He’s become almost a fixture along Stirling’s main street.
For more than 35 years he could be found every weekend during the chestnut season, working over on his home-made roaster, the smell of the toasted fruit wafting up the street.
To his many customers, he’s Stirling’s chestnut man.
To those who know him, he’s Quentin Jones.
It was a twist of fate that brought Quentin to Nirvana Organic Farm on Longwood Road at Heathfield.
Working as a mechanic and car salesman in Adelaide, he’d travelled up to Wistow in the Adelaide Hills on February 15, 1983, to escape the suffocating heat of the plain.
The next day the deadly 1983 Ash Wednesday bushfire broke out.
As the fire raged through the Adelaide Hills, he and a friend went to Strathalbyn for a beer.
“We had the valuables packed up, finally (they) came and said ‘you’re out of danger now’.
“… There was burning embers on the road and there were trees burning on the side of the road, it was quite horrific.
“But beer was fairly important.”
It was there at Strathalbyn – in the pages of The Courier – he found Nirvana Organic Farm listed for sale.
The Ash Wednesday bushfire – the most devastating in the region’s history – didn’t deter him and a few weeks later he’d moved to the 4.4ha property.
The house itself was built over several decades in the 1800s and there were a few walnut and chestnut trees growing down the slopes beneath it.
Quentin and his partner, Deb, have since added hazelnuts, raspberries, gooseberries and red, white and black currents.
“The walnuts have never been a great success because the birds are such a menace … but the chestnuts have always been pretty good,” he says.
“We’ve got a good client base down in town.
“… They’ll come up in a floatilla of cars and buy 30 or 40 kilos at once.”
Popular in Europe and Asia, chestnuts are less common in Australia.
But – aside from making a tasty winter snack – they’re also versatile.
“I’ll peel them and freeze them and then they’ll go in soups and curries and things,” Quentin says.
“They don’t absorb curry, so they can be a safety zone in curries.
“And nice in soups.
“And then we dried some … and we ground up some – that looks like chook pellets – and suddenly it’s instant chestnut puree, add a bit of sugar or add a bit of salt and pepper and you’ve got your savory or sweet puree.”
Quentin first started roasting and selling chestnuts that were too small for commercial sale in Aldgate and Stirling in the late 1980s, also using it as a means of quality control.
The venture wasn’t without some controversy when the Adelaide Hills Council tried to move him from his regular space out the front of the National Australia Bank at Stirling in 2015.
“I did have a ding-dong barney with the council for a long while,” he says.
“They tried (to move me on), God bless them.
“Some of the councillors had some sort of beef about tourist trash and all that sort of stuff.
“… They tried to chase me off, but it just didn’t work … they ended up building a spot for me.”
Quentin first started roasting and selling chestnuts that were too small for commercial sale in Aldgate and Stirling in the late 1980s, also using it as a means of quality control.
He’s also done stints roasting chestnuts in Adelaide for Night at the Proms held at the Adelaide Town Hall – based on a similar event held in London – and for a Friends of the Gallery event for the Art Gallery of South Australia.
More recently he’s been selling his chestnuts at Stirling’s April Laneways event, and each following Saturday and Sunday during the chestnut season, until he sells out.
But thanks to the drought – which drove in larger flocks of cockatoos looking for food – this year was the first since 1989 that he didn’t set up in Stirling.
“We would have had half a basket of chestnuts (this year),” he says.
“The trees would be white (with cockies).”
He’s started succession planning for the farm, with his daughter and son-in-law preparing to make the move from Queensland next year to take over the every day running of the property.
But – if the season produces a favourable crop next year – he’s still optimistic that he’ll be back in Stirling’s main street.
Whether or not his tradition continues, the chestnut man has left his mark on the village of Stirling.
And many of his customers have also left their mark on him.
“The old couple who used to come every Mother’s Day and there was a Russian woman and her husband – from part of the Slavic countries – and they loved their chestnuts – they’d get two bags every weekend,” he says.
“Young kids getting into chestnuts.
“There was one woman and she was a swimmer – she was only a teenager – and she’d come to get her hot chestnuts on a Saturday morning at Stirling.
“… This was back in the good old days when you could drive up to the machine.
“This went on for years.
“Then I missed seeing her.
“And I saw her 10 years later with a 10-year-old child and a husband – introducing the kids to chestnuts.
“And that’s fun.”
