Hi and thank you for following the Bluestocking Belles’ Fire & Frost Blog Hop. Below is a very short story about a hard working street vendor who witnesses a scene from my novella My Own True Love. My Own True Love is part of the Bluestocking Belles’ boxset, Fire & Frost and celebrates romance at the 1814 Frost Fair in London.
Frowning, Anna watched the entire scene unfold. Not because she was terribly interested in the doings of the ladies and gents of the ton, but because the drama taking place on benches beside her chestnut stand was drawing away business. She wanted to shout at all the richly and warmly dressed people that the feelings of one fancy bloke toward a wealthy skirt was not worth their time when they could be filling their bellies with her roasted chestnuts. They were the best hot bites to be had because she sprinkled some precious cinnamon atop each one as it burst due to heat. Then she heard the handsome fellow with his arm in that of a lovely young lady threaten a fancy man.
“You low-life scum. You will apologize to Miss Cummins immediately, or I’ll give you the thrashing you deserve.”
“Good show, Trevor, my man,” said a bloke in a beaver hat. “But I do not think Cummins is worth your time and effort.”
“Miss Cummins’s honor and reputation is worth every effort. I am waiting to hear that apology.”
Mr. Fancy Fellow looked down his long nose. He only succeeded in making himself look silly, since he was shorter than Lord Handsome by a head. “I would not waste my breath. Good day, ladies.” Fancy pointedly nodded at every female present other than the young lady he’d insulted.
One by one the women turned their backs, giving him the cut direct. Their escorts joined them. Only Lord Handsome and Anna saw the angry glare Mr. Fancy cast toward the group and the red-eyed fury he bent on the young woman’s bowed head.
“Get out of here, Cummins,” warned Handsome.
“Oh, I’m leaving, but your little doxy, my cousin, will regret she ever attempted to associate with her betters.”
Lord Handsome watched until the man was out of sight, then knelt before the pretty lady. Even Anna
could see how pale the woman was, how listless her gaze. Her lips trembled, and her shoulders quaked.
As Anna looked on, Lord Handsome quickly untied the woman’s second skate and lifted her into his arms. Anna sighed. It’d be nice to have someone to take care of her like that. While she admired the man and the gesture, she couldn’t help but regret the loss of the coin she would have earned from selling him chestnuts.
He spoke to Beaver Hat then Lord Handsome walked off toward a line of carriages with the lady snug in his arms.
Anna stared after them a spark of regret for what she could never have deepening her frown.
“Ahem.”
She turned her attention to what she hoped would be a customer and saw the smiling face of Beaver Hat.
“Can I help you, Sir? I’ve got the best chestnuts in London.”
“Excellent. I’ll need three dozen.”
“Three dozen.” She goggled at the man. He was on the lean side though healthy enough. “You must have gotten up quite an appetite while you were skating,” she said as she pulled chestnuts from the fire and wrapped them into a neat parcel for him to carry. “That’ll be ten pence.”
“Well yes, I did work up an appetite miss. However, even I could not eat three dozen chestnuts by myself. I intend to share these with my friends over there. He gestured toward the carriage where Handsome was carefully settling his lady. Beaver Hat pulled some coins from a pocket of his coat and laid them on the boards she used as a counter.
Three guineas!
Anna looked at the coins with longing. That much money would buy her younger sister Jenny medicine for a whole month, maybe more if they were careful. Anna wished she could just take the coins and run. “I’m that sorry, sir. I haven’t sold enough yet to be able to make change for that much.”
“What a shame. How about you keep it all if you can point me toward someone with good hot 
chocolate to sell.”
She wanted to sing and pointed toward a booth two stands down. “That I can do. You see that older woman over there?”
“The one with the gray bonnet?”
“That’s the one. She’s my mother, and if you tell her Anna sent you, she’ll take three pence off her normal price of a cup of hot chocolate”
“Done. Thank you.”
Anna watched him walk off and stop at her mother’s booth. There was a quick exchange. Her mother cast a wide-eyed glance toward Anna and she nodded.
A cup of chocolate was poured for the gentleman to sample.
He drank it all in one swig, then licked his lips and spoke at length with her mother. Anna served three more customers while watching to see what was happening at the chocolate booth.
Beaver Hat handed her mother a slip of paper or perhaps his card. The crowd was too thick for Anna to see clearly.
The next thing she new her mother hopped up from her three-legged stool and bussed the man soundly on the cheek. Then she turned and quickly ladled a large pitcher full of chocolate from her pot. She placed it along with four wooden mugs on the makeshift counter between her and the gentlman.
Anna’s eyes widened as she saw the gleam of gold pass from the man’s hand to her mother’s. In the next moment, her brother Edward was helping the gentlman to carry his purchases toward the coach where Handsome and his lady waited.
