Castagne Picking In Woodlands.

Today after finishing some jobs around the house I went chestnut picking with a friend of mind. An elderly gentleman who spends alot of his time collecting local wild foods and his knowledge is very extensive.
Apparently chestnut picking here in the Sibillini mountains is very popular with Italians. Many who drive from as far as Rome to collect the first fallen.
We tramped into a little woodland near to us and as you can see from the picture above the chestnuts were many.
Whilst collecting the chestnuts my elderly friend told me that during the 2ND world war when the Germans were controlling this area foods such as bread and meat were in very short supply, so many of the locals would collect the chestnuts as one of their basic food groups. Often they would go at night to avoid the German patrols who would regular confiscate the chestnuts from them.
They would use the chestnuts either on their own with pasta or with mushrooms that had been picked secretly and spirited away from the Germans.
Nowadays they are mostly roasted either on a open grill by fire or in an wood oven.
Its best once picked to leave the chestnuts for more than a week to allow for the chestnuts to sweeten.
Bearing in mind the way the locals use to eat the chestnuts during the 2ND world war there is a recipe based on those ingredients.
First heat alittle olive oil in a large pan.
Then add a few porcini mushrooms and then grate about 200g of chestnuts into the pan and cook slowly for about 10 minutes.
Whilst then chestnuts are cooking boil some water and then add 500g of handmade papeadelle stlye pasta.
Then drain the pasta and add the chestnuts and porcini mushrooms, add salt and pepper. Then add 100g of good pecorino cheese grated.
Serve immediately.