The chetsnut tree during the centuries

The origins of the chestnut tree are really doubtful, according to many people it would be native to Middle East, from where it spreads in all arround the Mediterranean.
It's a really ancient plant, since it dates back more than 60 millions years; in Scandinavia, fossils of leaves and fruits, testifying about his presence in distant days, were discovered.

The romans contributed to its great diffusion; since they understood the great potentialof "Jupiter's acorn" (it seems that they called chestnuts this name) they began to cultivate them almost every-where. During the ages, the chestnut tree strongly characterized the landscape and it assumed the role of witness of the local culture.
Some writings show the presence and the importance of the chestnuts in the antiquity, suffice it to think that Martial (Marcus Valerius Martialis, a Latin epigrammatist and poet), in the 1st century A.D., talks about the ability of the Neapolitan to roast chestnuts, saying that not any town could compete with Naples in that cuisine.

During the middle age in Cuneo province the production of chestnuts was so important that there were issued some rules for their growing and protection. In particular, they stated clearly the dimensions of chestnut groves, they controlled their cutting, the grazing rights the lighting of fires and established the penalties for possible theft.

During the eighteenth century only the nobility could taste marron glacés and it seems that at the paris royal court it was in fashion a cocoa and chestnut flour based sweet, invented by the chemist Bonneau.

The Christians gave a symbolic meaning to the chestnut husk, which represented a spiteful trick of the devil, while the cross shaped cut that makes open the chestnut husk was interpreted as a sign of God.

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