Edward waved as the coach sped off then ran to Anna. “Mother says I’m to help you close up, Anna, we need to go home right away. Our fortunes have been made.”
“What do you mean, our fortunes have been made?”
“That toff you sent over to mother is a lord, and he wants mother to come to work for him. He’s even willing to take you and me on as under-servants so we can learn that trade.
If she’d had a stool, Anna would have sat. Lord in heaven, thank you. Now they would have enough money from their three salaries to see that Jenny saw a doctor and might even get well.
Comment to win
Comment on this post, each of the other four, and the page on the Belles’ website to go into the draw for the main prize in the blog hop, a $50 US Amazon card.
All comments on this post will go in a draw for an e-copy of one the four Bluestocking Belles’ collections, plus a copy of Forever Hold My Heart, a Victorian Era MacKai Family novella.
Did Frost Faire Vendors Truly Sell Hot Chestnuts?
I could find no information one way or the other about the sale of rosted Chestnuts at the 1814 Frost Faire. However, given the long history of hot Chestnuts throughout the world, I believe that one or more vendors very like my fictional Anna made a pretty penny selling roasted Chestnuts to all and sundry.
FoodReference.com (http://www.foodreference.com/html/chestnuts-roasting-a1209.html) gives the following information about the history of these delicious morsels. “Chestnuts hail from a deciduous tree indigenous to the Americas and Asia. There are numerous species and mankind has been harvesting them for millennia. The Native Americans were consuming them long before the first European settlers arrived in the New World. The Europeans in turn, were introduced to the chestnut from Sardis, the capital of the ancient kingdom of Lydia, now part of Eastern Turkey. Thus, the people of that time referred to chestnuts as the “Sardian Nut.” Sardis was an important city in the ancient Persian Empire until falling to Alexander the Great in 334 B.C. Later it was a key metropolis in the Roman Empire.
Both Alexander and the Romans planted chestnuts throughout Europe. They were amenable to the mountainous Mediterranean regions where cereal grains would not grow well. This rendered chestnuts indispensable for the inhabitants of those grain-challenged areas. Chestnuts became a principal food source and a valuable commodity in bartering. The ancient Greeks ground them into flour and made chestnut bread. The Romans used ground chestnuts to produce a form of polenta. The Romans also believed that chestnuts counteracted certain poisons, dysentery and rabies. Some species of chestnut trees were grown for their wood as well.”
If you’d like to learn more about roasting chestnuts and the various methods employed to make the treat this link is a good starting place https://www.canr.msu.edu/news/chestnuts_history_and_roasting_tips.
Next up:
Wilfred Bagshott Portraits on Demand; Sketches personal and charming! Prints and souvenirs!
About Fire & Frost
In a winter so cold the Thames freezes over, five couples venture onto the ice in pursuit of love to warm their hearts.
Love unexpected, rekindled, or brand new—even one that’s a whack on the side of the head—heats up the frigid winter. After weeks of fog and cold, all five stories converge on the ice at the 1814 Frost Fair when the ladies’ campaign to help the wounded and unemployed veterans of the Napoleonic wars culminates in a charity auction that shocks the high sticklers of the ton.
In their 2020 collection, join the Bluestocking Belles and their heroes and heroines as The Ladies’ Society For The Care of the Widows and Orphans of Fallen Heroes and the Children of Wounded Veterans pursues justice, charity, and soul-searing romance.
Celebrate Valentine’s Day 2020 with five interconnected Regency romances.
Melting Matilda by Jude Knight – Fire smolders under the frost between them.
My One True Love by Rue Allyn – She vanished into the fog. Will he find his one true love or remain lost, cold and alone forever?
Lord Ethan’s Courage by Caroline Warfield – War may freeze a man’s heart; it takes a woman to melt it.
A Second Chance at Love by Sherry Ewing – Can the bittersweet frost of lost love be rekindled into a burning flame?
The Umbrella Chronicles: Chester and Artemis’s Story by Amy Quinton – Beastly duke seeks confident woman who doesn’t faint at the sight of his scars. Prefers not to leave the house to find her.
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The roasted chestnuts sounds delicious!
It’s enough to make me cry. The simple kindness of some people shows that humanity is not lost.
I’ve never had roasted chestnuts.
What a lovely little story.
Thank you Denise.
Great story. Love the idea of a fair on the frozen river. Great idea for cold climates. We had roasted chestnuts from a street vendor in Toronto on a really cold and blustery day, years ago. One of my fondest memories.
Thank you Jeray. Glad to know I could jog loose a happy memory.
This is a sweet story. thanks for sharing!
You are most welcome, Rhianona. Thank you for the kind words.
How. very sweet. I’ve never had roasted chestnuts, but my husband raves about them.
