About now if you're a Hungarian-American who is going to cook for THANKSGIVING next week, you may be purchasing a turkey and other ingredients to make your fall harvest feast. Since Turkey - the bird - is native of the America's I don't think of the meat as very interesting to Europeans but these days you just have to be near a market that imports the whole bird.
I could give you a link, or many, to recipes for Chestnut Stuffing and "Hungarian Turkey" recipes but I'll let you do that yourself. There is even a Martha Stewart recipe for free on the net which emphasizes to start with fresh. Let's just say that combining chestnuts with bread crumbs, bacon, thyme, and parsley and butter is a good start. Chop Chop Chop!
Chestnuts are the seeds of the chestnut tree. In the fall the covering of the seeds bursts open and reveal the tender nut but they must be used within a week of harvesting them or else can be frozen for up to a month. Like a garlic bulb or clove, they must be peeled and then cooked to soften them and you do that before you combine them with other ingredients.
Growing up we had Turkey one time a year, on Thanksgiving. I liked the stuffing better than the meat, though I loved the gravy over the stuffing. Visiting friends, I was able to sample some of the more complicated and imaginative recipes for stuffing, including the wonderful texture and crunch of chestnuts. than my parents made.
As I understand it, chestnut trees grow well in Hungary and have been cultivated in the Mediterranean for 3000 years. They were common in North America and then a blight wiped them out in the early 20th century but efforts are being made to replant them.
