Typical autumnal products of my region (Tuscany, in the center of Italy)

Since I was a child, me and my parents love to go in the forests close to the village where I was born to collect the chestnuts. I was born in a little village in the Tuscany region (Italy) called Piteccio, placed between many forests of chustnut trees, so it's really a tradition for us to use them to cook many plates! 

In the past many families have someting to eat just thanks the chestnuts and the chestnut flour, considered for long time a "food for poor people", but today is really a valued food for the winter table.

We have many different ways to eat chestnut, fresh or dry, with or without their peel.

At first, we can simply burned the "fresh" chestnuts with their peel on the fire using a special pierced pan adding a bit of red wine during cooking. When they are burned, we can easily put up the peel and eat the taste fruit ^_^ We called them frugiate or bruciate (it means "burned" in Italian), but they are also known as caldarroste. 

In the following pic you can see our pan to cook the frugiate:

We can also cook the fresh chestnuts (with their peel) in the boiling water with a bit of salt and wild fennel. When they are ready, we called them "ballotti". I love to eat ballotti, but I have to say that patence is really necessary to remove the peel before to eat them ;)

In some villages there are small old buildings called "metato" to dry the chestnuts to preserve them for the entire year. With the dry chestnuts we usually make the flour, but we can also cook them in the boiling water as the fresh fruits. 

I have to say that I love to eat the dry chestnuts without cooking them, they are like candy  for me^_^

Now it's time for the dry chustnuts and the chestnut flour and I have them in my kitchen! The flour of chestnuts (that we call farina dolce, it means "sweet flour") is really tasty to cook cakes, castagnaccio and polenta and so I will use this flour to cook something good in the next days, stay tuned ^_^

See ya soon

Silvia