Reminder: climate rally, Washington, Feb. 17

If you're anywhere near Washington, this is a good (read: meaningful) thing to do on February 17.

Why? Because numbers matter. Both in the sense elaborated here, and in the sense of "crowds".

Culinary help needed re: chestnuts (tinned)

Is there anyone here who’s ever used tinned chestnuts? I just opened a tin of chestnuts - this is the first time I’m using them in this form - and instead of the water that according to the text on the tin should be in there (around the chestnuts, that is), there was a firm to jelly-like, opaque, whitish mass around the chestnuts. It was actually somewhat hard to get the chestnuts out of the tin because the entire tin was filled with this mass (and chestnuts, obviously).

The tin isn’t very old - I bought it in December - and according to the use-before date should still be useable until October 2014. So I’m wondering if it’s supposed to be like this. But pictures of opened tins of chestnuts that I found on the net show the chestnuts immersed in water, and not this strange jelly-stuff.

Basically, they’re too expensive to chuck away, but I also don’t really want to poison myself. So if anyone’s encountered this phenomenon and can tell me what it is, and/or if it’s harmful, that would be very good.

Oh, yeah, and my kitchen is *very* cold - so could this be a result of the low temperature at which the tin was stored?