But why should we limit them just to the food of the festive season? While it's true that the nuts do come into season as the weather starts to get colder, surely there is a place for them on our tables at other times of year? It's easy enough to preserve them, after all, whether steeping them in sugar syrup to be consumed as the tooth-rottingly delicious treat that is marrons glacés, or simply pureeing them up and stucking them in a tin, as the gourmet merchants at Merchant Gourmet do.
You may recall that I tried their chestnut puree as part of my tin-based Christmas dinner in 2014, putting a layer of it in my turkey wellington, and mixing a dollop in with the tinned sprouts in an attempt to make them more palatable (it didn't). Apparently the company have now stopped selling it in tins, sadly switching to plastic pouches instead, which may be why, some time later, I came across a tin in the reduced section, even though it was still well in date. Having bought it but not got round to opening it at the end of last year, I started to look around for some less Christmassy uses for chestnuts. And lo and behold, if Merchant Gourmet's website didn't provide precisely that, with a recipe suitable for Easter - the world's second favourite Christian festival - Dulce de Leche and Chestnut Puree Hot Cross Buns.