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The Grissini are now a common food found alongside bread in all restaurants and trattorias in Italy. They are often present in European establishments and other parts of the world.
In Italy, they are included in the bread and cover charge. They entertain us while we wait for the dishes we have ordered. Above all, they are liked by everyone, children, adults, and elderly.
I believe many of you know that grissini originated in Piedmont, in Turin. They then spread in many different forms, doughs, and flavors. Some of them, like rubatà, have become famous everywhere.
How grissini were born
But what is the reason for their birth? Who, how, and why created grissini?
It all begins with Vittorio Amedeo II. Yes, him again. Besides vowing to build Superga, leading the city during the 1706 siege, Vittorio Amedeo II also had a hand in grissini.
But let’s proceed in order. Vittorio Amedeo II, as a child, was of weak constitution and had eating problems. The doctor Teobaldo Pecchio identified his problems with the difficulty of digesting the crumb of the bread.
Thus, Maria Giovanna Battista, mother of the young Vittorio Amedeo II and regent of the kingdom, ordered the court cook, Antonio Brunero, to find a solution. It seems he invented this new type of bread around 1679.
According to tradition (or legend, if you prefer), by eating grissini, Vittorio Amedeo II fully recovered. He gained strength, tenacity, and a determined character that allowed him to stand up to his mother and resist and defeat the French during the siege.
How were grissini prepared?
But how were grissini cooked? The process was not very simple. It required four people, each dedicated to a phase of the process.
The first, the Stiror (the stretcher), was responsible for stretching the dough. Then came the Tajor (the cutter), who cut the dough into long, thin strips. The last two were the Coureur (the inserter) and the Gavor (the remover). They had the task of putting the dough in the oven with a long paddle that could reach up to 4 meters and removing the dough from the oven, breaking the grissini into shorter pieces.
The name grissino derives from ghërsa, which indicated a classic elongated bread.
Historical lovers
Being much more digestible and lasting much longer than bread, they quickly spread throughout Piedmont and all of Italy.
It seems that King Caelo Felice was so fond of them that he ate them in large quantities even during performances at the Teatro Regio.
That the king truly loved grissini is also confirmed by some notes from Massimo d’Azeglio.
Napoleon established a delivery service between Turin and Paris to distribute les petits bâtons de Turin (the little sticks of Turin) in France.
Carlo Emanuele III apparently had a special airtight container designed to take grissini on his honeymoon!
Friedrich Nietzsche, during a trip to Turin in 1880, wrote that the population preferred grissini to bread.
Napoleon There were other famous people who adored grissini. For example, Maria Felicita of Savoy was nicknamed the princess of grissini precisely because of her passion for this food.
Louis XIV of France even had two bakers from Turin brought to Paris to produce grissini. However, it seems he had poor results, obviously not due to the artisans’ skills but because of the different air and water from Turin (a very similar reason for non-Neapolitan coffee).
Maria Luisa of Austria ate grissini by breaking them into small pieces and dipping them in broth, like croutons.
Other theories about grissini
For completeness of information, we must also report other theories about the invention of grissini. They are less accredited but still possible and not refuted to this day.
The first refers to Carlo Emanuele II, father of Vittorio Amedeo II. To prevent the spread of the plague, which hit the kingdom in the mid-17th century, he ordered the preparation of a more hygienic bread less prone to deterioration such as mold or other. From this order, grissini were born, which, being made with very little water, could be stored longer.
Another theory suggests the invention of grissini as a normal evolution of a type of bread called ghërsa. In this case, we must go back to the 14th century. It is hypothesized that following the plague and famines of the 1300s, due to the lack of raw materials, bakers gradually reduced the size of an elongated bread (called ghërsa) until it turned into grissini.
Others hypothesize that grissini are nothing more than the poor version of the more famous French baguette.
What is certain is that the first written reference to grissini (or something very similar) is found in the writings of 1643 (therefore long before the arrival of Victor Amadeus II) by Abbot Vincenzo Rucellai traveling in the Chivasso area. He wrote: a novelty, although of extravagant shape, that is, bread as long as an arm and a half and thin like bones of the dead.
The different types of grissini
Nowadays, there are countless different types of grissini. However, the most traditional are the following two.
Robatà (pronounced rubatà), simple grissini made with flour, water, and salt. They are 40-80 cm long with a diameter of 1-2 cm. Robatà means “to fall” and refers to the gesture of the baker who, after stretching them, lets them fall onto the work surface to give them the typical knotted shape from hand-rolling. Stirati. In this case, the dough is stretched and flattened. More crumbly and crunchy than the former, they are also the most common to find outside Piedmont.