Chestnut pie

Chestnut pie centers on chestnuts as its main ingredient. It appears in French cuisine, where *Tarte à la châtaigne* (a chestnut pie) and *Gâteau Ardéchois* (a distinct chestnut cake) are separate dishes, and in Italian cuisine, where it is known as *Castagnaccio*; records there trace it to the 1400s. The pie is not a traditional or widely recognized dish in Southern United States cuisine. The pie can be either savory or sweet, and may use whole or chopped shelled chestnuts that have been boiled or roasted, or a chestnut purée.

Evidence of chestnut pie goes back to 15th-century Italy, specifically in Bartolomeo Platina's gastronomic text *De honesta voluptate et valetudine*, which includes a recipe *torta ex castaneís* attributed to Maestro Martino. His recipe called for boiled and ground chestnuts, which were mashed with a mortar and pestle, mixed with milk, and strained. Then ingredients for a spelt tart were added, and saffron was recommended for color. In the 1500s, Bartolomeo Scappi included a *torta di castagne* in his 1570 work *Opera dell'arte del cucinare*, focusing on Italian Renaissance cooking, though a direct lineage between his dish and earlier *castagnaccio* is not fully established. His version used both dried and fresh chestnuts, advising chestnuts not fully ripe, gathered in August. An 1858 sweet recipe glazed chestnuts with orange flowers and placed them inside the pie. A 1908 savory recipe used shelled chestnuts, Spanish onion, haricot stock, salt, and pepper.

Savory chestnut pie can include extras like mushrooms, garlic, onion, celery, leeks, and butternut squash. A 1915 recipe combined boiled and shelled chestnuts, canned mushrooms, a white sauce, and a biscuit dough. Sweet chestnut pie in the United States may be made as a cream pie, sometimes with chocolate, and can be served topped with whipped cream. In France, *tarte à la châtaigne* is eaten as a dessert.