calories.

Nutritional and healing properties of walnuts

Honey chestnut and something else about it

The use of chestnut blossoms, which are very good fodder for bees at the beginning of the summer, when there are not so many other honey-bearing plants, is rarely known, so it is not surprising that honey brandy has been prepared from chestnut honey since ancient times.

Believed or not, but the oldest chestnut tree, which got its nickname “One Hundred Horses”is in Sicilian planini Etna and it’s an old eye 4,000 years!

Council for small farms

If you didn’t know, sweet chestnut is a good ingredient for animal feed, i.e. for mixing with milk in the diet of calves in order to obtain the best quality beef.

“Balkan beauty” called wild chestnut

Wild chestnut is a large, fast-growing tree and is often called another „Balkan beauty“ due to autochthonous growth in the south of the Balkans. In the first year, the wild chestnut grows about half a meter, while at full age it reaches a height of 25-30 mwith the diameter of the tree up to two meters.

The wild chestnut flower is conical in shape inflorescences up to 30 cm longand the leaves are opposite, finger-like compound with 4-9 leaflets on a long handle 20 cm. Characteristic of the wild chestnut is its fruit in the form of a prickly green cocoon which it carries 1-2 seeds bright chestnut color.

In September and October, when the season of ripening wild chestnuts, an adult tree gives about 100 kg of seeds. The buds are then large, shiny and sticky.

If you didn’t knowwild chestnut trees create very favorable microclimate conditions, so it is nice to have them in the immediate vicinity due to their protection from radiation, dust and wind.

Wild chestnut among the Serbs

Our tradition is to collect the fruits of wild chestnuts in order to prevent moths from inhabiting them. On the chestnut, three holes are pierced on the tough shell, and then they are arranged on the shelves of the closet among the woolen clothes. It is also interesting the effect of the horse chestnut flower oil preparation for healing sunburns, against freckles on the face and against diarrhea, as well as for strengthening the body.