In October the days grow colder, the sun sets early. Through the streets of the centre an intense scent, sweet and a little burnt, and from small braziers placed at the crossroads little clouds of smoke rise, mingling with the autumn mist. The most picturesque vendor, in front of one of these braziers, invites passers-by with sing-song calls at regular intervals “mondinee… mondine caldee!”. It is the time of Chestnuts… of gatherings in front of the fireplace, getting one’s hands dirty peeling them…
It is a product very rich in nutrients and highly digestible which, until a few decades ago, constituted an indispensable food for the mountain people.
The artisanal processing of chestnuts into flour requires a great deal of time, and it is a strongly community-building moment for the whole village. After the harvest, which takes place at the end of October, the “metati” are “loaded”, small stone buildings with a movable rack placed halfway up, resting on beams and accessible, thanks to the slope of the ground in the woods, from both floors. From the upper floor through a door from which the chestnuts are brought, and from the ground floor, where the fire is set, in the centre of the room, which must burn uninterruptedly day and night. During this period everyone was busy setting up the metato and checking the drying process. In the smaller villages, once, there was only one, to which all the harvested chestnuts were brought. Around the room, against the walls, a row of benches hosted every evening all the inhabitants of the village, who gathered there in the warmth, to tell anecdotes, stories and legends…
Many of these have as protagonists the malicious “streghi”, nocturnal creatures who inhabit the mountains, moving in the shadow of the imposing chestnut woods, frightening the inhabitants of the villages.
One of these tells that one night many years ago, near a metato in Campaiana, in the municipality of Castiglione di Garfagnana, some men were beating chestnuts on an old stump, when they saw on the Pania di Corfino little lights wandering up and down, here and there, as if a phosphorescent anthill had invaded the mountain. One of the men, just as a joke, broke the silence of the forest and shouted at the top of his voice: “come and help us instead of standing there doing nothing”.
Shortly afterwards a man came out of the dark and offered to help them. He filled only one sack of chestnuts and then vanished into the darkness just as he had come. The next day, when the three men loaded the bales of chestnuts onto the mule, they noticed that in one of them the chestnuts were all burnt. On the cloth was imprinted the shape of a blackened hand.*
Numerous festivals dedicated to this fruit are held in the mountain villages of the Pizzorne Plateau and Monte Pisano, to savour the true flavour of these fruits, right there where they grow and are harvested, among the warm colours of the autumn woods
in Lucca, Gignano di Brancoli sagra del balloccioro
(* “storie e leggende della montagna lucchese” P.Fantozzi)