Thank you Lori. Perhaps he’ll gift you a few the next time a cold wind blows.
Hot chestnuts are the best! My Mom used to make them during the holidays!
Excellent, Maria. Thank you for sharing.
Loved this story about Anna’s hot chestnuts. Since she was nice and had her mother give him a discount on hot chocolate. They got a job with beaver hat that would help them live and provide for thete sisters health care. I enjoyed this short story do much
Rory, thank you. I like Anna and her family quite a bit and am certain they will show up in other stories.
Oops! I goofed about the book name in my previous comment. Please forgive me ladies I am so enjoying it.
No problems Molly. We appreciate your support.
I would think yes as popular as they were supposed to be back then. And who doesn’t know what a chestnut is? They would want to sell something recognizable and known rather than try something new and unknown. At least I think so lol
Possibly. Although, at one time tea, coffee and chocolate were all unfamiliar in most of what is now Britain. Thanks for commenting, Tonia.
Sigh, that brought a tear to my eye. Love the happiness Anna exhibited.
Thank you Dee. I now live in a country where I see entirely too many hardworking Annas. Too few of them reap the rewards they deserve. At least in fiction, I can make things turn out right.
What a sweet story! I have eaten roasted chestnuts. We used to roast them in the fireplace on cold winter’s night when I was growing up. But I’ve never had them with a sprinkle of cinnamon on them, yum that sounds good!
Thank you Bobbie. As I said elsewhere, make sure you mix a little sugar with the cinnamon.
Just found Roasted Chestnuts on Amazon. I may have to order some to try them since I’ve never tasted them! Thank you!
Hmm. I’ll have to look for that too, Patti. Thanks for letting us know where to get them.
have never had them but I love the idea of them. So much fun.
They are fun and very similar to the way we used to make popcorn before microwaves and stoves.
I’ve never been a fan of roasted chestnuts. I had them once as a child and could never get over the taste.
I empathize, Sabrena. I have a similar problem with cilantro.
I’ve never had a roasted chesnut, but it has always sounded like a fun tradition. Thanks for sharing the 1814 Frost Faire with us.
You are so welcome, Robin. If you’d like more Frost Faire fun go ahead and get a copy of Fire & Frost. Right now it’s available on Amazon for $.99 USD.
Thanks for this look at the Frost Fair and its impact on those at a distance from the Ton on the social spectrum.
You’re welcome, Julie. The Frost Faire was popular with all of London’s people and provided an opportunity rife with inspiration for great story telling.
I have a chestnut tree but I’ve never tried to roast any.
You are very lucky to have a tree, Charlotte. If you decide to try roasting the nuts please do a little research (I include some in my post above). There is a technique to getting them right.
Really enjoying getting a peek into these stories and visiting the Frost Faire. I have never had a chestnut.
Carol, you are most welcome. There is a first time for everything. Evidently roasted chestnuts are available on Amazon.
We always roasted chestnuts at Christmas when I was small. We had a coal fire then so that made it easier to do. Very tasty!
Delighted to know your have such happy memories, Cheryl.
I love all these little sneak peeks into these stories. Can’t wait to read the book
Kimberly, some of these stories are indeed sneek peaks into the tales from Fire & Frost. But some are totally independent of the novellas and written simply to provide more fun from the Frost Faire. Regardless, I’m pretty sure if you enjoyed the blog hop vignettes, you’ll probably enjoy our novellas.
I’ve never had roasted chestnuts, but imagine they would be a wonderful warm snack while browsing the other booths.
Or on a carriage ride home after an hour or two spent on the ice. Lovely thought, Heather. Thank you.
What a charming vignette this is. I can readily believe that hot chestnut sellers were a part of the Frost Fair. I love them myself, although they’re not common here in Southern California.
Thank you Merrie. Chestnuts aren’t common anywhere in the US of A due to the blight that killed about 90% of our Chestnut trees about 100 years ago. Re-growth is difficult, although there are groups trying to help with that effort.
What a wonderful story! I tasted a hot chestnut once and I was never able to eat another but this story shows that even back then people loved chestnuts and I think the comment about wrapping them in bacon does sound good. I loved the story that the family who worked so hard together were able to impress a gentleman enough to give them jobs! I’d love a story about what happens next in their lives.
Nancy thank you so much for your kind words. I do like Anna, and am thinking about how to include her and her family in some of my future stories.
I have never had roasted Chestnuts and never saw them in the grocery store.
That is too bad Vicki, but true for many people. I’ve mentioned elsewhere that Chestnuts are rare in the US of A due to a blight that killed roughly 90% of the trees here.
I loved this extra peak into this scene. I would love it if Anna got her own novella. 😉
Thank you Michaela. I would love to write Anna’s story one day, but I get to know her a little better first. I expect she and some other members of her family will show up as secondary characters in some of my future books.
