I was walking through the produce section of the Wally-World this weekend, when I stumbled across something I have never seen before IN MY LIFE.

They were strange, foreign and so intriguing, I snapped up a tub before I thought things through.

What was my mysterious find do you ask?

Real chestnuts!

Now, don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen enough water-chestnuts in my day…that is, enough to know I don’t like them, yet not enough to know if they have any connection to the real chestnuts of Christmas songs.

Let’s just say Louisiana is definitely not a chestnut kind of place, and I took an embarrassingly long amount of time at the store realizing just what exactly these ugly things were.

Determined to figure out what decades of Christmas-song-fuss was about, I hauled a ridiculously expensive tub of chestnuts home…and then scratched my head in confusion…what the heck does one do with a chestnut anyway? Roasting over an open fire was out…one house fire is enough to last this girl a lifetime.

So, after lots of Googling, YouTube and a Killian’s or two, I finally figured out how to roast the chestnuts in the oven. I did have reservations about a nut you have to perform minor surgery on to prevent potential explosions, but considering half the crazy things we eat here in Louisiana, who was I to judge?

I even called J to share my chestnut excitement with her, and she promised to come over and try them. A short time later, I tasted my first roasted chestnut…

And it was AWFUL! Holy Guacamole! Do people really eat these things??? My poor husband nearly gagged, and I had to call J and let her know that under no circumstances did she want to try them. This whole pan went into the trash, and I learned why I’ve never really seen these beasties around here in the first place.

Needless to say, I don’t foresee us trying figgy pudding anytime soon either…