Working in perfect tandem next to Tsang is his mother, 60-year-old Tsang Chi-lee.
“My mum has been selling roasted chestnuts for more than 20 years,” says Kobus. “But it’s hard on her arms, so now I’m helping her.” Tsang pulls back the right sleeve of his T-shirt to reveal a bulging bicep.
He’s also done some heavy tech lifting, rolling the cart into the 21st century by introducing an e-payment system and creating social media accounts.
“We’re the only chestnut cart in Hong Kong with e-payment,” he says, pointing to the QR codes for the mobile payment services of PayMe and AlipayHK.
“We also have an Instagram account, @goldenchestnuts2021.”
The cooler months, September to April, are prime chestnut season, says Kobus. “It’s hard work and we can work long shifts, sometimes 12 hours a day,” he says. In the off season he works as a safety officer on construction sites.
Each day he sells about 100 kilograms (220lb) of chestnuts – that’s about the weight of an adult female panda, or an adult male cougar. The mother-and-son team also sell roast sweet potatoes and quail eggs, which are among the city’s most popular street foods.
Waiting to buy a bag of chestnuts is a Hong Kong mother and her 10 year-old daughter. “My daughter loves them and gets really excited when she sees a seller,” says the woman, who does not want to be named.
Priscilla Chan has also stopped by for a chestnut fix. In winter, she’s constantly on the lookout for sellers.
“You can always smell the burning coals before you see the vendors – I love that,” Chan says.
But finding chestnut roasters in the city is not easy. Many have disappeared in the decades following the launch of a government crackdown on hawking – the practice of selling cheap food and wares from stalls and street carts.City officials, worried about hygiene and congestion, took steps in the 1970s to limit hawking. A ban on the issuing of new licences has also shrunk the number of legal hawkers.
At the end of 2021, the number of fixed-pitch and itinerant hawker licences for urban areas were 5,051 and 153 respectively. This compares with 1949 when, according to the Hong Kong Hawkers’ Association, the city had some 70,000 street hawkers.
Today it’s common to see Hawker Control Teams conduct patrols and raids. Coincidentally, just around the corner from the chestnut cart, uniformed officers were questioning hawkers, most of them elderly, who were selling wares ranging from scarves and hats to phone cases and masks.
If caught without a licence, they face fine of HK$5,000 (US$640) and up to three months’ imprisonment. For subsequent convictions, they can be fined HK$10,000 and imprisoned for up to six months.
According to government figures, there were 4,168 convictions for unlicensed hawking and other hawker-related offences in 2021.
“It would be sad if chestnut roasters disappeared altogether from the streets of Hong Kong,” says Chan, clutching her brown paper bag full of the warm golden nuggets. “They are part of Hong Kong’s food culture.”
She says that, while she loves them as a snack, “I might also eat them as lunch.”
It makes nutritional sense. Unlike other nuts and seeds, chestnuts are relatively low in calories and fats, but rich in minerals (iron, calcium, magnesium, manganese, phosphorus, zinc) and vitamins, especially Vitamin C.
And they are rich in folate, a natural form of vitamin B which helps in the formation of red blood cells and human DNA that is otherwise sourced by eating leafy green vegetables.
Chestnuts are eaten around the world. In Japan, chestnut rice is a popular autumn dish, while South Koreans indulge in steamed glutinous rice with chestnuts, jujubes, and pine nuts.
In the United States they are one of the main ingredients in poultry stuffing (think Thanksgiving turkey), while chestnut flour is used in Tuscany, Italy, to make polenta, sweet bread, biscuits and cakes.
Native to the mountain forests of China, Japan, Europe, and North America, chestnuts have long been associated with winter and Christmas. Just think of Nat King Cole’s “The Christmas Song”, which opens with the line: “Chestnuts roasting on an open fire.”
As for the best chestnuts, Tsang says they come from China, the world’s biggest producer, with 75 per cent of the market. Spain and Bolivia rank second and third.
He dips a gloved hand into his cart’s gas-fired wok and scoops one out. “Look at its colour,” he beams. “It’s so golden and beautiful.”
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