Peasant life in Camporaghena: chestnuts, potatoes and isolation
How people lived in Camporaghena before electricity and the car. The chestnut economy, subsistence farming, isolated winters. A hard life that shaped the character of this land.
The chestnut economy
For centuries, the chestnut tree was the tree of life in Lunigiana. Chestnuts were the staple food: chestnut flour for castagnaccio, fritters and polenta. The wood was used for building, heating, making furniture and tools.
The chestnut groves around Camporaghena are still visible today. Some trees are hundreds of years old.
Subsistence farming
Each family grew what it needed: potatoes, barley, beans, vegetables. There was no money to buy food. People ate what the land provided. Meat was rare: pork once a year, a few chickens, rabbits.
The communal village oven baked bread once a week. The mill ground chestnuts and cereals.
Winter isolation
In winter, Camporaghena was isolated. Snow blocked the paths for weeks. Families prepared in autumn: firewood for the winter, dried chestnuts, potatoes in the cellar, salted pork.
People stayed indoors, repaired tools, spun wool, told stories. Television arrived in the 1960s. Electricity shortly before.
The peasant house
The typical Camporaghena house was made of stone, with a sandstone slab roof. Ground floor for the animals (sheep, goats, pig), upper floor for the family. A single room with a fireplace. No bathroom: water was drawn from the village fountain.
The B&B building (1861) is an example of a larger house, probably belonging to a well-to-do family.
What remains today
Today, peasant life is over. But the chestnut groves, the dry-stone walls, the paths and the mill ruins remain. And the memory of the village elders, who lived through the last years of that world, remains.