The arrival of cocoa in Turin
Before the discovery of the New World by the Spaniards at the end of the 15th century, the only peoples who consumed cocoa were the Olmecs, the Mayas and the Aztecs. And it was already a rare product, sought after, and even haloed with almost magical virtues. The cocoa tree is a very difficult tree to cultivate: it takes years to produce fruit, does not bear fruit every year, requires a climate that is both hot and humid, and fears the sun more than anything. And the transformation of the fruit into a consumable product is not an easy task: it is necessary to extract the seeds from the fruit (30 to 50 seeds per fruit), to let them ferment and dry, then to roast them, to grind them in order to obtain a powder which it is still necessary to aromatize to make it pleasant to the palate. The people of Central America generally flavored this drink with chili pepper, which certainly explains why Christopher Columbus hated cocoa when he tasted it for the first time in 1502! So he thought that it was not interesting to bring it back to Europe... A few years later, in 1519, Hernan Cortes, another famous explorer, converted to this drink by discovering its numerous virtues: cocoa allows to fight, among other things, against hunger, fatigue and diarrhea
Cocoa arrived in Spain, but no one was really seduced by the bitter taste of this drink until they had the idea of sweetening it... From then on, cocoa, served as a hot drink, was a huge success at court, and honey, milk, vanilla or cinnamon were added. Emmanuel-Philibert of Savoy, who, allied with the Spaniards, had just won a great success against the kingdom of France in 1559, stayed for some time at the Spanish court. He discovered cocoa and brought it back to Turin, which became in 1563 the new capital of the States of Savoy instead of Chambéry. It is said that the Duke of Savoy decided to celebrate his return and the transfer of the capital by offering a glass of hot chocolate to the entire population! This may be a legend, or it may not have happened again, because cocoa is a rare, expensive product, reserved for an elite, which is only diffused in the European courts. Hot chocolate remained an aristocratic drink for a long time, always accompanied by cookies to dip in the sweet beverage.
Turin becomes the European capital of chocolate
In the 17th century, a treaty praised the health benefits of chocolate. In France, at the court of the Sun King in Versailles, it was even claimed that one should drink a dozen cups a day! In Turin, in 1678, the regent Marie-Jeanne-Baptiste de Savoie-Nemours authorized by decree the sale and exploitation of the cocoa drink. From then on, chocolate-making became a fully-fledged and recognized profession: from that moment on, Turin became the largest chocolate production center in Europe and hundreds of kilos were produced every day in the city, a good part of which was exported to Switzerland, Germany and France
In Piedmont, and especially in Turin, a new drink was created in the 18th century, the bavaresia, served in a transparent glass that allows you to see three superimposed layers: at the bottom of the hot chocolate, in the middle of the coffee and on top of the cream of milk. The idea is not to mix these three layers in order to break down the three flavors. The tasting allows to appreciate first the sweetness of the milk, then the bitterness of the coffee, and finally the creaminess of the chocolate. This drink, which dates back to 1763, was given the name of bicerin (which means "little glass") in 1840 and is served in the café of the same name, which still exists in Turin, and whose setting has changed little. The bicerin is one of the great historical and elegant cafés of Turin where the history of Italian unity was written in the 19th century. During a trip to Italy in 1852, Alexandre Dumas Sr. reported: "Among the beautiful and good things I noticed in Turin, I will never forget the bicerin, a kind of excellent drink, made of coffee, milk and chocolate, which is served in all the cafés, at a relatively low price.
The invention of gianduja
At the beginning of the 19th century, Turin was the centre of the chocolate world. But in 1806, Napoleon, who occupied Piedmont, decided to prevent the United Kingdom from trading with the rest of Europe in an attempt to ruin the country, which was brazenly resisting him. During this long period of continental blockade, it became very difficult to obtain cocoa. To compensate for this scarcity, the Turin chocolate makers had the idea of adding a cheap and abundant ingredient to the cocoa: the Langhe hazelnut, of the Tonda gentile
variety (in 1996, this exceptional hazelnut obtained the IGP certification - Protected Geographical Indication). Thanks to the high nutritional and taste quality of this hazelnut, the mixture is particularly tasty.At the same time, another way of consuming chocolate appeared thanks to the invention of a process that made it solid. In Italy, in 1802, Bozelli made an automatic hydraulic machine that allowed to grind cocoa and mix it with sugar, giving birth to the first industrial system producing chocolate bars. In 1826, Pier Paul Caffarel set up his chocolate factory in Turin, today the oldest in Italy. He was the initiator of solid chocolate in the city, and thanks to one of his new machines, he produced more than 300 kg of chocolate per day. From that moment on, chocolate became a delicacy accessible to the whole population, and no longer a drink reserved for an elite. An interesting linguistic detail is that in Italian the word chocolate is feminine when it refers to the drink (a hot chocolate is called una cioccolata calda) and masculine when it refers to its solid version (il cioccolato
).
