Chestnuts nuked in 15 seconds

MOSES LAKE — Forget that old song about chestnuts roasting on an open fire.

Lee Williams cheats. He says this with a grin as he explains — he heats his chestnuts up in the microwave.

Williams grows chestnuts at his Trails End Ranch with wife, Lynda, and has for about 13 years, he said.

"I started everything from seeds," he explained. "It takes about two years to get a seedling from the time you picked up the nut and raise it, so my oldest trees are 11 years old."

Williams said he got started because he had five acres of land that needed something in it. After doing some research, he picked chestnuts over apples or cherries.

"Those chestnut trees are going to be here 100 years from now," he said.

It's a rare undertaking. Williams estimated that there are probably 500 acres in Washington, Oregon and California that are devoted to chestnut growing. There's demand for the nut, with the U.S. importing about $20 million worth.

"As with any commodity that we have, we have to compete with the foreign market over there and everybody's always trying to plug into our markets that we have," he said, adding that American-grown chestnuts are usually fresher.

Williams compared chestnuts to bananas. They're only five percent fat, and the rest is starch and carbohydrates. When one lets a banana set out, all that starch turns to sugar. Williams recommends letting them sit out for 72 hours to ripen and let the sugar develop.

"They are a perishable item — they have to be kept refrigerated and (I) usually keep them about 32 degrees in storage," Williams said. "If I don't get them sold as fresh nuts, I put them on drying racks."

After the chestnuts have been dried out, Williams runs them through shellers. He said he tries to wholesale them out to grocers and has quite a few on-farm sales in the form of 25 or 30 pound sacks to members of the local Basque and Portuguese communities.

He also cracks the shells before heating them up, lest they explode. He dips the meat of the nut in butter before offering them for consumption.

"Most people that buy chestnuts know what they have," he said. "Most people that see them in the store don't know what they are and don't know how to use them, so they don't buy them, so it's kind of a niche market."

He said that chestnuts are eaten fresh, and European processors use them like sliced almonds on the top of pastries. Asian community members like them dried, he said, and chestnuts can also be made into flour for baking.

"One of the big markets for chestnut flour are for people that are glutin-intolerant," he said, noting that Europeans will prepare chestnuts just about any way, from candied to pickled. "The best way is just the fresh roasted chestnut."

Williams is in the process of buying a mill, he said, adding that due to the small size of the industry, chestnut processing equipment has to be custom built and designed. His operation is set up as a one-man operation, he said.

While it's the season for chestnuts, Williams prepared for a two-week vacation by picking all of his fresh nuts, drying more for the year. They are picked daily, he said, with a labor-intensive operation, involving sorting, grading and put in the coolers quickly so as to maintain their freshness. Two people helped Williams this year over a three-week process.

"They're ground picked, rather than tree picked," he noted, adding that hand picking them causes less damage. The burrs on the chestnuts require pickers to wear double-leather gloves, because they will go right through horsehide gloves, Williams said. Workers also wear knee pads while picking.

Chestnut trees are more insect-resistant, Williams said, noting that his ranch's isolation is also a plus. The nuts can stand temperatures down to 40 degrees below zero.

Many chestnut processors sell their product on eBay, Williams said. He will probably do so as well, once he retires from his day job as veterinarian, a role he has filled for 40 years. He's lived in the area for 32 years. He started growing chestnuts as a hobby, with the potential of a little income from it.

"So far, I haven't really made any money on it, on the expenses of it," he said. "My goal is a thousand pounds to an acre. That's what they consider a money-making (orchard). I reached 700 pounds this year. It's a long-term crop — they tell you not to expect to make any money for 12 to 13 years after you plant them."