NUTELLA A CAMBRIDGE
Su invito della Cambridge University Italian Society
il libro è stato presentato
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SABATO 27 NOVEMBRE 2004
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presso il Winstaley Lecture Theatre
del Trinity College dell'Università di Cambridge
ECCO LA FOTOCRONACA DELLA GIORNATA
(realizzata da Diego Perino)
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Gigi Padovani dentro la prima Court del Trinity College: Nutella apre tutte le porte
Dentro il Winstanley Lecture Theatre un pianoforte addolcito dai libri e dalla Nutella ha accolto i dottorandi di Cambridge, i fellows e i docenti che hanno partecipato all'incontro organizzato dall'Italian Society
Gli organizzatori dell'incontro a Cambridge: da sinistra, Stefano Colloca (Italian Society), la giornalista Erica Scroppo, Gigi Padovani e il General Affairs Manager Ferrero Uk David Connal
Erica Scroppo presenta il libro
La sala del Winstanley Lecture Theatre, nell'ala moderna del Trinity College, con docenti, studenti, dottorandi che hanno partecipato numerosi all'incontro
Lo speech in inglese di Gigi Padovani è durato circa mezz'ora, dopo la visione di un video sulla Nutella
Un pubblico attento e internazionale: docenti e studenti italiani, inglesi, francesi, tedeschi, canadesi, hanno ascoltato la storia della Nutella
David Connal, dirigente Ferrero Uk, durante il suo intervento a chiusura della manifestazione
David Connal con Gigi Padovani dopo l'incontro
Francesca Fulminante (della Italian Society), la giornalista Erica Scroppo Newbury, Gigi Padovani e lo storico e giornalista Richard Newbury
Un momeno del Nutella Party dopo la presentazione in un locale attiguo, offerto dalla Ferrero Uk
Un'immagine di Cambridge, il Magdalene College dove alla sera di domenica la Italian Society ha ospitato il relatore nella tradizionale cena dell'Avvento
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LA RELAZIONE IN INGLESE
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Nutella, born from the fusion between cocoa and hazelnuts
1964-2004
Forty years of the most famous spread cream in the world
Speech-conference by Gigi Padovani, journalist and writer
author of “Nutella, an Italian myth” (Rizzoli)
Cambridge, Uk
At the Winstanley Lecture Theatre of Trinity College
4:30 pm, the 27th of November 2004
On invitation by Cuitsoc, Cambridge University Italian Society
It’s an honour to be here, and I would like to thank Cuitsoc for their kind invitation here, in one of the most important cultural and university cities of the U.K.
Nutella opens all doors.
Paul Richardson, an English writer who lives in Spain, during his journey around the world in search of the origin of the cocoa, wrote in his book – the title is Indulgence – about how much the Italians love Nutella. He writes that it’s a great passion for all the country, more than other things, maybe because in Italy everybody, eating Nutella, seems to go back to the pleasure of it in childhood.
Since I have written a book about this chocolate cream, I would like to cite this author in order to begin our encounter to talk about Nutella and the Italian material culture here in Cambridge.
Why this book?
This particular Gianduja cream, even if it is industrial, has spread all over the world and it’s a sort of “Proust’s madeleine”, even if the pleasure of the chocolate takes us back to our childhood, and dark chocolate too. In Piedmont, a region in the North of Italy where I live, the fusion between cocoa and hazelnut was born in the nineteenth century, in 1865 to be exact. It was caused by Napoleon. Infact the price of cocoa rose and it was very difficult to find, due to the consequences of the continental block at the beginning of the century. This blocked the import by sea of cocoa from England towards Europe.
So "giandujotto", the first "dressed" chocolate (that means it is wrapped in tinfoil) in the world, was born also for a state of necessity. Infact the price of the cocoa was much too high. The hazelnuts – that today have the denomination of Kind Round Hazelnut Igp that grow in the Langhe hills, celebrated by the writers like Cesare Pavese, Beppe Fenoglio and more recently by Gianni Farinetti - are found in the hills of South Piedmont and are used in confectionaries a lot. The hazelnuts are toasted, finely minced and stirred with cocoa and sugar (but without any milk!), so with this kind of mixture a soft and very pleasant in the mouth chocolate, was born.
Before the conching, invented in Switzerland at the end of the nineteenth century, Gianduja was the best European chocolate. In 1865 Isidore Caffarel with Michele Prochet – who were Italian, although the surnames are not - lived in the Protestant Valdesi valleys near Turin. They established a great industry and started to experiment a new product that today is still the pride of the Piedmont chocolate tradition.
This is a further confirmation that Italy is “the gastronomic treasure island”, that the world has discovered in recent years. After the wine, the cheese and all our cooking, now also the Italian chocolate, that could boast a great history and tradition - just like but preceding Switzerland’s and France’s – is enjoyed also in the Uk, as the buyer of Fortnum&Manson has confirmed to me.
