Chestnut Season: Grandmas' Handicrafts

Chestnut season is here again this year.

Nishiki Town in Semboku City, where we live, is known as a chestnut-producing region.

The region’s specialty, the “Saimeiji Chestnut,” is said to have been cultivated here for about 300 years. They are truly magnificent chestnuts, with the largest ones sometimes weighing over 60 grams.

When the harvest of these chestnuts begins, it’s time for chestnut peeling at our house, too.

And every year,
I’m struck by just how fast the grandmothers are.

They make a cut with their knife, then twist, twist.

They chat and laugh, yet their hands never stop.

While I’m struggling with a single chestnut, I glance over and see that several have already been neatly peeled.

“How do you peel them so fast?”

Even if I ask, I’m sure it doesn’t seem like anything special to them.

Every year, when chestnut season comes around, they peel chestnuts. It’s an autumn routine they’ve repeated for
decades.

This kind of manual work can’t be written down in a recipe or a manual.

The angle at which you hold the knife, the movement of the hand holding the chestnut, and the amount of pressure applied—
I think these are things the hands naturally learn over the years.

And above all, they seem to be having fun.

Watching the two of them peeling chestnuts while laughing, I realize that it’s not just the deliciousness of the chestnuts, but this moment itself that embodies autumn in Nishiki.