Pete Luckett on choosing chestnuts
Greengrocer had advice for finding optimal nuts to roast or make stuffing
You needed to know what you were looking for when seeking out chestnuts in the grocery store.
Fortunately for Midday viewers, resident greengrocer Pete Luckett was there to tell them what they needed to know.
"When you find chestnuts in the store, you've go to squeeze 'em and feel 'em," Luckett explained in a segment on chestnuts that aired on the program back in November of 1985.
"They have to be firm — chestnuts have an awful habit of turning blue mould very quickly and they don't have the shelf life that the other nuts, you know, do have."
'Crunchy and firm,' not 'hideous'
Holding up a sliced chestnut for an on-camera close-up, Luckett said they should be "perfectly white, crunchy and firm."
Luckett said chestnuts should be pricked with a fork to prevent them from bursting when boiling, baking or roasting them.
He mentioned a few things buyers might be planning to make with chestnuts. including a purée.
"They're terrific for making your stuffings for your Christmas poultry," he said.
His advice led to a brief cautionary tale from Midday co-host Peter Downie about what could go wrong when chestnuts weren't prepared properly.
"I tried it once and they were just hideous," Downie said, drawing a laugh from co-host Valerie Pringle. "I don't know what I did wrong."
