Traditional hunting: The chioccolo, an ancient call that today's young artisans build with passion, according to tradition but with the addition of a pinch of innovation.
Hunting according to tradition should never be forgotten, just as we shouldn't forget all those tools that the hunter once brought with him to end a particularly lucky hunting day. An example is the chioccolo, the wooden one, the artisan one, so well known and loved in the Tuscan Maremma. If once the hunters who hunted from the hut could not do without it, the trend in recent years has experienced a freeze. More modern, more expensive and sometimes less effective tools are chosen. Yet there are those who still appreciate the old hunting traditions, those that should appear in the dusty and very enthusiastic books that speak of the folklore and material culture of the place. The hen would then become a real protagonist.
Fortunately, even today there is no lack of young and very young people, with an unbridled passion for hunting, who choose to make everything necessary for hunting days at home, using those manual skills that are going out of fashion. There are also those who, artisan and hunter, have made the production of chioccoli a real job: it is thanks to these young people that the chioccolo still lives in the countryside of the Tuscan Maremma and elsewhere.
Made of ash wood, but also of strawberry tree, olive, cherry, holm oak, chestnut, turkey oak, or heather, the chioccolo can be made in different sizes and shapes. What is really important in this ancient instrument is the sound that the chick must be able to emit, a sort of "chiò", a call so dear to the blackbirds. To achieve this, some artisans hunters place a small brass sphere inside the wood that makes the sound unique.
These objects, unique in their kind either for the workmanship, or for the sound, can be made by hand, personally, by trying their hand at an ancient but also very useful art, or they can be ordered from Italian artisans who still remember the construction techniques of hen. However, they are keen to remember it: today's hen is different from that of the past, to tradition these artisans have added innovation and all the improvements that production technologies have made it possible to achieve. The fact remains that these objects, beautiful to look at and useful in the field, maintain an indissoluble bond with the past, while looking out over the future.