Having devoted some time to the questions of gianduia’s origins, we now turn to its composition. Though recipes have varied over the years according to the cost and availability of ingredients, the earliest gianduiotti consisted of three principal ingredients: sugar, cacao, and roasted hazelnuts (1).
Damaging though it is, the lack of substantiation for gianduia’s early nineteenth century invention might not be fatal to the theory. (Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence.) However, several strong circumstantial arguments also militate against that dating.
On November 21, 1806—barely a month after the crushing defeat of the Prussian army at Jena and Auerstedt—the 37-year-old Emperor of the French and King of Italy dictated orders from the palace of Berlin. With the “Berlin Decree,” Napoleon instituted the Continental System, a trade policy that many have described as the genesis of gianduia.
