Gabriele Corcos - celebrity cook

YouTube recipe blog led to TV fame in US

Gabriele Corcos and his wife, the actress Debi
Mazar, in a scene from their TV show

The TV cook and author Gabriele Corcos, whose show Extra Virgin on the Cooking Channel has given him celebrity status in the United States, was born on this day in 1972 in Fiesole, a town in the Tuscan hills just outside Florence.

He was invited to produce and host the show - the first original cookery programme to go out on the network when it launched in 2010 - after his YouTube channel, in which he prepared traditional Tuscan dishes, attracted a large following of devoted fans.

The Cooking Channel show was so successful it ran for five seasons, with 68 episodes, spawning a best-selling book of Tuscan recipes and a further show, Extra Virgin Americana, in which he starred with his wife, the actress Debi Mazar.

Corcos became a star of the kitchen without ever intending it to be his career.

His parents - his father was a surgeon, his mother a schoolteacher - wanted him to achieve his academic potential, while he was eager to find paid employment. He found a compromise by joining the army with the intention of qualifying as a medic, only to realise that the reward for graduating was to be posted to Kosovo, Somalia or Iraq.

Corcos, Mazar and one of their daughters
in action in their TV kitchen

Horrified at the prospect of active service, he abandoned his studies and decided instead to devote himself to his great love, music. Raising money by selling his treasured Ducati motorcycle, he decided to go to Brazil to learn to play the drums.

Everything changed again when, during a trip home, he met his future wife, who at the time was working with the pop megastar Madonna on make-up and dramatic presentation during a tour of Italy.   Within a short time, he had decided to travel back with Debi  to Los Angeles to start a new life in America. They married the following year, in 2002.

It was when he was forced to consider how he might make a living that he realised the thing he knew most about was cooking, having been brought up in the family farmhouse in the Tuscan hills, where the stove was always lit. His grandmother was preparing food almost constantly for the farmers and hunters and members of their families who would drop in most days.

Gabriele learned the basics of cooking when he was only six or seven years old and by the time he left home knew how to cook scores of Italian dishes. Noting how few Italian restaurants in the Los Angeles area served Italian food as he knew it, and struck upon the idea of demonstrating the recipes he had grown up with on his own YouTube channel, with his wife, Debi, as his companion in the kitchen.

Gabriele Corcos is active in helping food charities

Corcos boosted his knowledge while in Los Angeles by working in the kitchens of noted chefs such as Gino Angelini.

He never imagined his YouTube channel would be popular but soon the couple were receiving hundreds of emails congratulating them on their project and were encouraged to continue. The channel eventually ran for about five years.

Now based in Brooklyn, New York, Corcos has participated in both the Food Network New York City and Food Network South Beach Wine and Food Festivals since 2011 as a celebrity chef.

He has become involved too with food charities. While making an appearance on Food Network channel's Chopped in April 2013, he competed on behalf of the charity Feeding America and in 2013, Corcos and his family participated in the Live Below the Line Challenge, in which the family tried to feed themselves on $1.50 each per day, which is the equivalent of the poverty line in America.

In 2014, Corcos became a council member of the Food Bank For New York City and hosted a pop-up dinner series in 2014 where a large portion of the proceeds benefited the Food Bank.

Although married to an American and with two daughters born in the United States, Corcos still hankers after a return to Fiesole and the family farm, surrounded by vines and olive trees and hopes that the Food Network’s availability on Italian television may lead to opportunities to work in Italy.

Fiesole offers panoramic views across Florence

Travel tip:

Fiesole, a town of about 14,000 inhabitants situated in an elevated position about 8km (5 miles) northeast of Florence, has since the 14th century been a popular place to live for wealthy Florentines and even to this day remains the richest municipality in Florence.  Formerly an important Etruscan settlement, it was also a Roman town of note, of which the remains of a theatre and baths are still visible.  Fiesole's cathedral, built in the 11th century, is supposedly built over the site of the martyrdom of St. Romulus. In the middle ages, Fiesole was as powerful as Florence until it was conquered by the latter in 1125 after a series of wars.

A typical landscape in Tuscany's Chianti region

Travel tip:

The Tuscany countryside tends to be associated with Chianti country, the wine-growing area known and appreciated by visitors from across the world. It by no means occupies the whole of the region, although it is a large area.  The borders are not clearly defined but in general it extends over the provinces of Florence and Siena, covering all of the area in between, extending to the east toward the Valdarno and to the west to the Val d'Elsa. It is further defined as Chianti Fiorentino, which includes towns such as Barberino Val d’Elsa, Greve in Chianti, San Casciano in Val di Pesa and Tavarnelle in Val di Pesa, and Chianti Sienese, which includes Radda, Gaiole, Castellina and Castelnuovo Berardenga.

