The history of Gianduiotto, the sweet chocolate of Turin, began November 21, 1806, when Napoleon Bonaparte in Berlin proclaimed the Continental System, which prohibited trade between the countries subject to the French Government and the British ships.
Among the most exported products by the British there was cocoa which, for the measures taken by Napoleon, was a major downsizing and Turin, where he had created a real tradition of chocolatiers, which produced 350 kilograms of chocolate per day by the end of the eighteenth century, he wondered what could be done to avoid a catastrophe.
Paul Caffarel, the Waldensian origin entrepreneur and owner of a factory in the San Donato district in Turin, had the idea to build a machine to produce the first chocolate, a mixture of solid chocolate as a result of a mixture of cocoa, water, sugar and vanilla.
In 1852, the son of Caffarel, Isidore, joined the factory to that of another important industrial of confectionery sector, Michele Prochet, and decided to take advantage of a partnership with the nearby Alba, using the most famous product of the area, the Tonda Gentile hazelnut of Langhe.
Prochet had the brilliant idea of replacing the dough pieces of hazelnut, which was toasted and ground, making it more like a cream to which were then added to cocoa and sugar. In 1865, Prochet also gave his creation a form called "Givò" which, in Piedmontese dialect, means "cigar butt" and he remembered a small boat overturned.
To launch the spread of new dessert, Caffarel, during the carnival of Turin, where the typical traditional masks they used to launch delicacies and sweets to the crowd, he used the Gianduja mask, typical of the Piedmont tradition, which embodies the stereotype of the local honest, cheerful and pleasure-seeking, which actively participates in city life, not sparing works of charity, to distribute its "Givò 1865" to people.
From Carnival 1869, the Caffarel 1865 became so famous that the name change in Gianduiotto, while became the protagonist of the novelty of distributing chocolates not in the usual boxes, but individually, wrapped in a gold paper on which was depicted the famous mask.
Today, the Gianduiotto is produced worldwide from major chocolate industries, as Pernigotti, Novi, Fiorio and Peyrano, and Caffarel it churns out 40 million a year, in addition to being known as Italian excellence in culinary.
original article on torinofree.it by Paola Montonati
photo by: comunicaffe.it