No discussion of gianduia would be complete without consideration of Ferrero SpA and its flagship product, Nutella. Though a detailed examination of the company and its products is beyond the scope of this series, a brief historical sketch will suffice as background for some more specific observations to come.
Though we’ve been discussing the earliest gianduiotti, the late-nineteenth and twentieth centuries brought a number of innovations in production, not all of them bad.
We now turn to the third necessary component of gianduia: roasted hazelnuts. Before getting into specifics, some general information may be helpful.
Most efforts to historically contextualize gianduia focus solely on the era of its presumed invention in the mid-1860s. However, as we’ve seen, many components of the gianduia myth first arose in the 1930s, through Cagliano’s article in Il Dolce (1932), Succ. Caffarel Prochet & Co.’s “Gianduia 1865” marketing campaign (1936), and the booklet Il Cioccolato ed il Suo Valore Alimentare (1933). The 1930s witnessed a confluence of factors favorable to increased prominence and production of gianduia—a perfect storm, with Benito Mussolini at the eye.