More reading:

How Gino D'Acampo rebuilt his life to become a star cook and TV presenter

The chef from Riccione and his American dream

Gennaro Contaldo's passion for Amalfi

Also on this day:

The Feast of Saint Giustina of Padua

1675: The birth of famed Venetian portrait painter Rosalba Carriera



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Franco Bonvicini – comic book artist

Comic artist became famous for satirising the Nazis

Bonvi's Sturmtruppen was a hit in countries
beyond Italy as well as at home

Franco Bonvicini, who signed his comic strips Bonvi, was born on this day in 1941 in either Parma or Modena in Emilia-Romagna.

The correct birthplace is unknown. According to the artist, his mother registered him in both places to obtain double the usual amount of food stamps for rations.

After a brief spell working in advertising, Bonvi made his debut in the comic strip world for the Rome newspaper Paese Sera with his creation Sturmtruppen in 1968.

This series satirising the German army was a big hit and was published in various periodicals over the years. It was also translated for publication in other countries.

Although left-wing and a pacifist, Bonvi was fascinated by war and built up immense knowledge about Nazi Germany’s uniforms, weapons and equipment, which he depicted faithfully in his illustrations. The cartoons satirised military life and the Nazis themselves, providing him with an endless source of comic and surreal situations.

Bonvi's characters first appeared in
1968 in the Paese Sera newspaper

Bonvi also created the character Nick Carter, a comic detective, who later featured in a play, two films and a number of television cartoons.

In the 1980s, Bonvi became a member of Bologna City Council and founded a publishing house and monthly magazine in the city.

He was killed in 1995 in Bologna when he was struck by a car while crossing a road on his way to the television studios. He was due to appear on a show hosted by DJ and TV personality Red Ronnie and it was believed he intended to appeal for financial assistance for a friend, a Bolognese cartoonist, who was unable to work because he was dying of cancer.

A plate of Parma's famous prosciutto

Travel tip:

Franco Bonvicini could have been born in either Parma or Modena, cities that are about 60 km apart in Emilia-Romagna. Parma is famous for producing Prosciutto di Parma, a type of cured ham, and Parmigiano Reggiano, a hard cheese. Modena for Cotechino Modena, a type of sausage, and aceto balsamico di Modena, a high quality balsamic vinegar made from grape must.

Bologna's best food shops can be found in the Quadrilatero

Travel tip:

Bologna, where Franco Bonvicini lived in later life, is known by Italians as La Grassa, the fat one, because of its rich culinary traditions. It is the home of the world’s most famous pasta dish, tagliatelle Bolognese, long strips of pasta served with a rich meat sauce. The best traditional food shops in the city can be found in the area known as the Quadrilatero, which is bordered by Piazza Maggiore, Via Rizzoli, Via Castiglione and Via Farini.

More reading:

How Benito Jacovitti became Italy's favourite cartoonist

Hugo Pratt, the Rimini-born creator of comic book character Corto Maltese

How comic actor Sergio Tòfano invented comic cartoon favourite Signor Bonaventura

Also on this day:

1425: The birth of Bianca Maria Visconti, the Milanese Duchess who led her army into battle

1675: The birth of intellectual leader Pope Benedict XIV


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Cesare “Caesar” Cardini – restaurateur

Italian emigrant who invented Caesar salad

Cesare 'Caesar' Cardini with the
ingredients for his famous salad

The restaurateur who history credits with inventing the Caesar salad was born on this day in 1896 in Baveno, a small town on the shore of Lake Maggiore.

Cesare Cardini was one of a large family, with four brothers and two sisters.  In common with many Italians in the early part of the 20^th century, his brothers Nereo, Alessandro and Gaudenzio emigrated to the United States, hoping there would be more opportunities to make a living.

Nereo is said to have opened a small hotel in Santa Cruz, California, south of San Francisco, while Alessandro and Guadenzio went to Mexico City.

Cesare left Italy for America in 1913. Records indicate he disembarked at Ellis Island, New York on May 1, having endured the transatlantic voyage as a steerage passenger, sleeping in a cargo hold equipped with dozens of bunk beds, which was the cheapest way to travel but came with few comforts.

