It is a tool for collecting Sweet Chestnuts. You pinch the spiky pod between the rough ends and drop it in your basket... there are also special clogs that burst the pods so that you can get the chestnuts out. I collect trivial information like this... it saves being serious.
Actually, Pauline and I saw these at the Museum at La Celle Geunand along with said clogs and a picture of both items in action. Well worth visiting... everything is very well displayed.
Bread of life this stuff is to both Pauline and myself. It is a marvelous display of Man's ingenuity when faced with a problem... in this case how to pick up something that has spines all over it. The clogs to burst the pods without harming the chestnuts were very strange to look at.... I'm wondering if the two paddles in the picture were used in the same way. Chestnut flour has been a staple food for eons... probably in your storecupboard, Elizabeth, along with the Buckwheat/Blé Noir flour ? In Corsica they brew a beer using chestnut flour... and very nice it is too!! It is often in the shops here.
It is a tool for collecting Sweet Chestnuts. You pinch the spiky pod between the rough ends and drop it in your basket... there are also special clogs that burst the pods so that you can get the chestnuts out.
ReplyDeleteI collect trivial information like this... it saves being serious.
Actually, Pauline and I saw these at the Museum at La Celle Geunand along with said clogs and a picture of both items in action.
Well worth visiting... everything is very well displayed.
Interesting I would never have guessed that is what it was for!!! Have a good evening Diane
ReplyDeleteMe neither!
ReplyDeleteYou are both very observant! I should probably have just walked past the display without any thought of what the components were used for.
Gaynor, it's amazing how observant you are when you've a blog to write!! :)
DeleteBread of life this stuff is to both Pauline and myself. It is a marvelous display of Man's ingenuity when faced with a problem... in this case how to pick up something that has spines all over it.
ReplyDeleteThe clogs to burst the pods without harming the chestnuts were very strange to look at.... I'm wondering if the two paddles in the picture were used in the same way. Chestnut flour has been a staple food for eons... probably in your storecupboard, Elizabeth, along with the Buckwheat/Blé Noir flour ? In Corsica they brew a beer using chestnut flour... and very nice it is too!! It is often in the shops here.
Thanks Tim. Most enlightening, we like the others had no idea. We will have to visit the Museum at La Celle Geunand.
Delete