It’s officially the holiday season, which means it’s the best time of the year to test your skills baking gingerbread cookies for the first time, and romanticize roasting chestnuts on an open fire.

In the panoply of smells that mark the transition of fall into winter, few are more evocative than chestnuts roasting on an open fire. The aroma that inspired the first line of Mel Torme’s “The ...