The Grissino of Torino

The Grissino Stirato and Rubatà - Its history

Vittorio Amedeo II Duke of Savoy was born at Turin in 1666 and was crowned the first Savoy King in 1713.

As a child Vittorio Amedeo was frail and sickly so his mother, the second Madama Reale, worried by the state of his health called to court a famous physician of the time, Don Baldo Pecchio from Lanzo Torinese. The doctor immediately had a stroke of genius and diagnosed food poisoning - gastro-enteritis in modern parlance - caused by the ingestion of bread polluted with intestinal pathogenic germs. Those days, bread - the so-called ghëssa or grissia - was produced rather improperly from the hygienic standpoint and was generally cooked badly, indeed not nearly enough.

So Don Baldo, remembering certain small grissias his mother was wont to bake for him when he suffered from a similar intestinal problem as a child, ordered Court master baker Antonio Brunero to prepare a very thin and twice-cooked bread, to destroy any micro-organism present in the dough with perfect baking. The end result was the grissino, hygienically perfect and un-polluted by any germ whatsoever. The story goes that the Duke's physician fed and cured the noble scion with this bread. The ghëssa led to the ghërsin or small ghëssa, Italianised into grissino.

So the first grissino was born and Turin also won the nickname of Grissinopoli.

Vittorio Amedeo II, miraculously healed by the grissino, grew to become the first Savoy king. There followed the rapid rise of the Savoy dynasty, that privileged Piedmont, laid the foundations of the Italian Risorgimento and the subsequent creation of the Kingdom of Italy. It follows that we might well say today that 'After the Grissino was born, so was the Italian Risorgimento!'

The success of this celebrated Turin bread (greatly appreciated by Napoleon who called it 'Le petit bâton de Turin') grew rapidly and conquered the whole world and became the Bread of Kings and the King of Breads.

The Grissino stirato

• Prepare

  a dough with flour, water, leavening and salt

• Knead

  the dough into long thin rolls and lay them on the table for raising

• Cut

  the rolls into 25 centimetre long, 3 centimetre wide sections

• Iron

  that is, lengthen the rolls by holding them at either end with your fingers and keeping them suspended in the air with your arms stretched wide open and simultaneous extension and vibration

• Bake

  the ironed grissini in the oven at 248 degrees.

• Remove

  from the oven after 10 minutes; the grissini which will now be well-done and golden hued; break them into three parts.

Note:

For producing grissini stirati, only soft wheat flour with very elastic gluten is used, to allow lengthening or ironing of the dough while suspended in the air.

Grissino stirato has a fragrant aroma, a delicate and exclusive taste, and a light golden hue. It has maximum friability and crunchiness, with an irregular cylindrical shape due to manual lengthening.

The Grissino rubatà of Chieri

Exactly the same as for the grissino stirato, except for ironing. This type of grissino in fact requires the roll being lengthened by rolling it manually on the work table (only up to some 40 centimetres or so). The dough will therefore carry the imprints of the grissino maker's fingers; also they are not broken into separate pieces after baking.

The flour can be the same type as used for common bread, since ironing is by simple finger pressure.

Grissino rubatà has a fragrant aroma, tastes closer to bread, with a light golden hue. It is less friable and crunchy, in a stick shape with typical humps caused by finger pressure.