As we know, cocoa was unknown in Europe before the journey of Columbus and the conquest of Mexico by the Spanish. After 1528 Charles the Fifth introduced hot chocolate to the European courts. In Turin, in 1678 Madama Reale, the Queen of the Sabaudo State established in 1563 by Emanuele Filiberto, assigned the first patent to the Turin chocolate-maker Antonio Ari. So, our chocolate has more then three hundred years of history.
In the seventeen hundreds, thanks to Casa Savoia and the connections with the Court of Madrid, Turin became the capital of chocolate. The amount of chocolate produced at the end of the eighteenth century was 750 pounds every day, and it was exported to France, Switzerland, Austria and Germany.
The date of birth of the giandujotto was 1865, on the occasion of the Turin Carnival, when these little chocolates were given the name giandujotto in honour of the Gianduja mask. In the eighteen hundreds, many great Swiss chocolate-makers came to Turin to learn the art of confectionery, like François Cailler, who on returning to Switzerland established the Nestlé factory, and Philippe Suchard.
Even today, Piedmont is a very productive region in the chocolate market.
In Italy we have industrial districts - the wool in Biella, the clothes manufacturing in the North-East, the ceramics in Emilia-Romagna - and chocolate is mainly produced between Turin, Novi Ligure and Alba. The confectionery industry occupies 5000 people in Piedmont, with more than 80 thousand tons of production and a turnover of 850 million euro, equal to 35 percent of the national production. The greatest part of Italian exports (70 percent) is directed to the countries of the Eu, but is growing towards the United States and the Middle East.
The birth
It was 1964: the first Barbie doll had started to make Italian children dream, the spaghetti-western by Sergio Leone was just born and Sean Connery in the role of 007 seduced the audience. On the 20th of April, from the factory of Alba, in the South of Piedmont where in 1946 Ferrero was established, the first jar of the cream - that was to conquer many generations - came to light. It’s one of the most famous Italian brands in the world and during these forty years of its life has had an extraordinary success.
This product is far more than simple gooey hazelnut-and-chocolate spreading cream: a synonym of sweetness, symbol and myth for more than a generation.
It has accompanied the history of Italy and many other countries in Europe – above all France and Germany – up to now. The French and Germans believe that Nutella is theirs.
But who was the father of Nutella?
His name is Pietro Ferrero, who first used the expression “sweetness for the humble” to describe his surrogate chocolate. The first version of Nutella was discovered by chance in a sweet shop in Alba, in Piedmont, at the hands of Monsù Pietro, as Mr. Ferrero was called in this town. It was because he spared no pains to find the right ingredients, the "magic" formula able to provide a little chocolate at a low price, a sweet way of making a slice of bread interesting as if it were a slice of salame. In a cold evening in autumn of the year 1945 he had the right idea: to add coconut butter to soften the dough made of hazelnuts, sugar and cocoa.
This he called “Giandujot”.
Later, in 1951, Michele Ferrero, Pietro’s son, invented a soft chocolate dough that was sold in Italy as Supercrema. This was the beginning of the fortune of the Ferrero industry.
Giandujot and Supercrema were the forefathers of Nutella.
Nutella was born at the end of the years of the Italian economic miracle, that had reached its climax between 1958 and 1963.
In the same way as Coca-Cola, it is a brand belonging to our imagination, full of meaning that produces sensations and emotions of happiness. Like Coca Cola, it is the result of a secret formula as to the percentages, the mixtures and the temperature of its ingredients: sugar, vegetable oils, hazelnuts (13%), lean cocoa, powdered skimmed milk (5%), lactose and powdered milk whey.
But, compared to Coke, Nutella doesn’t identify american way of life. Nutella is ours. It belongs to the people.
So, in my book I wanted to trace the forty years of history of the mythical hazelnut-and-chocolate cream, putting light on ties with the Italian customs from the economic boom years onwards. It’s a kind of “good blob”: the first great step was, twenty years after it’s birth, when the film “Bianca” come out in 1984, in which Nanni Moretti transformed it into an icon of the compensation sweetness of love anxieties.
Then Nutella Parties began to increase, new theatre and comic texts were produced inspired by it. A lot of children grew up with it, over three generations: those who danced the twist, who adored the lambade and macarene, who abandon themslves to techno-music.
The figures
Every year the row of jars of Nutella produced by the Ferrero group is as long as the circumference of the earth, 40 thousand kilometers. In 1964 the "train" of jars was only as long as the distance from Alba to Rome.
Today the turnover in one year of Nutella production is approximately 640 million euro. A great business, but it only corresponds to 15 per cent of the total turnover of Ferrero. The International Ferrero group, that has its general headquartiers in Luxemburg, has a consolidated turnover of 4.5 billion euro. It has remained a "family company" in the hands of the descendants of the confectioner of Alba: the CEOS are currently Pietro and Giovanni Ferrero, sons of Michele. It’s the fourth biggest confectionery group in the world, with 28 operating societies, 15 factories and 16 thousand employees.
