The chestnut tree is a plant known and apppreciated since
ancient times. Indeed, it is mentioned in the Bible and in Homer's poems,
while the Greeks called its fruits "Jupiter's acorns". In Italy it has
been widespread since ancient times, above all in the Appennines between
300 and 1000 metres of height. Since the Middle Ages until almost our
days the chestnut has been the feeding base for mountain peoples, as it
is shown by many legislative acts related to chestnut woods promulgated
during the centuries. The Gavinana Statutes in 1540, for example, expected
landowners to pick their chestnuts within the month of November. After
that, poor people could go without restriction and pick the fruits which
had been left. On this subject, ther is a popular belief that the husk
holds three chestnuts: one for the landowner, one for the peasant and
one for the Poor. In order to be milled, chestnuts must be previously
dried.n Tuscany the drying took place in the "metato",
a rural building set up in the harvest place. Somewhere, in the Appennines
north of Pistoia and in the Garfagnana area for instance, this building
was an integral part of the dwelling house: it substituted the kitchen
and it was a meeting place where people stayed up late.
Chestnuts were
set to dry on a reed-bed, that is on a structure built up with close boards
or reeds whose nearness to the kitchen-fireplace granted an even heating.
Pascoli recollects it in one of his poems: "lonely metato in which the
sweet wooden bread dried up on a sweet fire: over the reed-bed the chestnuts
crack, and the red fire burns in the darkness." (The log, in Castelvecchio
Poems) Once dried up, the chestnuts were husked by a strong beating which
ground the shells in strong sacks or in a proper container called vat.
Today this way of proceeding has been substituted by proper husking machines.
Also the metati have almost entirely disappeared. The places once used
for that purpose have been changed into dwelling rooms or tool storerooms.
Thanks to Margherita Azzari
