“Chestnuts roasting in an open fire”, the popular lyric that hits the radio during the holidays, and today we can start singing and eating some too, its Roasted Chestnut Day. This day is observed annually on December 14th.
During the holidays in the Philippines, where I am from when you go to the marketplace or supermarkets, you can smell the aroma of roasted chestnut. A tradition I experienced growing and for us, it is the smell that the holidays are near and Christmas is just around the corner.
Roasted chestnut is a popular autumn and winter street food in East Asia, Europe, and New York City. Every East Asian country cooks chestnut in a different way. In China, chestnut is a popular autumn street food and roasted with sand and sweet syrup and they are called “sugar stir-fried chestnut”. In Korea, roasted chestnut is called “Gunbam”, also popular street food and is sold from late autumn to winter by vendors wearing ushanka hat, sometimes referred to as “roasted chestnut vendor hat”.
In New York, roasted chestnuts are also sold as street food primarily in Manhattan. The major consumers are primarily tourists, not residents, and usually few vendors who currently sell them say they mostly sell around the Christmas holidays and are sold $3 – $4 a bag.
So, today, celebrate this day by heading to a store that sells roasted chestnuts to enjoy this holiday while listening to some Christmas songs by the open fire by your fireplace. Share on social media if you love chestnuts some photos by using #RoastedChestnutDay.
2012 Sandy Hook school shooting
On December 14, 2012, at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, Adam Lanza kills 20 first-graders and six school employees before turning a gun on himself. Earlier that day, he killed his mother at the home they shared.
The Sandy Hook shooting was, at the time, the second-deadliest mass shooting in the United States after the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, in which a gunman killed 32 students and teachers before committing suicide.
Shortly after 9:30 a.m., 20-year-old Adam Lanza shot through a plate-glass window next to Sandy Hook’s locked front entrance in order to gain access to the school. Hearing the noise, the school principal and school psychologist went to investigate and were shot and killed by Lanza, who was armed with a semiautomatic rifle, two semiautomatic pistols and multiple rounds of ammunition. Lanza also shot and wounded two other Sandy Hook, staff members.
(excerpted from https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/gunman-kills-students-and-adults-at-newtown-connecticut-elementary-school)