He is thought then to have returned to Italy for a few years, working in restaurants in Milan, but ventured back to the United States in 1919.  This time he settled, first in Sacramento, then in San Diego, on the Pacific Ocean and close to the border with Mexico.

During the Prohibition Era, from 1920 to 1933, when alcoholic drinks were illegal in the US, many restaurateurs in San Diego crossed the border in Tijuana, where there were no restrictions, and attracted streams of American diners.

Cardini had many thriving restaurants in California and, for
a while, in Tijuana, just over the Mexican border

The story is that Cesare – by now known as Caesar – opened a business in Tijuana, probably with his brother, Alessandro, who was calling himself Alex.  They were always busy on the major public holidays and Cesare’s daughter, Rosa, claimed that Caesar salad came into being on Independence Day, 1924. With a packed restaurant, her father suddenly found himself running short of ingredients.

Whenever a diner found his choice of dish was no longer available, Cesare is said to have offered to make them a special salad, made with such a mouthwatering combination of ingredients they would be delighted they opted to try it.

In fact, the only salad ingredient he had left was some romaine lettuces. Yet with great theatre, he is said to have arrived at the table with a bowl of lettuce leaves, into which he tossed raw eggs, olive oil, garlic, parmesan cheese and Worcestershire sauce, mixed them all together and invited diners to savour the flavour by eating the coated leaves by holding the stem with their fingers.

Needless to say, the combination of sweet lettuce and the creamy, tangy dressing proved a big hit. The restaurant became even more popular and over the next few years the recipe rapidly spread across America.

The Cardini brand is still on sale today

Wallis Simpson, the Socialite for whom the English king, Edward VIII, so controversially gave up the throne in 1936, is said to have introduced the salad to Europe by insisting that her French chef learned how to make it.

Meanwhile, back in Mexico, a change in the gambling laws caused tourism to Tijuana to go into decline, and Cesare Cardini, with wife, Camille, and daughter Rosa, moved back to the United States, first to San Diego in 1935, and then to Los Angeles in 1938.

Demand for the salad dressing continued, and friends began asking for bottles and jars to be filled with it so they might enjoy it at home.  In time, Rosa began to sell bottles of the dressing on a market stall and was so successful her father decided it was worth producing on a commercial scale.

In 1948, he patented the recipe and established Caesar Cardini Foods, which gradually expanded its range of dressings and became an established name on tables across America and beyond.

Cardini died in 1956 after suffering a stroke at his Los Angeles home but Rosa took over the running of the company and developed the business to the extent that, at its peak, one in every four bottles of dressing on US tables had Cardini’s name on it.

She retired in 1988, although the name lives on. The licence to use the brand name is currently held by T Marzetti and Company, a business also founded by Italian emigrants, Teresa and Giuseppe Marzetti.

Rosa Cardini’s version of the origins of Caesar salad is not universally accepted.  Paul Maggiora, a partner of the Cardinis, claimed to have tossed the first Caesar salad in 1927 for American airmen from San Diego and called it Aviator's Salad.

Alessandro Cardini also claimed ownership of the recipe, which he also called Aviator's Salad, while Livio Santini, who worked in the kitchen at Cesare’s Tijuana restaurant, said that he made the salad from a recipe of his mother, and that Cesare borrowed the recipe from him.

The waterfront at Baveno, Cardini's home town on the
western shore of Lake Maggiore

Travel tip:

The lakeside town of Baveno, where Cesare Cardini was born, lies on the western shore of Lake Maggiore, just a few kilometres from its better known neighbour, Stresa. Both look out over the Borromean Islands, famous for their beautiful cultivated gardens.  The attractions of Baveno include its mineral water springs, the pink granite that is quarried nearby and a series of opulent villas dotted along the nearby coastline, including the Villa Henfrey-Branca, noticeable for its castle-like turrets, where Queen Victoria was a regular visitor from Britain as a guest of the engineer Charles Henfrey.

Hotels in Baveno from Booking.com

The island of Isola Bella is a major tourist attraction

Travel tip:

Although smaller in area than Lake Garda, Lake Maggiore is the longest of the Italian lakes, stretching for 65km (40 miles) from Arona in Lombardy to its northern extreme in Locarno in Switzerland.  It is also extremely deep, plunging 179m (587ft) at its deepest.  Because of its length, it has a different character at the Swiss end, where the scenery has an alpine feel, compared with the southern tip, which is at the edge of the Lombardy plain. The Borromean islands are the lake's biggest draw for tourists, with three of them - Isola Bella, Isola Madre and Isola dei Pescatori are accessible to the public.

