Chestnuts

It is chestnut season in Japan.  Chestnuts are very popular here.  I can smell roasted chestnuts in the streets near the train station.  It is a very distinctive smell and reminds me of winter and being all bundled up.  Chestnut rice, chestnut bread, and chestnut desserts are everywhere.  This country doesn't just have traditions, they have obsessions.

Monburan is the most popular dessert featuring chestnuts. The traditional French dessert (Mont Blanc) is made with a sponge cake and layers of whipped cream covered with chestnut purée piped over it in stringy, spaghetti-like layers, and then topped with a candied chestnut.  It can be found in almost any cake shop.

Photo courtesy of: https://gurunavi.com

Another very popular dessert is an acquired taste.  Not everyone is a fan of sweetened red bean paste - except in Japan where everyone seems to love it.  Kurimushi yokan is a traditional jelly dessert made with sweetened red bean paste molded into long rectangles. The smooth red bean paste is combined with agar and steamed chestnuts are mixed in.

Photo courtesy of: https://gurunavi.com

The chestnut trees are a very interesting sight.  They are short trees (less than 10 feet tall) with long, pointy leaves and covered in spiky balls.  Once the nuts are ripe, they split open, revealing the brown nuts inside.  The nuts, still inside the split open ball, often fall to the ground.  I had never seen a chestnut tree.  I thought I had, but this was a really neat tree that I would have remembered.