The Encyclopaedia Britannica says that they are also called American Horse Chestnuts.. (" (A. glabra), also called fetid buckeye and American horse chestnut...")
Before you can try to eat them you need to have them nearby...
Native Americans would blanch them, extracting the tannic acid for use in leather. In addition to using the tannic acid for leatherworking, Native Americans would roast and peel the nut, and mash the contents into a nutritional meal they called "hetuck". ("Hetuck" is the Indian word for "eye of the buck deer".) (From that repository of all the knowledge in the universe, Wikipedia ;-)
Having tasted a Buckeye in my youth growing up in the Buckeye State (one was enough) methinks it would take an awful lot of blanching... This recipe seems easier...