Stay in Arona with Booking.com

More reading:

A chef from the Adriatic coast who opened a restaurant in New York

The Emilian entrepreneur who founded an American pasta brand

The chef from a cinema family who found TV fame on America's Food Network 

Also on this day: 

1607: The first performance of Monteverdi's L'Orfeo, the oldest opera still regularly staged

1934: The birth of politician Bettino Craxi

1934: The birth of soprano and opera director Renata Scotto

1990: The death of former president Sandro Pertini

(Picture credits: Cardini restaurant from San Diego History Center; Baveno view by Abxbay via Wikimedia Commons)

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Mario Pavesi – entrepreneur

Biscuit maker who gave Italian motorists the Autogrill

Mario Pavesi began making
biscuits in 1934

Italy lost one of its most important postwar entrepreneurs when Mario Pavesi died on this day in 1990.

Pavesi, originally from the town of Cilavegna in the province of Pavia in Lombardy, not only founded the Pavesi brand, famous for Pavesini and Ringo biscuits among other lines, but also set up Italy’s first motorway service areas under the name of Autogrill.

Always a forward-thinking businessman, Pavesi foresaw the growing influence American ideas would have on Italy during the rebuilding process in the wake of the Second World War and the way that Italians would embrace road travel once the country developed its own motorway network.

He was one of the first Italian entrepreneurs to take full advantage of advertising opportunities in the press, radio, cinema and later television. 

Born in 1909 into a family of bakers, Pavesi moved to Novara in 1934, opening a pastry shop in Corso Cavour, where he sold a range of cakes and confectionery and served coffee. During the next few years, until Italy became embroiled in the war, he expanded the business in several ways.

By the time hostilities interrupted normal life, he had gone into production with Biscottini di Novara, a traditional biscuit made from eggs, flour and sugar that had been around since the 16^th century but had never before been produced as a commercial product.

The company's famous ad, proclaiming that
"It's always Pavesini time".

Pavesi took an interest in American tastes at the end of the conflict and in the immediate aftermath, when the occupying US military used to share supplies. It was after comparing traditional Italian biscuits with the ones the soldiers were handing round that he decided to travel to the United States on a fact-finding mission.

On his return, he devised a product that was based on the same traditional ingredients but was lighter and easier to digest, which he called Pavesini.  The product became a huge success, based on an advertising campaign that used the slogan: “It’s always Pavesini time".

As well as Pavesini, the company made crackers. In time, Pavesi introduced more winning lines such as his Ringo biscuits – one plain biscuit, one cocoa-flavoured, with a sweet filling – and the chocolate-covered Togo.

Pavesi’s ideas for roadside refreshment outlets grew from what he had encountered in America too, although he was not so much thinking of the needs of motorists so much as selling his biscuits that he decided, in 1947, to open a bar and café next to the A4 Turin-Milan highway, which passed close to the outskirts of Novara, not far from his factory.

Pavesi's Autogrill, straddling the motorway near Novara

Car ownership in Italy was small at the time – only one vehicle for every 100 people – so turnover was modest initially, but as the post-War economic recovery began to take hold, so more cars began passing his kiosk, and more of them stopped. Pavesi added more tables, a bigger covered area, and designated part of it as a restaurant, serving hot meals. Italy’s first Autogrill was born.

Far-sighted as ever, Pavesi knew he was on to a winner and began to look for other locations along the country’s highway network, which began to grow at a rapid rate in the 50s and 60s as the car manufacturers concentrated on the mass production of affordable, economy cars for ordinary Italians to drive.

Pavesi enlisted the help of architects, in particular the urban designer Angelo Bianchetti, who conceived the idea of restaurants that straddled both lanes of the motorway, great glass and steel structures supported by enormous girders, which had the advantage of being accessible to drivers on both sides of the highway.

The first of these, opened at Fiorenzuola d'Arda, between Parma and Piacenza, in 1959, was the first of its kind in Europe.  On many occasions, particularly lunchtime on Sundays, it would see every table taken, not just by passing travellers but by local people intrigued by the idea of cars racing beneath them as they ate.

Mario Pavesi (left), with the architect Angelo
Bianchetti, who designed many of the Autogrills

The original restaurant outside Novara, at Veveri, was transformed along similar lines in 1962.

