Il Museo Etnografico della Lunigiana
Dateline: 07/25/97
La Lunigiana is inland of the Ligurian coast -- a wild land with steep gorges and towering mountains that ring a crescent-shaped valley. Though nominally Tuscany (that's what the map says) the area actually has more in common with Liguria and Emilia Romagna both linguistically and culturally -- the valleys extend inland to Emilia Romagna, while the towns towards the sea, which would have provided what commerce there was, were Ligurian (Carrara and Massa were also within the Ligurian sphere of influence until malaria was driven from the plains separating them from Pisa, sometime during the last century).
The
locals subsisted mostly through farming the valleys, growing hemp to make
cloth and a variety of grains for bread. The woods provided chestnuts, and
what ever else could be produced at home was, from butter to butter
churns. Villafranca Lunigiana has a fascinating ethnographic museum, which
is located in an old mill that hugs the city walls. The first hall has the
scales, weights and measures used by merchants, folk medicine, votive
offerings, breviaries, and other mementos of the religious life of the
past, including a pleasingly naïf-style painting of Jesus and the
Devil contending the soul of a dying man, who reluctantly resists
temptation (women, games, money and music).
The next section, located in the top floor, is devoted to domestic life, with the troughs and tools the farmers used to process the chestnut crop, the spinning wheels and carding tools used to process hemp (the women spun it so finely it resembled linen), the looms they weaved the cloth with, and examples of traditional clothing, some made entirely at home and some with cloth bought from itinerant merchants. The patterned blocks used to die the finished cloth are especially interesting. Basket weaving was also an important activity, undertaken primarily by the men during the winters, when it was to cold or to wet to work the fields; there are examples of the baskets they wove for use in the fields and of those they made to sell at fairs. There are also cooking implements, butter churns and molds, and all sorts of other things including fish traps. While one would expect a fish trap to be plain and functional (and it is), the amount of care taken in decorating the objects used in the home, even the simplest, is simply astonishing.
Descending a level there are exhibits devoted to the various trades. First the woodworkers, with a selection of their tools, and, much more interesting, the furniture the cabinet makers produced. There are tables, surprisingly elegant chairs and couches that bring to mind Windsor furniture, and a number of beautiful cradles, made from Faggio (a local wood) and died red with faggio sap to ward off the evil eye. They're painstakingly carved with geometric patterns, especially stylized daisies. The next room is dedicated to stone carvers, who produced all sorts of things, from troughs to lintels. Again, the daisy is a common decorative motif, and you'll receive a reminder of how frugal life was in the past from a stone capital which, being carved and shaped was valuable, and was therefore hollowed out to make a mortar when it was no longer needed at the top of a column. Smithing is next; most of what the smiths made was coarse, either shoes for horses and oxen or tools, but they did find time to make locks as well, and there's a charming wrought-iron cradle that must have been some family's happiest possession.
We
descend another level, into a room with channels set into the floor that
were used to direct the water to the mills until the 1950s. The room is
now dedicated to the area's wine-making traditions, with the shears used
for pruning, baskets, and bottling equipment. The next room is dedicated
to the tools used to process wheat, and then there's the mill itself, with
three millstones (for grain, corn and chestnuts) that were turned when the
water struck the paddles of the wheels in the channels set under the
floor. Milling was an abrasive task, and there are also the tools the
miller used to dress his stones.
There's also another hall, which likely served as a storeroom in the past and now houses temporary exhibitions. It's a fun museum, ideal for children, and makes for an excellent day trip from Versilia, or Genova, or Emilia Romagna.
Getting there, and other practicalities. The easiest way to reach
Villafranca in Lunigiana is to take the La Spezia - Parma highway, exit at
Aulla (or Pontermoli if you're coming from Parma), and continue
parallelling the highway on the Strada Statale until you reach
Villafranca. Once you get there, park by the town hall and cross the
footbridge towards the mediaeval walls; the museum is at the end of the
bridge. The museum is open daily except Mondays 9-12 and 2-5 in the
winter, 9-12 and 4-7 in the summer, and admission is 5,000 Lire for
adults, 2,500 Lire for children under 14. 
You should also think about exploring the region.
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MIGLIACCIO DI FARINA DOLCE, VOLGARMENTE CASTAGNACCIO
Chestnut flour migliaccio, commonly known as castagnaccio
As I mentioned above, until quite recently the chestnut played a central role in the diet of the people of Lunigiana. This recipe isn't exactly Lunigianan, but it is one of the best uses for chestnut flour I know of. It's taken from my translation of Pellegrino Artusi's Art of Eating Well, the first commercially successful Italian cookbook aimed at middle class households. If you would like to know more about the book, or try other recipes, I have posted some on the Events in Florence & Tuscany Website (you can also purchase the book).
HERE AGAIN I CAN'T REFRAIN from crying out against the unwillingness to work we Italians suffer from. Chestnut flour is completely unknown in some provinces of Italy, and I doubt that anyone's ever tried to introduce it, despite it's being an inexpensive, healthy, and nutritious food suited for the poor and those unafraid of wind. I talked to a shopkeeper in Romagna about this, describing migliaccio, and asked why he didn't try to earn some money selling it. "Well," he replied, "it's too sweet and nobody'd eat it." "The cottarone you all sell are sweet, aren't they?" I countered. "At least try. Start with children; give them some for free to see if they like it, and pretty soon adults will probably begin to follow them." I had a lot to say, but it was the same as talking to a wall.
Cottarone, for those who don't know, are apples and pears, for the most part overripe, sprinkled with water and baked in the oven inside a pot covered with a wet rag. Let's get back to the easy preparation of this migliaccio.
Take
one and a quarter pounds of chestnut flour [the dish it will only be tasty
if the chestnut flour is fresh and of good quality; if it is, it will
smell of chestnuts]; since it gets lumpy easily, sift it into a bowl. Add
a pinch of salt, slowly stir in 4/5 of a quart of cold water, to obtain a
liquid batter, and stir in a fist full of pine nuts. Some cooks add
chopped walnuts as well as pine nuts, others raisins too, and others also
sprinkle in a few leaves of rosemary.
Now take an oven pan big enough so the migliaccio batter will be about a finger and a half deep in it. Lightly oil the pan, pour in the batter, and sprinkle two tablespoons of oil over it. Bake it in the oven [at 375° for about 30 minutes, or till it's firm and the top looks as crackled as the bottom of a dried pond].
You can also make fritters with this batter.
A printer-friendly version of this recipe.
Having said all this, have a great trip, and enjoy the recipe!
My thanks to the Museo Etnografico for kindly permitting me to use
the photos from their brochure.
Kyle Phillips
