Gianduja chocolate
Gianduja chocolate (or simply gianduja) is the paste of cocoa, sugar and finely ground roasted hazelnuts that Turin's confectionery tradition turned into one of its most recognisable products. From this paste come the gianduiotto, chocolate bars and spreadable creams, including the one that in Alba would become Nutella. The Treccani dictionary defines it as a type of chocolate made with a paste “containing finely ground hazelnuts, rich in cocoa butter and therefore very soft”.[1]
The name
The word comes from the Piedmontese carnival mask Gianduia, in dialect Giandouja, a contraction of Gioan d'la douja, “Giovanni of the jug”.[1] The character embodies the rough-mannered peasant, sharp-tongued and generous-hearted; he wears a tricorn hat, a wig with the pigtail turned upward, a brown jacket trimmed in red, green breeches and a large umbrella. During the Risorgimento he became an image of Piedmontese popular steadfastness, and by the late nineteenth century he was the leading figure of the Turin carnival, with his own puppet theatre, the d'Angennes.[2] The name passed to the chocolate precisely through the carnival, when the mask handed out the first chocolates made of hazelnut paste.[3]
Hazelnuts in place of cocoa
The story of its origins starts with the continental blockade imposed by Napoleon on trade with England: for confectioners, getting hold of cocoa became impossible and its price soared. The Piedmontese answered with a fruit of their own, the hazelnut.[4] Hazelnut chocolate already existed, but with chopped, untoasted nuts; the breakthrough is credited to the craftsman Michele Prochet, who in 1852 had the idea of blending toasted, ground hazelnuts into chocolate, producing a smooth, even paste.[4] Another account from the same outlet ties the recipe to the hazelnuts of the Langhe and lists its ingredients: toasted, ground hazelnuts, cocoa, cocoa butter and sugar.[3]
Prochet met Isidore Caffarel, and the two began a collaboration that led to the merger of his company with Caffarel; from it came the chocolate shaped like an upturned boat.[4] Accounts differ on the date the sweet made its debut under the mask's name: according to a 2012 article by Mole24, the “Gianduiotti Caffarel” were first handed out by Gianduia to the public at the 1865 Carnival parade,[4] while according to another article from the same outlet, the chocolates, wrapped in gold paper, went on sale in 1865 and were distributed by the mask at the 1867 Carnival.[3]
A legal definition
Gianduja is one of the few chocolates whose name is fixed by European law. Directive 2000/36/EC of 23 June 2000 on cocoa and chocolate products reserves the name “gianduja hazelnut chocolate” (or names derived from “gianduja”) for a product made from chocolate with at least 32% total dry cocoa solids, of which at least 8% non-fat cocoa solids, and containing between 20 and 40 grams of finely ground hazelnuts per 100 grams of product; milk or milk solids may not exceed 5%, and other nuts may be added provided that, hazelnuts included, they do not exceed 60% of the weight.[5] There is also a milk version, “gianduja milk and hazelnut chocolate”, with at least 10% milk solids and between 15 and 40 grams of hazelnuts per 100 grams.[5]
From Turin to Alba: the creams
The same need that had produced the paste in the nineteenth century arose again after the Second World War, when cocoa was expensive to import and the Langhe had hazelnuts in abundance.[6] In 1946 the pastry shop that would give rise to Ferrero put the Giandujot on sale, named after the carnival mask and described by the company as “a sweet paste with hazelnuts, sugar and the little cocoa available at the time”: a loaf meant to be cut into slices.[7] The Ferrero family had opened its business in Alba that very year.[6] In 1951 the same paste became an easier-to-spread cream, SuperCrema, already sold in a jar; in 1964 the first jar of Nutella was born.[7][6] The idea for the cream is credited to Pietro Ferrero, who died in 1949; it was his son Michele Ferrero who took it to the world.[6]
The raw material
The reference variety is the Tonda Gentile Trilobata from the Langhe, whose growers work with Turin chocolatiers such as Guido Gobino.[8] The Nocciola Piemonte IGP designation is protected by a consortium based in Bossolasco that brings together about a thousand businesses and cooperative members; in September 2019 the European Union gave final approval to an amendment of its specification introducing the name “Langhe” for hazelnuts grown in certain areas.[9] Piedmont produces about 20,000 tonnes of hazelnuts a year, third in Italy after Lazio and Campania, while 70% of world production comes from Turkey.[10]
Artisans and industry
Alongside the big groups, gianduja sustains a network of Turin workshops. Guido Gobino's grew out of Maras, a company on via Cagliari where his father Giuseppe was plant manager and whose shares he took over in 1979; once he had the plant in hand, the son dropped sweets, pastilles and jellies to focus solely on chocolate.[11] In 1995 he registered the name Tourinot, a small-format gianduiotto created after he noticed customers breaking the chocolate in two to eat it;[11] the workshop, renamed “Laboratorio Artigianale del Giandujotto”, works by extrusion and states that it uses only Piedmont IGP hazelnuts, cocoa and sugar, without the powdered milk foreign to the 1865 recipe.[8] Of the chocolate, Gobino says that it:
“allows no shortcuts. Rigour in the process is an essential ingredient of quality chocolate”
There are two moulding methods: extrusion, which mechanically cuts the chocolates while keeping production artisanal, and casting, pouring the paste into moulds, which according to Mole24 gives a harder chocolate with a lower percentage of cocoa.[3]
Today: the dispute over the specification
Gianduja is at the centre of a dispute over protecting the gianduiotto. The application for a Protected Geographical Indication dates back to 2017; the promoting committee, led by chocolatier Guido Castagna and lawyer Antonio Borra and backed by the President of the Region Alberto Cirio, wants a paste of just three ingredients — Piedmont IGP round hazelnut, cocoa mass and sugar — with hazelnuts making up between 30 and 45%. Lindt, which has owned Caffarel since 1997, would instead allow milk and lower the hazelnut share to 26%. At stake, according to Mole24, is a market worth more than 200 million euros a year.[12]
Gianduja also features at the city's chocolate events: CioccolaTò, held in piazza San Carlo, presented the gianduiotto in 2015 as the “authentic symbol of the subalpine capital”, alongside the bicerin.[13]
Pages linking here
Related articles: Bicerin, Ferrero, Gianduiotto, Michele Ferrero, Nutella
Sources
- Treccani
- Treccani
- Mole24 — 22 January 2015
- Mole24 — 11 January 2012
- EUR-Lex – Unione europea — 23 June 2000
- Il Post — 20 April 2024
- Nutella (Ferrero)
- Guido Gobino
- Consorzio di Tutela Nocciola Piemonte IGP
- Il Post — 23 August 2021
- Sette – Corriere della Sera (rassegna stampa Slow Food) — 25 September 2015
- Mole24 — 9 November 2023
- Torino Sette – La Stampa (rassegna stampa Slow Food) — 20 November 2015