The Marrone

The brown might seem at first glance a simple chestnut, but compared to the latter it is larger and sweeter and peels more easily. Thanks to the presence of potassium among the mineral elements and vitamin C, chestnuts are a healthy, genuine, nutritious and easily digestible food. The production area in Romagna Faentina is that of the Senio and Lamone Valleys.

Various investigations have been made on the chestnuts of Casola Valsenio and Brisighella, attempting to trace the origins of the chestnut fruit orchard and its spread in the area, where it assumed noteworthy importance after the year 1000. The originators of the first chestnut plantings, were most likely individuals gathered in religious communities, such as Benedictine monks and those who revolved around the rectories of local parishes. Thus it was that the people of the Faenza Apennines had at their disposal a plant whose origins had receded into distant geological eras (Cenozoic era) at the gateway of several million years and whose provenance would be traced, only later in areas of Asia Minor highly suited to the genesis of innumerable fruit trees, which have successfully reached the third millennium after conquering the most receptive continents. Like Europe and particularly the Mediterranean basin, complicit were the most prominent civilizations that moved there with commercial intent. Indeed, it seems that credit for the entry of the chestnut tree into Italy should also be given to the Etruscans. The Romans, therefore, already found it in their homes and continued to cultivate it while relegating its fruit to the plebeian table, as an alternative flour element to others more used to appease hunger. And the chestnut fulfilled this task of quelling hunger pangs even over the centuries, so much so that only a few decades ago it got rid of the epithet of bread of the poor.