Celebrating the diversity and abundance of fresh, seasonal produce grown throughout the Orange district is what Orange F.O.O.D Week is really all about.

This theme definitely features at a special “Producer and the Chef” event next week with the focus turning to one of the district’s less-understood delicacies; the chestnut.

Ripe for just a few weeks of the year in autumn, the chestnut is a nutritious and delicious seasonal food that can be roasted, grilled, boiled, pureed, added to a stir-fry or salad, and even makes a tasty dessert.

David and Margaret Ogilvy have been growing the edible and incredibly versatile tree nuts on their Mullion Creek property for more than 40 years. Originally from England, it was David’s love of chestnuts — plus a gap he saw in the market — that led him to first plant chestnuts in the early 1970s.

“All the trees around here, I've grown myself,” said David, who did so early on by harvesting nuts from trees he found in backyards or on properties all over NSW and Victoria.

“You couldn't buy anything when we started in the early 70s; and, in fact, it's hard to buy them now,” he added.

Growing chestnuts is a long-term proposition, he explained.

“We started by growing English gooseberries… We plonked them in and we even exported gooseberries to Hong Kong and Singapore one year. And then we had a stone fruit orchard — peaches, plums, nectarines — and we did that for the number of years, plus we both worked off the place together, the chestnuts were for the long-term,” said David, whose own work history is even far more varied than the types of produce he has grown over the years.

“We tried Waratahs and Proteus, and they grew alright, but the weather was too wet… and Jujubes; in one of those hot years they were really good, but personally I don't know what people see in them.”

At peak production, David and Margaret’s farm was yielding over 10 tonnes of chestnuts from their 500 trees, which includes eight different varieties. In the past, they mostly sold them into coastal city markets, where they were prized by European immigrants seeking a taste of the “old world”.

“In Orange, we’ve not been well-known because our market was Italians in Brisbane and Sydney. Although during the eighties we had a coach traffic every year from Sydney — we even had double-decker buses — but nobody locally had any idea,” said David, who explained that the difficulty in selling chestnuts in Australia, has always been about educating the market.

As a former chairman and director of the Chestnut Growers of Australia, David said the industry invested a lot of time and money trying to teach how to store, prepare, and cook chestnuts.

“It's a ‘hard sell’ to people, when that's not in the culture… and hard to sell in what’s more or less a tropical country,” he added.

But the market has changed over the years, he said, and today more Australians are starting to notice the humble chestnut.

Their four-course chestnut-themed “Producer and the Chef” lunch, in partnership with TAFE NSW commercial cookery teacher Michael Apps, sold out weeks in advance.

And since switching the farm to a “pick your own chestnuts'' model, David and Margaret are seeing increasing numbers of people through their farm gate each autumn.

“Yeah, the world is strange,” said David wryly. “We were pretty busy last year and it's getting more popular. As my wife Margaret said, ‘Our time has come, but we’ll have to get around in wheelchairs!’,” he laughed.

Brittle Jack’s Chestnut Farm, 45 Lookout Road, Mullion Creek, is open 9-5pm, Thursday to Monday (closed Tuesday and Wednesday), until approximately the end of April. Contact 0427 658 353.

Chestnuts featuring at the “Producer and Chef” event