A Corsican "polenta" made not from corn but from chestnut flour, stirred at length until it forms a dense paste, naturally sweet and slightly bitter, cut and eaten by hand, often with fresh cheese.

Why this dish? Born in Ajaccio in 1769, Napoleon is a child of Corsica, where chestnut flour—dried and stored all winter—replaced scarce wheat and fed mountain families. This is the taste of his roots, long before the Tuileries.

Before the crowns and battles, there was the Corsican mountain and the smell of roasted chestnuts. In our island, we dried the chestnuts, ground them, and from that flour we made bread when wheat was scarce. My mother, Letizia, knew how to make a harvest last all winter: nothing was wasted. Stir the flour into boiling water without ever stopping; your arm will ache, but you will get a paste that sticks to your ribs and smells of my childhood. A man always remembers the bread of his homeland.

How it was made : In 18th-century Corsica, the chestnut grove was called the "bread tree." Chestnuts were dried for weeks in smoky drying huts (fucone), then ground: this flour kept for months and saved villages from wheat shortages. Pulenda was eaten with grilled figatellu or brocciu.

The contemporary twist : Serve the pulenda warm as pan-fried crispy sticks, like "chestnut fries," with a drizzle of chestnut honey—a sweet nod to the Emperor's Corsican roots.

Sources : Larousse Gastronomique, notice "Corse"

Napoleon Bonaparte · Charactorium