Roasted chestnuts are a cold climate thing–not in much demand in Florida
Very true, Kathleen.
I agree with Susan. This is a very nice story showing the compassion of some of the upper crust. Made me hungry for hot roasted chestnuts.
Thank you Janet. Chestnuts I cannot provide, but if you happen to hunger for stories that I and the other Belles can help you with.
I loved this story. It showed some upper class notice the servant class and could show compassion. My aunt roasted chestnuts once when I was a child. I did not care for them, but with a little cinnamon or the bacon someone mentioned they should be delicious. I preordered Fire & Frost and can’t wait to read the book.
I’m loving these short stories. A lot of the ton totally ignored all servants, but some were kind to all and it’s nice to read about some who were.
Thank you Kathy. People come in all varieties, characters should too.
Thank you very much for your kind words and your pre-order Susan. Our tastes change as we age, so perhaps it’s time to try roasted chestnuts again. 🙂
No chestnuts. Tried buy couldn’t find anywhere sadly. Said didnt do well Farmers Market.
Anyhow…theyre DELICOUS!
Smell sooo good!
Thanks for commenting, Cheri.
Loved this story.
Thank you Rachael.
I loved all the stories. The frost fairs have always fascinated me, so hard to believe the Thames used to freeze. I’m sure there would have been hot chestnuts as it such a brit thing & something we associate with winter
Janet thank you. Yes chestnuts roasting on the fire are definitely a winter thing for many of us. However, if you’ve never had them, don’t wait for winter to try.
I so enjoyed these stories! I can’t wait for more…I love the way roasted Chestnuts smell but have never tried them…
Anissa, I hope you get the chance to have Chestnuts one day. Thank you for letting us know you liked the stories.
very charming story!
Thank you Charlene. Nice to see you here.
Such a pretty story. Although I’ll have to pass on the chestnuts. My diverticulitis prohibits nuts and seeds. I bet they smell wonderful, especially with the care to sprinkle cinnamon on them.
Thank you Jennifer. Hope your diverticulitis allows a tasty substitute.
Thank you for a sweet story, made my Monday! I would have loved to skate on the Thames 200 years ago…. Shared the release with friends.
You are welcome and thanks for sharing. Always glad to make someone’s day.
A sweet story and roasted Chestnuts sound delicious.
Thank you Catherine.
I can’t recall if I have had chestnuts roasted over a fire but with a bit of bacon wrapped around them they can be delicious
An excellent suggestion, Laura.
It always amazes me when an author can write such a charming and heartwarming story with just a few lines! I’ve never had roasted chestnuts (I know, I’m sooo deprived! lol) and now that I know you can sprinkle cinnamon on them, I MUST try some!!
Add a little sugar along with the cinnamon, Carole. And given that the US lost most of its chestnut trees over 100 years ago, it isn’t surprising you haven’t had any. Very few of us have.
Wow, I love the sound of this story. Thank you for sharing about it.
You are most welcome, Alicia.
The story was charming. Anna and her family were very lucky to find their future at the Frost Fair. Chestnuts are wonderful and the hint of cinnamon sprinkled on them sounds delicious.
Thank you Deb.
I’ve never had a chestnut. Always wanted to try them
I love this I cant wait to buy this set of books
Thank you Belinda. I just purchased my copy today.
Sounds wonderful.
Thank you, Stephanie. We all had great fun writing these stories.
They sound very good. I have never heard of The Frost Fair sounds amazing
The 1814 Frost Faire is the last known time that the Thames froze over. Afterwards, engineering changes made to the river prevented the conditions needed for such a freeze.
I have never had chestnuts
Brenda, several of the links I checked looking for background on roasted Chestnuts explained that early in the 20th century, the US Chestnut trees suffered a blight that wiped out about 90% of the population so Chestnuts are hard to come by in the US. Not surprising that you might not have had them.
The short piece I read was great and I enjoyed it very much. Thank you.
Thank you Candy. I like Anna very much. Perhaps she’ll show up in another story.
Hi Rue! I love this story!! So sweet and heartwarming. This collection during the frost fair is ingenious but I would expect no less from the Belles! So interesting about Chestnuts and have often wondered what how they taste! Thank you
Thank you Lori. When heated Chestnuts are a bit sweeter than when not. The texture is also very different. Might be worth a try next Christmas.
This is so sweet! I’ve been waiting for Fire and Frost since I pre-ordered it in early December. The Frost Fair has always been of interest to me, but to add five love stories to it is a wonderful premise. Can’t wait!
Thank you Mary. We’ll have some stiff competition with J. D. Robb releasing book number 50 on the same day, so please spread the word. Fire & Frost is such a very different type of book, I can only hope that folks will buy it to balance their reading menu :).