Chestnut dryers
Circular economy
Walking through the woods and farms of the Ligurian lands, you can still see ancient stone huts, built mostly with scraps of slate. These shelters, with their rustic charm, were once stables, barns, foliage warehouses and, in particular, chestnut dryers.
The design of the dryers
Chestnut dryers were simple in construction, but ingenious in design. On the ground floor there was the space for the fire, while about two meters above it there was a wooden grill. The chestnuts were placed on this rack to be dried. The heat of the smoke, released by logs that burned for about a month, slowly evaporated the humidity of the chestnuts. The logs were covered in ash to prevent the fire from turning into a flame, which could ignite the wooden grate and destroy the entire crop.
The secret of triangular openings
The ingenious construction also included triangular holes drilled in the walls, above the grate, to allow the smoke to escape, thus maintaining a constant flow of heat without danger. These dryers represent a testament to Liguria’s peasant past, a past that is reflected in the hundreds of ruined dryers that still dot the mountains today, telling stories of hard work and ingenuity.
The chestnut economy
Through these ruins, you can almost hear the echo of the ancient harvest seasons, when chestnuts represented a vital resource for rural communities. Today, these ruined structures are not only reminders of a bygone era, but also monuments to the resilience and creativity of the farmers who built them, using what the land offered them with great skill and wisdom.
Sources
Viarengo G., “L’Albero della Cuccagna. Paesaggio, alimentazione e cucina nella Liguria di Levante”, Chiavari, Internòs, 2023
Cogorno E., “Frammenti di storia. Memorie di scampoli di vita cogornese”, BookSprint Edizioni, 2022
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