Eating chestnuts and using chestnut flour is no longer a normal daily custom. In the past, however, the opposite was true. Chestnuts were part of the basic diet in winter, together with pork and maize flour. The documentary follows the life of a man of 85, who lives in the Modenese hills. On a day in autumn, the chestnut grower gathers the chetnuts and takes them to the kiln to be dried. During the following month he tends the fire that slowly dries the chestnuts. The final operation is cleaning, expertly done with precise and repetitive movements that embody the memory of an ancient task.