Chestnut and Apple Cake. It’s not just a simple cake, even though it’s very easy to prepare. We need to go back in time: these are recipes I recover by talking with local people, recipes that continue their time in their deliciousness. During the chestnut harvest season, the bread of the poor for many mountain villages, which in this season didn’t have much to put on the table. The chestnuts that remained unsold, those that for some reason were left in the pantry at home after drying them in the kiln near the house. I also have one, which I don’t use, made of stone and wood, which was used to dry the chestnuts collected in the nearby woods, which were then peeled and selected; the best ones went to the market, the others were stored for the long winter. Nothing was wasted. If you had animals, there was also milk, sometimes meat, otherwise chestnuts were enough. That’s how this cake was born, without milk, without fats and with little sugar, just the eggs to hold it together, sometimes a bit of cocoa, otherwise natural. Apples were picked everywhere, or bartered; nothing was left on the trees, everything could be used. A cake with the authentic flavor of our mountains.

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