The untold history behind Nutella's rise to household fame

Nutella's chunky, oddly shaped jar has become a culinary icon around the world, thanks to its impressive richness and creaminess. chocolate-hazelnut spread placed inside. But although the marriage of chocolate and hazelnuts seems as natural as the marriage of salt and pepper or bread and butter, its origins are far from so simple. It starts with the spread's predecessor, the chocolate-hazelnut treat called gianduia.*

*Sometimes also written as “gianduja”. Both versions are pronounced “john-DOO-ya” and refer to the same product.

Early history of Gianduia

The tale of Gianduia's birth often appears on product labels and woven into pop-history accounts of related products, including Nutella. That's largely because it's a compelling story — one of wartime desperation, economic strife, and the triumph of one industry's ingenuity. It begins in Turin, Italy at the turn of the 19th century and is almost certainly full of untruths.

What most historians agree on is that by the early 1800s, Turin had long been referred to as the chocolate capital of Europe, its cocoa-based products recognized as a delicacy on the continent. But by 1806 its eminence had collapsed. Napoleon Bonaparte and the French Grande Armée were on their way and conquered Europe in the name of social enlightenment. Tensions between France and Britain escalated, culminating in a series of naval blockades and trade embargoes. In the late fall, Napoleon enacted the Continental System, a comprehensive blockade that halted all trade between the island kingdom and any country under the emperor's thumb, including the patchwork of kingdoms and city-states that would soon be united as “Italy.”

In the case of Turin, a particular change transformed its much-coveted chocolate industry. Britain, the dominant force in maritime trade, was a major force in the flow of cacao between Mesoamerica and Europe; during the blockade, the main source of cocoa was cut off in Turin.

From there, the Gianduia origin myth gets a little more complicated. Many claim thatunable to take advantage of Britain's access to cocoa beans, Turin's chocolatiers needed a quick solution to supplement their offerings and stay in business. The Piedmont area, with its abundant hazelnut trees, proved to be just the ticket. When ground, the hazelnut took on the texture of cocoa powder, meaning that the available cocoa from the nut could be stretched into a thick, ganache-like sweet. In this version of the story, the chocolatiers of Turin upended the local industry and used their ingenuity to create a brilliant new product – one that had been popular for centuries.

As appealing as this narrative is, there are reasons to question it. Some point out that back then chocolate was consumed in liquid form rather than a thick paste or solid bar. Others argue that the Turin chocolatiers lacked the efficient technology needed to grind enough hazelnuts to make gianduia a cost-effective product on a large scale, let alone save the entire industry.

While it is true that chocolate was first introduced to North America and Europe as a Mesoamerican medicinal drink, and that the cocoa press—the machine that made solid chocolate readily available—was not invented until 1828, there is ample evidence that the so-called chocolate” was created in Europe in the middle of the 17th century. In The real history of chocolateMichael and Sophie Coe point to culinary experiments with chocolate in Italy dating back to the 1680s, as well as records of “chocolate eating” in 18th-century France. The Marquis de Sade, known for his love of sweets, wrote to his wife from prison in the early 1800s, asking her to send care packages full of chocolate treats: “…a half-pound box of chocolate pastilles, large chocolate biscuits, vanilla. pastilles au chocolat and chocolat en tablettes d'ordinaire (chocolate bars).

But just because chocolate was available in more than just liquid form doesn't mean that the continental system gave rise to gianduia, especially given that virtually no primary source links the two. Even more significant is another oft-cited refutation of the legend** – the improbability that the technology available at the time could churn out enough new sweets to save the Turin chocolatiers from the effects of their dwindling cocoa supplies.

** For an in-depth look at the origin story of gianduia, visit the DallasFood blog, a fascinating, well-researched 34 part series.

