Do you need sugar for fried chestnuts with sugar?

There are three things in the traditional sugar-fried chestnut pot: maltose, vegetable oil and black sand. You can't see sugar and oil, mainly because sugar sticks to the sand, so the sand looks shiny. It used to be fried with honey, which was more expensive. Now it's basically syrup.

As for why black sand is added, it is because chestnuts can be heated evenly by that frying method. If you fry chestnuts separately, it is not easy to master the heat, and chestnuts are easy to burn and explode. Even if it is not, it is not sweet with sugar.

However, some unscrupulous traders fry chestnuts with sweeteners such as industrial paraffin and saccharin sodium, which is unhealthy.