In the 1970s, Pavesi found competition from Motta and Alemagna in a rapidly expanding market, and by then there were more than 200 rest areas across the 3,900km (2,450 miles) network of motorways.

The boom was threatened by the oil crisis of the 1970s, which plunged all three companies into crisis, but state intervention saved the day, with the catering sections of all three companies becoming part of a new state-run entity, Autogrill SpA.

The Pavesi brand is now owned by the Barilla group.

Pavesi passed away after a heart attack in Rocca di Papa, one of the Castelli Romani towns in the Alban Hills, some 25km (16 miles) southeast of Rome.

The enormous cupola of the Basilica of San
Gaudenzio dwarfs the ball tower

Travel tip:

The city of Novara, where Pavesi opened his first bakery and store, a little more than 20km (12 miles) from his home town of Cilavegna, is the second largest city in Piedmont after Turin, with a population of just over 100,000. It is notable for its attractive historic centre, at the heart of which is the Piazza della Repubblica, where visitors can find the Broletto, an arcaded courtyard around which are clustered a number of palaces housing a civic museum and art gallery and the town hall, as well as the 19^th century neo-classical cathedral designed by Alessandro Antonelli, who was responsible also for the city’s major landmark, the Basilica of San Guadenzio, with its tall multi-tiered cupola, which stands 121m (397ft) high.

Stay in Turin with Booking.com

Rocca di Papa from Piazza della Repubblica

Travel tip:

Rocca di Papa, where Pavesi died, is a town of around 16,000 people and one of a group of communities in the Alban Hills southeast of Rome known as the Castelli Romani – the Roman Castles.  Built on a rocky outcrop, it is the site of a papal fortress once the home of Pope Eugene III, on top of which is built the Royal Geodynamic Observatory.  The town suffered considerable damage during bombing in the Second World War, after it was used as a strategic stronghold by the occupying German army, but has undergone substantial reconstruction since.

Hotels in Rocca di Papa by Booking.com



More reading:

The former peasant farmer who founded the Lavazza coffee company

How Karl Zuegg made his name synonymous with jam and juice

Francesco Cirio - Italy's canning pioneer

Also on this day:

1905: The birth of Enrico Piaggio: the man behind the Vespa scooter

1914: The birth of Nobel Prize-winning physiologist Renato Dulbecco

1921: The birth of Giulietta Masina - the actress who married Fellini

(Picture credits: Basilica of San Gaudenzio by Umby; Rocca di Papa by Gugganij; via Wikimedia Commons)

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Domenico Ghirardelli – chocolatier

Built famous US business with skills learned in Genoa

The chocolatier Domenico Ghirardelli, founder of the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company in San Francisco, was born on this day in 1817 in a village just outside Rapallo in Liguria.

The Ghirardelli Chocolate Shop in Ghirardelli Square
on San Francisco's northern waterfront

Also known as Domingo, Ghirardelli arrived in San Francisco in 1849 during the rapid expansion years of the Gold Rush, having spent the previous 10 years or so in Peru, where he had run a successful confectionery business.

After making money as a merchant, initially ferrying supplies to prospectors in the gold fields, he set up his first chocolate factory in 1852, drawing on the skills he acquired as an apprentice in Genoa.

By the end of the century, the Ghirardelli Chocolate Company was one of the city’s most successful businesses, with a prestige headquarters on North Point Street, a short distance from Fisherman’s Wharf, in a group of buildings that became known as Ghirardelli Square.

The son of a spice importer, Ghirardelli was born in the village of Santa Anna, just outside Rapallo, about 25km (16 miles) along the Ligurian coast from Genoa, in the direction of La Spezia to the southeast.

His father wanted him to have a trade and once he had reached his teens sent him to be an apprentice at Romanengo’s, an important confectioner in Genoa, with a view to setting himself up in business.

Domenico Ghirardelli arrived in San
Francisco from Peru in 1849

However, having been forced to give up its status as an independent republic and become part of the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia as part of the settlement following the Napoleonic Wars, Genoa was a volatile city prone to riots and to brutal repression by the military and in 1837 Ghirardelli decided, in common with many Italians, to leave in search of a better life in the New World.

At the age of only 20 and newly married, he arrived first in Montevideo in Uruguay, moving on a year later to Lima in Peru, a prosperous city where there was already an established Italian community.

