We leave behind the month of November, the month dedicated to the chestnut, one of the autumn fruits that welcomes the cold with its fall from the tree. Sweet prelude to winter, the chestnut is the responsible for one of those Christmas sweets that seems to have fallen into oblivion over the years, the icing brown.
Roasted chestnut stand.
Because until a few years ago the one who brought marron glacé home when Christmas came was because he threw the house out the window a little. It has never been a cheap pleasure. Instead, it has been reduced to taste and enjoy a few hedonists that they did not look at the pocket, at the same time that the great crowd made endless queues in the small chestnut grill stalls that emerge on these dates. After all, they are chestnuts. But while the latter last, the brown glacé seems to wither , rusts in the memory of other times. It is no longer for an occasion, has become part of the archive of gastronomic rarities for nostalgics . Life is unfair sometimes.
DISPUTED BETWEEN FRENCH AND ITALIAN
The icy brown probably it was invented much earlier than we think . The Greeks and later the Romans they preserved the fruits in molasses and, in addition to going down in history as the gourmands with the greatest sweet tooth in the history of mankind, they also redefined the way of consuming fruit as a sweet. And they did it with everything they had in front of them, including the fruits of autumn, among which is the chestnut.
But if we have to attribute the conception of this delicatessen we have to go back to the eternal battle that the southern French have had with the Piedmontese , north of Italy, in a border that has always boasted of providing the best chestnuts in the world . Perhaps it was the taste for chestnuts that led France to conquer Piedmont in the year 1631 (let us imagine...), but already at that time chestnuts were glazed in both countries and both considered it as a very own sweet. The Italians attributed marron glacé to the kitchens of the Duke of Savoy and the French to François Pierre de la Varenne, one of the most important chefs and gastronomes in France, not only of the 17th century but of all time, who, among other things , is credited with the invention of bechamel sauce.
Marron glacé, a sweet worthy of royalty.
The true promoter of the brown glace is said to have been the King of France, Louis XIV. The Sun King knew that the best way to control the greed and lust for power of the nobility was to bring them together in an environment brimming with luxury and ostentation. Versailles became his particular center of operations . De la Varenne introduced brown glacé to the greedy court of Versailles and it became a fashionable candy. In fact, the sweet was passed down from generation to generation (Louis XIV reigned for more than 70 years), passing through Louis XIV, grandson of the Sun King, who lost his head for this delicacy before being guillotined.
What happened in Versailles with the brown glace was the campaign of branding strongest in history of French pastry. In succeeding centuries, the taste for the glazed chestnut led to the industrialization of the sweet for mass production without losing the elitist and exclusive character that has been maintained until almost today. And although it struggles not to fall into oblivion, it seems that the glacé brown, with its exciting history, is relegated to a few dates in which sugar gives the chest do . Perhaps the consumer society wants to keep it apart, but that exclusivity will always be part of its charm.
GALICIAN GLACÉ BROWN
You don't have to look to France or Italy to savor a starry brown glacé. Here in our country we have creators of this delicacy thanks to the good chestnuts that our forests produce, like Maite Gonzalez, Manager of Caves and Company , possibly the greatest exponent we have in Spain as far as brown glacé is concerned.
Maite tells us that the history of Galicia cannot be explained without talking about the chestnut tree , that tree that gave food, wood, shelter and shade to our ancestors. G alicia exceeds 48,000 hectares of chestnut trees and more than half of the chestnut production comes from Ourense. The freshness, its sweet taste, its texture and humidity have made Galicia the only area in Spain that has the only chestnut protected geographical indication of our country.
Glacé brown at its best.
And in this idyllic setting they produce a brown glacé that has placed Galicia in the spotlight. “The chestnut must have a rounded shape, its texture must be firm, non-floury with a percentage of humidity between 50-60% to avoid breakage during the cooking process and to ensure that the candied process is perfect, with a sweet flavor and an extra caliber”, are the words of Maite when explaining how she has to make a perfect brown glacé. Once the fruit is peeled, it is cooked and candied at low temperature for seven days in a vanilla syrup, scrupulously controlling parameters such as temperature and brix degrees.
Once the marron glacé has been candied, covered with a thin layer of vanilla flavored icing sugar that gives it that shiny finish, a day of drying at controlled temperature and humidity and finally it is packaged with great care. Also, Maite emphasizes the importance of continuing to preserve according to traditional techniques of the master confectioners of the 17th century, which implies a lot of time and expert labor, but the result is superior.
Cuevas began his love affair with the chestnut in 1944 and since then they have become an international benchmark. In fact Cuevas marron glacé can be found in more than thirty countries , mainly in America, Europe and Asia. According to Maite, the success of this sweet that refuses to disappear is due to several reasons.
"Ice brown it is a whim and an exclusive product that presents us with a different sensory experience. This product has accompanied us for many centuries in celebrations and special moments being cataloged as one of the most sophisticated European sweets since the 17th century.”
Chestnut and chocolate cake.
And we have brown glacé for a while, since it is a delicacy that has wanted to be renewed over the years. Maite confirms that tastes do indeed change, which is why they appear new varieties: Williams pear liqueur, brandy, with ginger, covered in chocolate and many more. And best of all, little by little we are seeing marron glacé again in confectioneries as in the old days. But renovated, more sophisticated, making it clear that there are small pleasures that, like good wine, improve over time.