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The secret of the craft, says Nobili, lies in the firm and rapid movement of the wrists and hands to scoop up the paste before it solidifies, smooth it over with spatulas and give it final cut with a butter knife to achieve the prism-like shape. Now there’s just one left – the A.Giordano boutique. Only a handful of gianduiere remain at the historic chocolate lab, which was founded in 1897.
When Napoleon Bonaparte conquered northern Italy and declared war against Britain in 1806, he banned all English-imported goods, including cocoa beans. The Gianduiotto chocolate is made with a chocolate and hazelnut paste, the gianduja paste, and is wrapped in aluminum foil to improve its preservation. For those who prefer their chocolate in a Nutella-style spread, gianduiotto has its own version, “crema spalmabile di Gianduja,” with a slightly granular texture that tastes wonderful on bread. Castagna has reinvented gianduiotto by creating a highly refined, roundish take called Giuinott (meaning “young lad” in local dialect) with premium Venezuelan cacao and sugar cane instead of sugar and 40% hazelnuts. A century or so later, Pietro Ferrero, a confectioner from Piedmont, created Nutella based on that old recipe.We are the only ones who still hand make gianduiotti. It’s very expensive to employ such skilled labor,” says owner Laura Faletti. It’s a chocolate of prestige, I’ve always loved it,” says Nobili. “I’m filled with joy when after a hard day’s work, cutting and shaping 48 kilograms of gianduiotti with another gianduiera, I finally see how perfect and beautiful they look, and how I’m constantly improving.” Gianduiotto was originally born out of necessity – to overcome a cocoa shortage in mainland Europe. Artisan chocolatier Guido Castagna has created a highly-refined version of gianduiotto chocolate called Giuinott. Castagna Gianduiotto is now a specific chocolate type alongside dark, white, and milk chocolate,” says Castagna.
Castagna often holds wine tastings, pairing Giuinott with Piedmont’s Vermouth wines and other sweet alcoholic drinks like passito, which he believes complements the chocolate tasting experience. To create gianduiotti, they press the gianduia mix into lasagne-like sheets. These sheets are then shredded and beaten into a paste on an old granite basin, just like those used in the past, says Faletti. Ask an Italian what giandujia (sometimes known as gianduja) is and they could give two different answers, depending their age, where they’re from and how much they love chocolate. The word refers both to a traditional Carnival mask – from the name Gioan d’la douja (‘John of the tankard’) – and to the delicious creamy paste made of cocoa powder, cocoa butter, sugar and finely ground hazelnuts. The idea of mixing hazelnut pieces to "standard" chocolates is said to have arisen during Napoleon's reign, when importing cocoa from South America became difficult. With "raw" cocoa's high prices, local producers started incorporating bits of roasted hazelnuts (which were locally grown and readily available in Piedmont) to make the final product more affordable.After mixing them with sugar and the very little cocoa they still had on their shelves, they were able to create a rich paste that was eventually refined and honed into gianduiotto. The hazelnuts used to make gianduiotto can be found growing in the Langhe region of Italy. Cooper/ullstein bild/Getty Images They’re Piedmont’s gold, absolutely the best in the world,” he adds, before explaining that the hazelnuts are priced at €16 per kilogram versus €10 per kilogram for high quality cocoa. In Piedmontese, the Gianduiotto chocolate is called Giandojòt – international phonetic alphabet [ʤandʊ’jɔt], – and it is one of the traditional agri-food products recognized by law by the Ministry for agricultural food and forestry policies.
As a consequence, pastry makers in Turin decided to switch to something a little closer to home – the hazelnuts that grew in abundance in the surrounding lush hills. Davide Appendino, another top Turin chocolatier, uses a wide array of top quality biological cacao beans to make pistachio, coffee, white chocolate, dark chocolate and sugar free gianduiotti sold in colorful wraps. Our spread is the end product of 72 hours of mechanically mixing and kneading the paste – that’s three whole days, while other gianduia spreads are ready in four hours. Ours is fresher and healthier,” says Faletti. Gianduiotto isn’t available all year round. Artisan boutiques halt production when spring is near to avoid selling melted chocolates, which is actually another gourmet delicacy made with the gianduia hazelnut paste. It’s a job only women can do, for it requires a lot of passion, patience and precision. A bit like hand stitching. It can be quite tiresome, I need to rotate my gianduiere in shifts otherwise their hands get muscle cramps.”
From mixing of Pernigotti cocoa, sugar and hazelnuts from the Langhe was born a delicacy of chocolate shaped like a overturned boat, Gianduiotto.
Gianduiotti are produced from a paste of sugar, cocoa and hazelnut Tonda Gentile delle Langhe. The official "birth" of gianduiotti was in 1852 in Turin, by Pierre Paul Caffarel and Michele Prochet, the first to completely grind hazelnuts into a paste before adding them to the cocoa and sugar mix. [1] When it comes to gelato, Turin has plenty of hotspots to enjoy this Italian classic. Grom and Venchi are the top artisanal gelato chains you'll spot throughout the city. Grom was opened in 2003 by wine and gelato maker Guido Martinetti and businessman Federico Grom. After experiencing a smashing success in their hometown and throughout Italy, they've since expanded to the U.S. market. You'll want to try hazelnut, chocolate and pistachio.
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