He set up a confectionery shop on Calle de los Mercaderes, the city’s main shopping street, which he modelled on Romanengo’s store in Genoa.  After the death of his wife, he married for a second time, to a Peruvian widow, and would have stayed in Lima had his former neighbour, an American from Pennsylvania who had moved to San Francisco, not written to him urging him to follow.

The neighbour, James Lick, who would go on to become the richest man in California, had set himself up on the proceeds of 600lb (272kg) of chocolate Ghirardelli had given him to sell. With San Francisco on the brink of an economic boom after the discovery of gold in 1848, it was too good an opportunity to miss.

Trading first in general merchandise, Ghirardelli rapidly expanded from running a delivery service to owning grocery stores in San Francisco and Stockton, plus a soda fountain, a coffee house and a part-interest in a hotel.  Within two years, he had amassed wealth of $25,000, which then had the buying power of around $750,000 (€610,000) today.

The Ghirardelli factory was established just back from
the San Francisco waterfront

He opened his first chocolate factory in 1852 in the Verandah Building on Portsmouth Square, living above the premises, before moving to Jackson Street, building a separate family home in Oakland.  The business grew even more after the accidental discovery of cocoa powder, the result of some bags of chocolate paste being left unattended in a warm room.

The butterfat in the paste melted, dripping out on to the floor, leaving behind in the bags a greaseless residue that could be ground into a powder, which Ghirardelli patented and sold under the name of Broma, to be used as a cake ingredient or for making a hot cocoa drink.

The recession of the 1870s brought a massive scaling back, with many of the company’s assets, including the house in Oakland and several stores, being auctioned off to keep the factory going.

Yet, despite competition from others keen to exploit chocolate’s continuing popularity, the business recovered, with Ghirardelli’s sons increasingly involved.  Broma, rebranded as Ghirardelli’s Chocolate Powder, continued to be a big seller.  By the late 1880s, the company was producing and selling one million pounds (453,000kg) of the powder each year.

Ghirardelli retired in 1889, handing control to his sons.  In 1892, needing to expand, the company acquired a large woollen mill near the city’s northern waterfront at what his now Ghirardelli Square.

He died in 1894, contracting influenza during an extended visit to Rapallo, where he had gone in order to rediscover his roots. His body was returned to San Francisco, to be buried in the family mausoleum in Oakland’s Mountain View Cemetery.

Production continued at Ghirardelli Square until the 1960s, when the business was sold and the manufacturing operation moved to San Leandro.  Today, while still trading under the family name as the third oldest chocolate manufacturer in the United States, the business is a subsidiary of the Swiss company, Lindt and Sprüngli. There is still a Ghirardelli shop in the Ghirardelli Square shopping and restaurant complex

A quaint 16th century castle guards Rapallo's harbour

Travel tip:

Rapallo, larger and a little cheaper than its exclusive neighbour Portofino, is an attractive seaside town of the eastern Italian Riviera, known as the Riviera di Levante. The town developed around a harbour guarded by a small castle – Il Castello sul Mare – built in 1551, which sits right on the water’s edge.  Behind the harbour is a network of narrow streets. There are boat service to Portofino, as well as Santa Margherita Ligure and Camogli, while the main Genoa to Pisa railway line passes through the town.

The ornate interior of the Romanengo store in Genoa

Travel tip:

Romanengo’s confectionery store in Via Soziglia in Genoa has become a tourist attraction in itself, a wonderfully ornate emporium barely changed since it was refurbished lavishly in the mid-19^th century, having opened for business for the first time in 1814.  Modelled on Parisian confectioners’ shops, it has a marble floor, a frescoed ceiling, elegant chandeliers and beautiful inlaid rosewood shelving and counters, with endless dishes of brightly coloured confectionery in glass cases. The company logo of a dove carrying an olive branch symbolised peace at the end of the Napoleonic Wars.


More reading:

Michele Ferrero - the man who invented Nutella

Humble beginnings of chocolate giant Ferrero

The entrepreneur behind Perugina chocolates

Also on this day:

1513: Death of Pope Julius II

1609: The birth of military leader Raimondo Montecuccoli

1868: Death of painter and revolutionary Giuseppe Abbati

(Picture credits: Ghirardelli store by PictorialEvidence; San Francisco waterfront by Saopaulo1; Rapallo Castle by RegentsPark; all via Wikimedia Commons; Romanengo store from www.romanengo.com) 

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Pietro Ferrero - baker and chocolatier

Humble beginnings of €20 billion company

Pietro Ferrero

Pietro Ferrero, the founder of the Ferrero chocolate and confectionery company, was born in Farigliano, a small town in Piedmont, on this day in 1898.

