Chestnuts still roast on open fires, but Michigan farmers are now using the traditional holiday favorite in many other ways — making treats like hummus, soup and gluten-free beer.
With a combination of nature, entrepreneurial farming and some help from Michigan State University, Michigan has become a national leader in growing chestnuts and is harvesting more than 100,000 pounds a year.
It’s a comeback of sorts for the nuts after the trees that grow them were nearly wiped out by a fungus that destroyed billions of chestnut trees across the country by the 1950s.
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