LA TONDA GENTILE
The Best of All Possible Hazelnuts

Mauro Carbone 

This variety is grown in southern Piedmont, in the hilly environs of Alessandria, Asti, Cuneo and, to a lesser extent, Turin. The main processing centre is at Cortemilia, Valle Bormida, that boasts the oldest shelling plants, built at the turn of the century by the Caffa family, who invented the first machines to shell, gauge and roast hazelnuts.
Today's machinery is faster and technologically more advanced, but the fundamentals are unchanged. Processing is a simple but delicate operation: hazelnuts are desiccated, gauged, shelled, hand-checked, roasted and shipped. Other industries will crumble or paste the kernels and sell them to confectioners and patissiers who will add them to chocolate, ice cream and other marvellous desserts, like the famous Torta di Nocciole (hazelnut cake) that makes a perfect ending to meals in Langhe and Roero, covered with warm zabaglione and accompanied by Asti or Moscato.
Hazelnuts are also fundamental ingredients of culinary symbols of Piedmont like torrone and gianduiotti. Piedmont produces about 100,000 quintals of hazelnuts a year, and harvesting is a very delicate phase: the nuts must not be plucked from the trees but picked from the ground, to be sure they are fully ripe. Where are the semi-processed hazelnuts shipped? "The main destinations are Italy, France, Switzerland and Germany" says Giancarlo Caffa. "Our hazelnuts are much in demand, especially by manufacturers of semi-machined products for ice-cream making, who rate them by far the best on the market." In nutritional terms, hazelnuts contain plenty of carbohydrates (14%), proteins (16%), insaturate fat (over 60%), which contrasts the aging processes of tissues, and vitamin E; one hundred grams of hazelnuts yield over 700 calories.