When I walked around Harvard Square (specifically on Mass Ave, across from OTTO by the fence in front of Harvard) I would always pick chestnuts up off the ground. I mean, it's not idyllic or anything, but they are free!

Haha the main purpose for me is to eat them eventually (and the process of picking them up and preparing them) so definitely for the free ones! Thanks!

If you find out, let me know. I came across a random tree recently and picked some off the ground and I’m like, why am I not seeing more of these?? I think the answer is possibly some sort of tree disease that wiped a bunch of chestnut trees out in the past but still, disappointing.

The American chestnut has driven nearly to extinction by chestnut blight. There are some groups trying to breed blight-resistant trees, but you're not going to find chestnut groves on the east coast.

There's a house in Brookline that has a chestnut tree. Maybe you could ask them, as far as I can tell they just let them fall on the ground.

the one you saw is almost certainly "horse chestnut"-- aka, inedible

Make sure you know the difference between an edible chestnut and a horse chestnut. The edible American chestnut was wiped out by chestnut blight. The latter are mildly poisonous but also very commonly found as ornamental trees.

I remember seeing a handful of chestnut saplings bred to be blight resistant that weren’t bearing nuts yet. I doubt you’ll find a farm or any other place to pick them.

Imported edible chestnuts show up in stores in November. Packaged shelled chestnuts are usually from China. Fresh raw chestnuts are from Europe, I think.

Huh well I definitely ate them 😰

One of the saddest stories out there. The trees used to number in the billions in North America.

If they look like this they're horse chestnuts, and they're poisonous. If they look like this, chances are its an edible chestnut (the differences between the native species and the introduced ones are subtle); the American Chestnut Foundation has a service to ID trees (blight resistant North American chestnut trees are valuable in the effort to restore the species).

You will find them for sale in the fancier and international grocers between now and Christmas. If you feel like a field trip, you can find them right now at Portugalia in Fall River. And if you ever find yourself in Fall River, you should go to Portugalia.

congrats. you're now a horse.

Check out the American Chestnut Foundation! Scientists found a gene that gives chestnuts resistance to the blight. They're working on getting federal approval to pollinate wild chestnut trees with pollen from their engineered chestnuts and bring back the chestnut groves!

You can read about it here, it's a super cool story.

That’s fantastic. Another encouraging story was an adult chestnut found in a random stand of trees in Delaware. Quite wide bark, too. Hopefully in the next 40-50 years we have our beautiful trees back. It’s the least we can do, given it was humans’ global movement that brought the pathogen here.