Caffarel then joined forces with the chocolate maker Prochet, who in 1852 perfected the technique of extremely fine grinding of the Langhe hazelnuts. The powder obtained, of an absolute fineness, with a powerful and delicate taste, is mixed with cocoa, powdered sugar, fat and vanilla. Prochet spent several years improving the recipe, dosing the ingredients, until he obtained the perfect consistency, the maximum smoothness, that we still know today ( gianduja, with 40% hazelnut). In 1865, on the occasion of the Turin carnival, the two chocolate makers decided to launch this revolutionary new product on the market. An additional and brilliant innovation: an individual golden paper wrapping, allowing to throw these little chocolates to the crowd from the floats that parade through the streets! This is the first time that chocolate has been packaged in small portions. These new chocolates are shaped like an overturned boat or, for some, a tricorn, the hat worn by the famous character of the Turin carnival, Gianduja, who distributes the hazelnut chocolates from the Caffarel float. For the record, in 1789, the puppeteer Giovanni Battista Sales met a talkative and charismatic man called Gioann dla doja in the vicinity of Asti, and he was inspired to create his Gianduja puppet, which became a carnival mask and one of the symbols of Turin. The small chocolates of Caffarel and Prochet then take the name of gianduiotti. The success is immediate. In 1865, Turin was mourning the loss of its status as capital of the kingdom of Italy to Florence, but the city gained a new source of wealth and pride thanks to the gianduiotti.
The art of chocolate making in Turin: a living heritage
It is impossible to list all the historical chocolate makers, both industrial and artisanal, who have been operating in Piedmont since the 19th century and continue this chocolate tradition, but here are some of them: Caffarel, the oldest chocolate maker in Turin; Baratti & Milano, two partners who opened a confectionery in 1858; Leone, founded in 1857 in Alba and present in Turin since 1880; Peyrano, which dates back to 1914, leader of the artisan chocolate makers; Streglio (1924), Feletti (1882), Talmone (1850); Venchi, created by a former worker of Baratti & Milano who started his own business in 1878; Novi (1903), Pernigotti (1868), A. Giordano (1897), now run by the Faletti family, the only one that still cuts its chocolates by hand; or Guido Gobino (1964), one of the best chocolate makers in Italy out of the 600 on the peninsula.
It is impossible to list all the famous sweets of Piedmont, besides the famous gianduiotti, made with cocoa, displaying all the art of chocolate: the bonét, a cake found throughout Piedmont, combining amaretti, cocoa and rum; thealpino with its creamy heart; the boero with its chocolate shell surrounding a cherry with liqueur; the cremino, which alternates layers of gianduja and chocolate; the delicious baci di dama (lady's kisses) composed of two hazelnut shells joined by creamy chocolate; the unavoidable cuneesi al rum made with a clever blend of chocolate, meringue and rum that can be found at Arione's, an authentic temple of sweets, in Cuneo; not forgetting the Pinguino
created by the ice cream maker Pepino in 1939, which in France we call the Eskimo, the first ice cream in the world to be grasped by hand, which is held on a stick, with various flavors surrounded by a chocolate shell, always made in an artisanal way according to the original recipe.Finally, it is impossible not to mention Ferrero, the small family pastry shop in Alba that became a food giant in a few years thanks to the almost accidental invention of Nutella. Legend has it that brothers Giovanni and Pietro Ferrero developed a mixture of cocoa and hazelnut in 1946. During the hot summer of 1949, the paste became creamy and did not solidify. The two brothers then decided to sell it as is, in small glass jars. The success of this delicious, nourishing and inexpensive paste, which is spread on bread, is resounding. A myth was born!
Chocolate, a true "dish of the gods", can be enjoyed in all sorts of ways in Turin and Piedmont, a region that accounts for more than 40% of Italian national production. Every year since 2003, Turin has been organizing the CioccolaTò, a gargantuan tribute to chocolate with events, tastings, exhibitions and shows. All the master chocolate makers, industrial companies and artisanal chocolate factories, Turinese, Italian and international, present their know-how to the public in the streets of the Piedmontese capital. It is the ideal opportunity to taste chocolate in its many variations at the many stands of the producers and to discover the infinite wealth and inexhaustible inventiveness of the actors of this heritage eternally under construction.
As a major center of chocolate production and processing in Italy, with one of the world's most fertile chocolate-making traditions, where artisanal production has never stopped, there is no doubt about it: Turin is definitely the Italian capital of chocolate!