A baker by profession, he moved to nearby Alba in 1926 with his wife and young son, Michele, before deciding to try his luck in Turin, where in 1940 he opened a large pastry shop in Via Sant’Anselmo.

Trading conditions were tough, however, and the business was not a success.  The family returned to Alba in 1942, setting up a smaller bakery in Via Rattazzi, at the back of which Pietro created a kind of confectionery laboratory.

He had hit upon the idea of trying to find alternative materials from which to make products, largely because the high taxes on cocoa beans meant conventional chocolate-based pastries were expensive to make.

Hazelnuts, on the other hand, were plentiful, Piedmont being one of Italy’s major producers. One of his experiments involved combining Gianduja, a traditional Piedmontese hazelnut paste, with about 20 per cent chocolate. 

Pietro's original Giandujot
hazelnut 'chocolate' bars

Convinced his customers would like the taste, he began manufacturing bars of his chocolate-substitute on site at the bakery, selling it wrapped in foil under the name Pasta Gianduja and then Giandujot. It was popular as a sweet snack, often served in thin slices on bread.

Demand for the product increased rapidly, so much so that producing it by hand became impracticable. Together with his wife, Piera, Pietro founded the company Ferrero on May 14, 1946, built a factory in Alba on Via Vivaro and began to hire new workers.

Sadly, Pietro died in 1949 at the age of just 50, not realising his company would grow in quite the way it did.

Sales soared after a creamy, spreadable version of Gianduja was produced in 1951 under the name Supercrema. This was the forerunner of Nutella, the chocolate-hazelnut spread invented by Pietro’s son, Michele, who inherited the business and turned it into one of the world’s biggest brands.

Under Michele’s astute management, the company expanded to produce a whole range of confectionary products, including Ferrero Rocher praline chocolates, the Kinder range of eggs and bars, Mon Cheri cherry liqueur chocolates and the espresso-filled Pocket Coffee chocolates.

Ferrero SpA produces 365,000
 tons of Nutella each year

Today Ferrero sells more than 365,000 tons of Nutella every year, has 11 factories around the world, employs more than 33,000 people and the company is valued at around €20 billion ($23.72 billion).  Incredibly, the company uses 25 per cent of the entire global hazelnut crop n producing Nutella.

When he died in 2015, Michele Ferrero was the richest man in Italy according to the Bloomberg Billionaires index and the 20^th richest person in the world, with a personal fortune of almost €15 billion.

Although it has offices in Luxembourg, Ferrero SpA remains a private company based in Alba and still, essentially, a family business.  Pietro’s grandson, Giovanni – son of Michele – is the current executive chairman.

The appointment earlier this year as chief executive of Lapo Civiletti, the company’s former head of operations in central and eastern Europe, was the first time a non-family member had filled such a high-ranking position in the company.

Alba's San Lorenzo cathedral

Travel tip:

Apart from Ferrero, the town of Alba – about 32km (20 miles) northeast of Farigliano and 60km (37 miles) southeast of Turin – is important for its production of truffles, peaches and wine.  The wines produced locally include Barolo, Barbaresco, Barbera, Nebbiolo and Moscato. The town has a population of almost 32,000 and its historic centre, built on the site of the Roman city of Alba Pompeia, includes the Romanesque cathedral of San Lorenzo and the Gothic church of San Domenico.

Via Roma is one of Turin's main shopping streets

Travel tip:

Via Sant’Anselmo, where Pietro Ferrero ran a pastry shop before moving to Alba, is one of the streets parallel with Turin railway station, south of Corso Vittorio Emanuele II. The city’s main shopping area is on the north side of Corso Vittorio Emanuele, around Via Roma, Via Giuseppe Luigi Lagrange and Via Carlo Alberto. Turin also has 19km (11 miles) of covered arcades and hosts more than 60 markets, including the largest open market in Europe at Porta Palazzo in Piazza della Repubblica.

More reading:

Michele Ferrero - the man who invented Nutella

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Karl Zuegg - jam and juice maker

Businessman turned family farm into international company

Karl Zuegg

Karl Zuegg, the businessman who turned his family's fruit-farming expertise into one of Italy's major producers of jams and juices, was born on this day in 1915 in Lana, a town in what is now the autonomous province of Bolzano in Trentino-Alto Adige.

