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| Type | Confectionery |
|---|---|
| Place of origin | France orItaly |
| Region or state | Rhône-Alpes orPiedmont |
| Main ingredients | Chestnuts,sugar |
Marron glacé is aconfection originating in France[1][2] or Italy[3] that consists of achestnutcandied in sugarsyrup andglazed. It is an ingredient in many desserts and is also eaten on its own.
Candied chestnuts appeared in chestnut-growing areas inEurope shortly after the crusaders returned from theMiddle East with sugar. Cooking withsugar allowed creation of new confectioneries.[4] According to some, the birth of themarron glacé occurred around the 16th century (thanks to a greater availability of sugar) in the Cuneo area, where large quantities of chestnuts were collected (and are still collected, to be exported throughout Europe). It seems, according to this theory, that themarron glacé were invented by a court chef ofCharles Emmanuel I, Duke of Savoy (1562–1630).The recipe appears in the treatise Confetturiere Piemontese, printed in Turin in 1790 Butmarron glacé as such (with the last touch of 'glazing'), may have been created only in the 16th century.[3]
In 1667,François Pierre La Varenne, ten years'chef de cuisine toNicolas Chalon du Blé, Marquis ofUxelles (near Lyon and a chestnut-producing area), and foremost figure of thenouvelle cuisine movement of the time, published his best-selling bookLe parfaict confiturier. In it he describesla façon de faire marron pour tirer au sec ("the way to make (a) chestnut (so as) to 'pull it dry'"); this may well be the first record of the recipe formarron glacé.[5]Tirer au sec means, in a confectionery context, 'to remove (what's being candied) from the syrup'. La Varenne's book was edited thirty times over seventy-five years.
Nevertheless, that book was not mentioned (nor indeed any other) when the recipe, applied tococoa beans, was in 1694 passed on toJean-Baptiste Labat, a Frenchmissionary inMartinique. That year he wrote in a letter of a recipe for candied and iced cocoa beans which he had tasted when dining at a M. Pocquet's.[6] Another early citation, still in French, is from 1690.[7]
Towards the end of the 19th century,Lyon was suffering from the collapse of thetextile market,notably silk. In the midst of this crisis, Clément Faugier, a bridge and roadworks engineer, was looking for a way to revitalize the regional economy. In 1882, inPrivas, Ardèche, he and a local confectioner set up the first factory with the technology to producemarron glacé industrially (though many of the nearly twenty steps necessary from harvest to finished product are still performed manually). Three years later, he introduced thecrème de marrons de l'Ardèche, a sweetened chestnut purée made frommarron glacé broken during the production process, flavoured with vanilla.[5][8] (later cameMarrons au Cognac in 1924,Purée de Marrons Nature in 1934,Marrons au Naturel in 1951, andMarpom's in 1994.)[9]
The same process was used in 1980 byJosé Posada inOurense, Spain. He was the first businessman to build a factory to produce Spanishmarron glacé using Galician rawchestnuts.[10][11]
The French refer to chestnuts aschâtaigne ormarron. Both terms refer to the fruit of thesweet chestnutCastanea sativa. However,marron tends to denote a higher quality, larger fruit that is more easily peeled.[12] The fifth edition of the dictionaryDictionnaire de l'Académie française. Revu, corrigé et augmenté published in 1798 states that amarron glacé is aconfitmarron that is covered incaramel.[13] The 1767 bookL'agronome, ou dictionnaire portatif du cultivateur claimed that the bestmarron came from theDauphiné region in southeastern France, and contained instructions for preparingmarron glacé.[14]
Chestnuts are covered with a membrane, known as apellicle or episperm, which closely adheres to the fruit's flesh and must be removed because of itsastringency.Marron-quality nuts have a pellicle which is "superficially attached to the nut", making it easily removable from the fruit.[12] Some chestnuts have twocotyledons usually separated with deep grooves penetrating nearly all the way through the fruit; this makes them too fragile for the necessary manipulations during the cooking process. There also are other grooves on the surface, which means more embedded pellicle that must be painstakingly removed.Marron-quality nuts do not have the separation into two cotyledons; it appears in one piece and it shows few very shallow grooves.
In Italy, the termmarrone denotes a specific high-qualitycultivar ofCastanea sativa bearing oblong fruits with a shiny, reddishepicarp and often exhibiting a small rectangularhilar scar.[12] As with the French use of the term, there should be no division of the cotyledons.[12]
Marron-quality nuts formarron glacé may be three or four times more expensive than thechâtaigne because they also have a lower yield[15] as thehusk usually contains only one or two nuts and the plants havesterile male flowers.[12]
Candied chestnuts are a speciality ofBursa, Turkey, where they are calledkestane şekeri (chestnut candy).[16]
Media related toMarron glacé at Wikimedia Commons
