Torino italian breadsticks: the origins

Grissini, or crispy italian breadsticks, date their origin around 1670 when a local baker from Turin made them for the young duke of Savoy Vittorio Amedeo II who was sick. In this article you can find the true story about the Torino italian breadsticks origin.

The origin of Torino italian breadsticks

Italian breadsticks, known as Grissini, originated in Torino (Piemonte region) in the northwest Italy. They were invnted around the end of the 17th Century for the specific porpouse, of healing young Duke Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy. The duke, had actually some digestion difficulties, especially for the bread. For this reason his doctor, Don Baldo di Lanzo,  recommended that the weak child should eat something easy to digest food, hoping to simulate his flagging appetite. So, in a second time the duke and the doctor commissed a baker Antonio Brunero, to create something that the young duke could digest.

 

The Baker Brunero decided to take a part of the dough used to make  ghersa ( a tipical Turin bread) and stratch it out into long and thin strips. Once baked, the thin breadsticks were so crisp and easy to digest that the product became a clear succes for the baker and the all court too. This creation had a massive success and entered the daily life of the Torinesi and in the second moment also of all Italy.

An alternate explanation of Torino italian breadsticks origin

The previous explanation about the origin of italian Grissin is the most popular and the most accepted in Italy. But there is a second one! In this case it is belived that the origin of grissini was about the possiblility to avoid the spread of an epidemy. In fact, according to some, Vittorio Amedeo’s father, Carlo Emanuele II asked bakers to make a more hygienic bread and Brunero created these sticks which are less likely to get moldy and spoil because they contain less moisture than loaves and rolls. This is another possible origin of the Turin Grissini.

 

 

 

Ingredients