“Ask Matt Caputo” is an ongoing feature where Matt answers commonly asked questions from the market. This week, he reviews the history of one of our favorite chocolate confections and flavor combinations of chocolate and hazelnut – gianduja.
Q:
The gianduja and cremino confections from Guido Gobino are DELICIOUS. Your Evolution of Cacao class says this item is a product of war?! How did these little treasures come to be?
A:
It’s true – they are a product of war! When Napoleon blockaded the Atlantic, Italy was one of the world’s leading producers of dark chocolate. However, Napoleon’s blockade cut off the supply of cacao and began an era of French domination that lasted over 170 years. Amedei, Domori (and a handful of others) and the American Craft Chocolate movement only broke the French strangle hold in the late 1990s and early 2000s.
But I digress. The key is all of these Italian chocolate makers basically went belly up and the country’s national chocolate-making dominance ended. Many of the Italian chocolate companies that survived were those in Torino. A handful found that by mixing what little cacao they had left with ample amounts of roasted hazelnuts and milk solids, they could make their supply go further. At the time, they used local hazelnuts that were so plentiful, they littered the ground. They had no idea those hazelnuts would one day be prized all over the world for being the very best, fetching up to $40 lb. You know them as the Nocciola Tonda Gentile della Langhe, bearing the IGP protection from the EU.
Thus, Gianduja was born out of dire need and desperation. To this day, it is still BY FAR the most popular chocolate confection in all of Italy. It’s sad people hardly know it here. To settle on Gobino, we blind taste-tested all the top reputable brands and found Gobino to be the best.
PSST! Want to know more? Join us at an Intro to Fine Chocolate class or dive even deeper at Matt’s Evolution of Cacao class!
Disclaimer: While Matt Caputo is a Certified Cheese Professional and specialty food fanatic, he is not a medical professional, doctor, or certified nutritionist. Please consult with your doctor or other qualified health care professional before making any healthcare decisions, diagnostics or treatment decisions based on Matt’s answers.
It’s been twenty years since Tony Caputo opened the doors here at our flagship location in downtown Salt Lake City, in a neighborhood with a rich history of Greek and Italian culture. Over the years, we’ve experienced the many ups and downs of small business ownership, but we’re proud to hear from our customers how much we mean to Salt Lake’s thriving food scene. We’ve done so by remaining committed to our deep, abiding love for great food, and sharing that love with the enthusiastic community we’re a part of. As we looked back at the last twenty years and contemplated the road ahead, we decided it was time to breathe new life into the Caputo’s brand with a fresh new look.
Inspired by the art of Utah artist Dan Christofferson, whose distinct style is rooted in symbolism and bold graphics, we began a further conversation about the Caputo’s brand and asked Dan to create a new look that seamlessly integrates our history and motivations with our vision for what lies ahead. Central to this new look is the three-pointed crown. The crown is a powerful icon that represents our core philosophy, with its three points embodying the past, present, and future of Caputo’s. These three pillars serve as symbols of our heritage, our expertise, and our trailblazing spirit.
Those early sensory experiences inspire a question we ask ourselves all the time: what is it that gives Old World flavors their particular allure? We call it terroir. It’s that special sense of place found in the aromas, the textures, and the tastes that says unabashedly: “this comes from somewhere.” Not from a factory, not from a lab, but from the land. Today, it’s our mission to champion those products with deep ties to the unique places they come from, whether it’s Utah farmstead goat cheese or Venezuelan single origin chocolate, because those special products tell the stories of where they come from with every mouth-watering bite.
We know that food is much more than mere sustenance; culinary traditions help make up the fabric of our various cultures and upbringings, and food has always been an essential part of the Caputo family. After coming to the United States from Greece and Italy, the Caputos owned and operated a small market on Salt Lake’s west side, which happened to be home to Utah’s very first refrigerated deli case. One could say that my dad’s visits to that little market as a kid, where he would get treats from his aunts who kept shop, served as the original spark of what would eventually become our beloved market & deli.
