My friend who lives in the south of England has been collecting sweet chestnuts. The trees he has been collecting them from are 500 years old. The sweet-chestnut tree is common in the south of England, but not in the north of England, where I live.
Sweet Chestnut tree
The sweet chestnut tree. The sweet chestnut is edible (can be eaten). Usually they are roasted 烤 at Christmas – if anybody bothers. Nowadays people don’t bother collecting them.
Sweet chestnuts are a popular snack 小吃 in China
Growing wild
Sweet chestnuts on a tree.
They are enclosed in a ‘spiky’ (like a needle)针 case which ‘splits open’ when the nut is ripe 成熟 and ready to fall to the ground. They ‘grow wild’ – they do not belong to anybody.
There is a very similar nut called the horse chestnut. Horse chestnuts are very common everywhere, particularly in the north of England.
horse-chestnut
The horse chestnut looks similar to the sweet chestnut.
They are completely different. Whereas the sweet chestnut is edible, the horse chestnut is not.
If you eat a horse chestnut instead of a sweet chestnut .. it is unlikely to ‘prove fatal’ 致命(不杀你 ) but you will suffer from vomiting, loss of coordination, stupor, and occasionally, paralysis 呕吐，失去协调，昏迷，偶尔，瘫痪.
It is said that horse chestnuts have a bitter, sour and acrid taste 苦，酸，辛 and you would be more likely to ‘spit it out’ (吐出来) instead of swallowing it 吞咽 if you accidentally ate one.
Horse chestnuts have another common name. Most children would call them ‘conkers’. Sometimes, not often these days, children will collect horse chestnuts, pierce 刺穿 them – put a hole in them. Through they hole they put a piece of string .. and then try and break somebody else’s conker by hitting it. It’s a game called ‘conkers’
A game of 'conkers'
conkers on a piece of string. Hit the other conker and try and ‘shatter’ (break) it .. and you win!
Of course, most children play computer games nowadays ..
Teaching in China 