Wild chestnuts have been known to Man since the times of ancient Greece. Xenophon, Virgil, Apicius and Galen all exalted their nutritional properties and their flavor. However, it was the chef of Carlo Emanuele I, Duke of Savoia, who invented this little gems of sweetness, marrons glacés, sometimes towards the end of the 16th century. Their recipe was published for the first time much later, in 1766, in the culinary treatise Il Confetturiere Piemontese.  

Marrons glacés must be made only with the best chestnuts which, yesterday as today, come from Cuneo. During the Middle Ages, chestnuts became the most important food for Alpine people, probably becausemonastic communities had worked hard to improve their cultivation in the mountains.