Chestnuts roasting on an open fire: An acquired taste of Tuscan history

There is a certain magic to an Italian sagra. It’s a concept that doesn’t translate perfectly, falling somewhere between a town fair and a culinary festival dedicated to a single, humble ingredient. To stumble upon one is to peel back the curtain of tourism and step into the authentic, beating heart of a community. On a crisp Sunday afternoon, winding our way up the forested hills of the Svizzera Pesciatina, Lucy and I found ourselves drawn by the promise of one such festival: the Sagra delle Frugiate in Vellano.

Families gather and wait in line for the chestnut treats in the Circolo of Vellano

 Frugiate, it turns out, is a regional term for caldarrosta, or roasted chestnut. Linguists are not sure of the etymology of the term, but some theorize that it is a combination of the words bruciare (to burn) and frugare (to rummage through or poke around).

Vellano, the largest of the ten medieval castle-towns in this rugged corner of Tuscany, feels like a world away from the manicured postcards of Florence or Siena. Its stone houses cling to a steep hillside and its narrow alleys echo with history. The air was cool and smelled of damp earth and woodsmoke. We followed that scent to its source, a scene of pure, unadulterated Italian life unfolding outside the local Circolo.

A circolo is a social club, the nerve center of any small Italian village, and on this day its modest plaza was the center of the universe. Two local men stoked a wood fire under a giant kettle covered with an iron grate. They dumped large bags of raw chestnuts onto the grate and then used a custom-made rake to rummage them around.

We eagerly bought a paper bag filled with the steaming hot chestnuts, our first time trying them fresh from the fire. Peeling back the brittle, scorched shells to reveal the pale, tender meat inside was a rustic joy. And the taste? It was…elemental. Not sweet, not particularly savory, but earthy and simple, with a dense, floury texture and a faint hint of smoke. It was the taste of the mountain itself, of the forest floor on a crisp autumn day. It was honest and unadorned.

A whole frugiate and a
half eaten castagnaccia

Emboldened, we decided to dive deeper into the world of the chestnut, a food that for centuries was the very symbol of survival in these mountains. We sampled two other traditional treats made from farina di castagne, or chestnut flour. The first was a neccio, a thin, crepe-like pancake served rolled up. We opted for the traditional filling: fresh, creamy ricotta rather than the more modern substitute of Nutella. The neccio was soft and pliable, but the flavor of the chestnut flour was dominant—a slightly chalky, dense taste that completely absorbed the mildness of the ricotta.

Next came the infamous castagnaccio, a flat, dense cake that looked like a rustic brownie, studded with pine nuts and seasoned with rosemary. This is perhaps the most archetypal “peasant” food of the region. As we took a bite, we understood why. The texture is heavy, almost leaden, and the flavor is a challenging combination of earthy, unsweetened chestnut flour and the sharp, piney notes of rosemary. There was no sugar, no butter, no lightness. It wasn’t a treat in any modern sense of the word.

And this is where the true pleasure of the Sagra delle Frugiate began to crystallize for me. The food itself, by the standards of a 21st-century palate accustomed to sugar and refined flavors, was not particularly tasty. The neccio was bland; the castagnaccio was a culinary oddity. But to judge them on taste alone would be to miss the point entirely. These were not recipes born of indulgence but of stark necessity.

Giacomo, center, and Betty, right, along
with an man whose name I didn't get,
package up the hot frugiate in paper bags.

For centuries, the people of the mountainous regions of Italy lived lives dictated by the unforgiving landscape. The steep, rocky soil was unsuitable for growing wheat, grapes and olive trees. The true provider, the symbol of sustenance, was the chestnut tree, known affectionately and accurately as l'albero del pane—the “tree of bread.” From its nuts, villagers ground the flour that would see them through the harsh winters. It was their source of carbohydrates, their daily bread. The unsweetened cakes and crepes we were eating weren’t desserts; they were survival. Sugar was a luxury for the wealthy city dwellers on the plains below, not for the mountain folk.

Eating that dense slice of castagnaccio, I wasn’t just tasting chestnut flour and rosemary. I was tasting history. I was tasting the resilience of people who carved a life out of these mountains, who relied on the forest for their very existence. The simple, smoky flavor of the roasted frugiate was the taste of a community gathering around a fire for warmth and sustenance. The blandness of the neccio was the taste of a filling meal that asked for nothing more than to quell hunger.

The true pleasure of the sagra was not in a gastronomic revelation, but in a profound human connection. It was in watching the men roast the chestnuts with practiced ease, in seeing families share a simple meal, in understanding that the food we were eating was a ghost, a culinary echo from a harder, simpler time. It was a delicious lesson in history, a reminder that not everything that feeds us has to be sweet. Sometimes, the most satisfying meals are the ones that nourish our understanding.