The loving scent of chestnut trees reveals its attractions

The start of the school year in September marks the return of this humble delight: the tasting of roasted chestnuts. While this fruit has become anecdotal in our diet today, it was once a staple in many parts of Europe. "We often forget, but the cultivation of the chestnut tree, the 'bread tree' of our ancestors, has historical importance ," recalls Rémy Petit, research director at the French National Institute for Agricultural, Food and Environmental Research (INRAE) in Bordeaux. Around 1850, France produced 50 to 100 times more chestnuts than today, or 1 million tonnes, compared to around 10,000 tonnes today."

The European chestnut ( Castanea sativa ) originates from glacial refuges located in what is now France . Its first cultivation dates back to 2,000 years before our era in Anatolia, Greece and Bulgaria. In Europe, chestnut cultivation intensified from the Middle Ages onwards. It reached its peak in France in the ^16th and ^17th centuries. A "chestnut civilization".

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