I had never seen chestnuts outside a French tin before coming to Germany, but they are everywhere in the late autumn, and irresistible. At the Gendarmenmarkt Christmas market I bought a hundred grams in a paper cone, piping hot, and munched away while walking around, admiring the porcelain wares at one stall and sampling the fresh nougat at another, giggling at the provincial German tourists pleased to find Grünkohl in such upscale settings, pausing to watch a nervous soprano sing ‘In excelsius deo’.
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