If gianduia was not born out of necessity, what was the catalyst for its creation? “My opinion about Turin and the entire kingdom of Savoy is that it was completely under French rule in the 18th and 19th centuries,” says Ken Albala, a historian and director of the food science program at the University of the Pacific in California. “I wouldn't be surprised if you find the combination of chocolate and hazelnut in France before Italy.” This influence makes sense given Napoleon's conquest of the region and suggests that gianduia arose at a slow and incremental rate, at least in the early years. It's likely that chocolatiers quietly released the chocolate-hazelnut mix, and its rise in popularity was more of a slow trickle than the explosive success suggested by the prevailing narrative.

But of course, the story that attributes an invading force to a chocolate confection, a regional gem, is not nearly as stirring as the one that portrays chocolatiers as brilliant winners who persevered with their profession against the odds. . And the motivation to transform Gianduia's narrative only grew over time.

From puppet to candy: Gianduia is named

By the middle of the 19th century, Italy was in the midst of the Risorgimento, a decades-long struggle to unify the peninsular states into a single kingdom. Italian nationalism reached fever pitch and a revolutionary movement erupted in the soon-to-be nation. In Piedmont, where they rose up against the Austrian rulers in 1821, the atmosphere was uniquely ripe for patriotic myth-building. And he took the form of a character named Gianduia, a wine-drinking, tricorn hat-wearing, womanizing peasant.

During the 19th century, Gianduia evolved from a traditional masked character in Italian commedia dell'arte into a puppet and then into a pervasive political caricature. His figure was paraded in the newspapers as a symbol of Turin, a kind of cheerful peasant mascot who represented the Piedmontese capital.

At the Carnival of Turin in 1865, just four years after the official unification of Italy, Gianduia's name was first associated with the chocolate-hazelnut confection. There, candy resembling Gianduia's three-horned hat was handed out at carnival celebrations, probably with someone dressed as the character. Although many chocolate companies, mostly Caffarilthey claim that he invented these sweets, there is no evidence to support their claim. What they agree on in a broader sense is that chocolate-hazelnut sweets took on the name gianduiotti around this time. The fact that the candy was named after the city's most common representative confirmed that it was a Turin – and now, post-merger – Italian creation. Gianduia has since become synonymous with the combination of chocolate and hazelnut, and variations of the name refer to chocolates, spreads and other sweets.

War breaks out again and Nutella is born

After 90 years of relatively peaceful confectionary production, the chocolate makers of Turin faced a new period of uncertainty with the outbreak of the Second World War. As with Napoleon's blockade, the outbreak of war brought food rations and cocoa supplies were once again drastically limited. In 1946, Piedmontese pastry chef Pietro Ferrero, inspired by Gianduiotti and his chocolaty ancestors, created a thick paste from hazelnuts, sugar and the little cocoa available. He shaped the paste into a loaf and named it “Giandujo”. But although the low proportion of expensive cacao was due to the cost consciousness of the war years, Giandujot, so dense and thick that it had to be cut with a knife, was still too expensive for the mass audience.

In 1951, Ferrero revolutionized the industry with the first spreadable version of its sweet loaf: “La Supercrema”. According to a BBC interview With Ferrero's grandson Giovanni Ferrero, the spreadability of La Supercrema meant that “a small amount went a very long way, helping to break the perception that chocolate is, as Giovanni says, “only for very special occasions and holidays, like Christmas and holidays . Easter.'”

Due to the availability and affordability of La Supercrema, the chocolate-hazelnut spread has become a household staple throughout Italy. In 1961, Ferrero's son Michele modified the recipe again, adding palm oil and scaling it up for mass production. The new spread was renamed Nutella and became a common breakfast and snack throughout Europe, first in Asia and then in the United States in the early 1980s. Nutella's world domination would surely have made Napoleon green with envy.

It is rare for a jar to embody the social, political and historical changes of two centuries. But under the white cover, Napoleon's bravado is mixed with a bit of food science (at least); the ingenuity of the old chocolate makers of Turin; and their descendant Ferrero's creativity. Creamy, nutty and sweet, Nutella and its chocolate-hazelnut siblings are war, progress and industrialization. Each spoonful that emerges from the glass, each glass that drips from the folds of the warm pancake, pays tribute to the events that define your journey. And it should be, because without moments of strife and stress, our wardrobes would not be the same.

February 2017

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