How the humble chestnut traced the rise and fall of the Roman Empire

One of my fondest childhood memories is buying roasted chestnuts with my grandpa and slipping them into our pockets to keep our hands warm in the cold. Their flavor, for me, is unequivocally tied to chilly weather and the comforting warmth of those moments.

When my grandfather died, the only thing he asked to be buried with was a small pouch of roasted chestnuts. he used to say they reminded him of long cold walks home through wartime forests that smelled like smoke and bark.

Anyway after the funeral, I cracked one open by the fire and it was still sweet. RIP baba

I think the idea of this has been around for a while, I remember my mother saying back in the late 60s the stands of trees in some parts of britain reflected Roman occupation, which was confusing when she also said industrialisation denuded the landscape in the search for charcoal.

I like that this exploration of the landscape is using pollen from soil cores, there's deep history in the ground if you know what to look for. At university we did a core in marshland near whitby and our lecturer had us mouth-feel the grit. The layer with deep preserved reeds was remarkably different to the silt layers around it, and that was a 10-15,000 year old core sample.

I read something similar about walnuts — the etymology means "foreign nut", reflecting Roman introduction into Germanic areas.

the history of food is fascinating. But this is the history of food and lumber which is even more fascinating.