The myth
But Nutella, beyond the figures that certify its success as an industrial product. It has become a myth known all over the world, to which a lot of books, songs, films, music, and theatrical works have been dedicated.
Also the advertising campaigns of Ferrero have been adapted to the perception of the consumers: from a product that has contributed to trace the "Italian way of chocolate", convincing the Italian mothers to give this spreading cream to their children because it is associated to bread, it has become an emblem of pleasure.
If Roland Barthes had written some years later “Mithologies”, and not in 1955, would he have cited Nutella among the myths that crossed society yesterday just as today, besides the wine, the steaks, the fried potatoes, a symbol of frenchness. Barthes defines the myth as "a communication system, a message; the myth cannot be a concept, an idea, an object, but a way of being, a shape".
And Nutella is a shape, a way of being, that can be numbered among the myths of the Twentieth century.
It crosses the generations, even if it addresses a young consumer, to the "child who is in us". It addresses first of all young people, who as John Gillis asserts, that from the 50’s have become the object to which the society of consumption in mainly interested in.
Nutella moreover crosses the social classes and ideological tendences.
Is it right wing? Is it left wing?
Everyone wantes to take possession of the myth.
In truth, it is nationaly-popular because it belongs to all.
Infact in 1994 the name Nutella entered the most famous Italian dictionary, Devoto-Oli.
From this point of view it is also a phenomenon of marketing, because it subverts every law: instead of following the classic product cycle of birth, maturity and death, it continues to sell.
It’s a long-seller, more than a best seller.
It’s a great operation of "naming", like other brands.
It’s incredible to believe – for example - that the logo of Nike, the famous "swoosh", was paid just a few dollas to a student.
The Nutella brand-name is known all over the world as a synonym of sweetness and is worth millions of euro.
The artistic celebrations
Like Andy Wharol with Pop-art celebrated the can of Campbell... forty years of Nutella has inspired singers, writers, theatre and film directors. In 1990 in a book published in France it was written that it is one of the "marks" left in the world by Italy: with the Vespa Piaggio, the Ferrari, Martini, the Olivetti 22 typewriter, the Tizio lamp, besides pizza, panettone and parmesan.
In Ferrara in 1991 a group of artists put together an exhibition of Pop art named "Mistic Nutelle" with a preface of the semeiologist Omar Calabrese. In 1996, in Paris, at the Carrousel du Louvre, painters and exponents of contemporary art born in the Sixties celebrated it with an exhibition called "Generation Nutella".
Many writers have used it in their books: the book in maccheronico Latin - like Teofilo Folengo’s - written in 1993 by Riccardo Cassini had a large success: it was entitled "Nutella Nutellae", it sold nearly a million copies in Italy (it was one of the books sold at only one thousand Lira, fifty cents) and its incipit has remained famous.
Nutella omnia divisa est in partes tres. Unum: Nutella in vaschetta plasticae. Duum: Nutella in vitreis bicchieribus custodita. Treum: Nutella sita in magno barattolo (magno barattolo sì, sed melium est si magno Nutella in barattolo).
Which is the miraculous jar that together contains a sense of guilt, love and politics? Nutella. This was the answer given by the literary weekly magazine “The New Yorker” in March 1995, with a playful article by the American writer Andrea Lee - who lives in Italy and who has recently published a good book of stories called Interesting women -: it was placed in the prestigious page of "The talk of the town”, it sanctioned the consecration in the United States, with a large echo in Italy.
Here is a piece of that article, with the title "Guilt, politics and eros in a jar".
Like any inspired creation, Nutella has an animating spirit that takes it beyond its physical component. Shamelessly sweet but not too sweet, more unctuous than peanut butter but with the same curiously sexy capacity for gluing the jaws together, and intensely chocolate-flawored but with a peculiar pillowy mildness that appeals to regressive urges, it is made to be spread on bread but more often ends up being eaten in hasty spoonfuls straight from the jar. (…) To Italians, Nutella has become a cult.
It has entered also in music. For example, in the last Festival of Sanremo in the song by the young singer Dj Francesco. In the United States in 1997 the group Anestesia presented the song “Nutella Toasted”, while the singer George Gaber used it in order to inspire his piece "Right - left". And Nutella is "politically left", Swiss chocolate is "right".
It must be also for these reasons that the "no logo" generation has never contested it.
In the end, it is a “glocal” product – global and local together -, that maintains a connection to artisan origin. And it’s true that many Italian chocolate-makers have imitated it and remade it in different ways.
The advert says: "What would the world be like without Nutella?".
Surely less sweet.
And in hard times like these, full of wars and attacks, maybe with a little more Nutella the world would be sweeter.
(traduzione a cura di Alice Davlin e Alice Padovani)
