[Sca-cooks] Southern California Chestnut resource?

[lilinah at earthlink.net]

Maggie MacD. wrote:
>I'm in Chula Vista, south of San Diego.

Gee, that was the refrain on a song that Dr. Demento used to play...

(4/4 tempo, dashes represent 1/8 notes)

- - Chula Vista - -
Chula Vista - - - -

>We don't have Safeway here anymore.
>I forget if they turned into Vons, Ralph's, or ... what....
>
>The chestnut stuff that the cook needs has to be sugar free, so the
>packaged pastes won't work in this particular case.

Probably won't be useful to you, but for anyone else...

Clement Faugier make several types of packaged chestnut thingies.

There are "marrons glacés", which are whole chestnuts cooked in and
packaged in sugar syrup. They're often in a glass jar so you can
appreciate how much like miniature pickled brains they look.

Then there are cans of chestnut purée and chestnut paste. One has
sugar. The other is unsweetened. But i forget which.

I think they also make chocolate-covered marrons glacées.

So if anyone else needs unsweetened chestnut paste, you might be able
to use this. All the Japanese chestnut pastes i've seen are
pre-sweetened.

Anahita