Sunderland’s Big River Chestnuts to celebrate a successful start to the season at festival

SUNDERLAND — Big River Chestnuts will host its annual Chestnut Festival for folks who are nuts about nuts, and eager to learn more about their possibilities on the plate.

Between 10 a.m. and 5 p.m. on Saturday, Oct. 10, at the 195 River Road farm, attendees can take a seat and listen to live music, create art, watch cooking demonstrations or embark on tours of the farm’s chestnut trees to check out the harvesting that reaches its peak in October, according to Jono Neiger, who runs the farm.

The chestnut expert said the festival will start “slightly past” the point of peak chestnut harvesting, which arrived a bit early this year. With the warm weather and rain, Neiger expects he and his team will pick between 1,500 and 2,000 pounds of chestnuts by the end of the season, surpassing last year’s tally of approximately 1,000 pounds.

“We’ve had a great growing season,” Neiger said Wednesday. “Every year, we’re growing more and more chestnuts.”

But he and his team grow more than their namesake. Test plantings for acorns, hazelnuts, hickory nuts and walnuts grow at the farm.

“These are all old practices, so it’s not like anything new is happening,” Neiger said, “but it’s sort of a rediscovery that’s underway.”

Attendees at the Chestnut Festival can taste the flavors of the farm for themselves in the acorn ice cream and acorn chai. Giulio Caperchi of Seven Hills Farmstead will also teach attendees how to cook pasta with chestnut flour, mixing the familiar fall nut into something “new and interesting,” Neiger described.

“There’s education, but it’s really a harvest celebration,” Neiger said. “It’s a celebration of the food that we grow in the valley.”

Suggested donations are $5 to $15. The rain date for the event is Sunday, Oct. 11.