st
smoke-dry them. But we give that fruit to our swine in England, which is
amongst the delicacies of princes in other countries; and being of the
larger nut, is a lusty and masculine food for rusticks at all times; and
of better nourishment for husbandmen than coal, and rusty bacon; yea, or
beans to boot, instead of which, they boil them in Italy with their
bacon; and in Virgil's time, they eat them with milk and cheese. The
best tables in France and Italy make them a service, eating them with
salt, in wine, or juice of lemmon and sugar; being first roasted in
embers on the chaplet; and doubtless we might propagate their use
amongst our common people, (as of old the +Balanophagoi+) being a food
so cheap, and so lasting. In Italy they also boil them in wine, and then
smoke them a little; these they call _anseri_ or geese, I know not why:
Those of Piemont add fennel, cinnamon and nutmeg to their wine, if in
water, mollify them with the vapour only; but first they peel them.
Others macerate them in rose-water. The bread of the flower is exceeding
nutritive; 'tis a robust food, and makes women well complexion'd, as I
have read in a good author: They also make fritters of chesnut-flower,
which they wet with rose-water, and sprinkle with grated _parmegiano_,
and so fry them in fresh butter, a delicate: How we here use them in
stew'd-meats, and beatille-pies, our French-cooks teach us; and this is
in truth the very best use of their fruit, and very commendable; for it
is found that the eating of them raw, or in bread (as they do much about
Limosin) is apt to swell the belly, though without any other
inconvenience that I can learn, and yet some condemn them as dangerous
for such as are subject to the gravel in the kidneys, and however cook'd
and prepar'd, flatulent, offensive to the head and stomach, and those
who are subject to the cholick. The best way to preserve them, is to
keep them in earthen vessels in a cold place; some lay them in a
smoke-loft, others in dry barly-straw, others in sand, &c. The leaves of
the chesnut-tree make very wholsom mattresses to lie on, and they are
good littier for cattel: But those leafy-beds, for the crackling noise
they make when one turns upon them, the French call _licts de
Parliament_: Lastly, the flower of chesnuts made into an electuary, and
eaten with hony fasting, is an approved remedy against spitting blood,
and the cough; and a decoction of the rind of the tree, tinctures hair
of a