The Italians invented many chocolate desserts, among them chocolate custard and chocolate sorbet, and first mentioned in Antonio Latini’s Lo Scalco alla moderna (1692). Italians were also the first to combine chocolate with coffee in both cakes and drinks. Italy remains home to some of the world’s finest chocolate, manufactured by companies like Amedei, Domori, Ferrero, Majani, Novi, Perugina, and Venchi. According to the Italian food historian Clara Vada Padovani, The marriage of hazelnuts and chocolate was made in Turin, Italy, in the mid-1800s when the Napoleonic Wars blocked the transport of goods between America and Europe. Oro bruno, “brown gold,” as they called cocoa powder, had become scarce, and Piedmont chocolate makers began to use hazelnuts, plentiful in the region, to extend their short supplies. The result was a creamy, flavorful delight that became an instant success. In 1867, this new chocolate treat was christened Gianduia, after a fictitious Turinese carnival character who loves good food and wine. It was formed into small candies, wrapped in paper, and given out at the Carnival in Turin.