His grandparents, Maria and Ernst August Zuech - they changed their name to Zuegg in 1903 - had been cultivating fruit on their farm since 1860, when Lana was part of South Tyrol in what was then Austria-Hungary.  They traded at local markets and began exporting.

Zuegg and the company's other major brand names, Skipper and Fruttaviva, are among the most recognisable in the fruit products market in Italy and it is largely through Karl's hard work and enterprise.

He was managing director of the company from 1940 to 1986, during which time Zuegg became the first drinks manufacturer in Italy to make use of the ground-breaking Tetrapak packaging invented in Sweden, which allowed drinks to be sold in lightweight cardboard cartons rather than traditional glass bottles.

The family business had begun to experiment with jams in 1917 when austerity measures in Italy were biting hard and there was a need to preserve food.  Rather than throw away overripe apples, the family turned them into jam.

The Zuegg logo is well known in Italian grocery stores

Their methods were successful with other fruits too and Zuegg jams went into mass production in 1923, achieving immediate success.

But it was not until Karl joined the board of the company in 1937 that the business began to expand on a large scale.

Under Karl's leadership, the Zuegg brand grew, with bigger production facilities and innovative technology. The company developed new products such as the Fruttino snack bar, a solid stick of quince jam enriched with vitamins that became a staple of children's school lunches throughout Italy.

The first Zuegg fruit juices arrived in 1954, with bottles of pear, peach and apricot juice soon becoming familiar items on the shelves of Italian grocery stores.

Fruit cultivation is an important part of Lana's economy

In the early 1960s, Zuegg intoduced the Fruttaviva jams, the first to be produced without the use of preservatives and dyes, and two years later, after opening a new plant in Verona - now the company's headquarters - became a supplier of fruit products for use in yogurt, pastries and ice cream.

It was in 1979, as Karl continually looked for innovations that would help grow the business further, that the company signed a deal for the Swedish company Tetrapak to supply its revolutionary cartons for Zuegg products.

Tetrapak's unique method, combining paper, polyethylene and aluminium, produced a lightweight packaging that not only kept fluids from leaking outwards. It also prevented bacteria from entering the product and, through the aluminium layer, protected the contents from deteriorating through exposure to light.

Selling drinks in these so-called 'briks' was a novelty in Italy and Karl Zuegg's vision made his company the market leader. Today, of course, such packaging is standard.

The original Zuegg headquarters in Lana

On the back of this success, Zuegg was able to open another Italian production plant at Luogosano, in the province of Avellino in Campania, in 1985.  Three years later, the Skipper line, selling 100 per cent pure fruit juices, was launched.

Today, Zuegg is an international company with six plants - two in Italy, two in Germany, one in France and one in Russia - and employs more than 500 staff.

As part of its campaign to promote healthy living, the company has a long history of sponsorship in sport, which has seen it provide financial backing for competitors in skiing and snowboarding, beach volleyball, basketball and tennis, and for two seasons promoted the brand as a main sponsor of Internazionale football club.

Karl Zuegg, who was made Cavaliere del Lavoro by the Italian government in recognition of his services to industry, died in 2005 in Lana, his home town, at the age of 91.  He is buried at the church of Santa Maria Assunta in Lana di Sotto.

Travel tip:

Lana is a small town and resort in the Adige valley in north-eastern Italy midway between Bolzano and Merano in the area of the Trentino-Alto Adige region also known as South Tyrol. The German influence on the area is so dominant that more than 90 per cent of the town's 12,000 residents speak German as their first language, and less than eight per cent Italian. It is popular with hikers and cyclists in the summer months, with a network of well defined cycle paths.  Lana is also home to the South Tyrol Museum of Fruit, which details the history of fruit cultivation in the area.

Hotels in Lana from Hotels.com

The Roman Porta Borsari in Verona is almost 2,000 years old 

Travel tip:

Verona is famous for the Arena, the Roman amphitheatre that stages open air concerts, and for Casa Giulietta, the house with the balcony said to be the one that featured in Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet.  But there is more to the city's attractions.  In addition to the Arena, Verona is said to have more Roman ruins than any other Italian city and many are part of the everyday fabric of the city, including the Porta Borsari, with its two large arches and numerous smaller arches above, dating back to the 1st century, which straddles the entrance to Corso Porta Borsari, one of the city's main shopping streets.  There are many squares, including the charming Piazza dei Signori, which is surrounded by several fine buildings, including the Palazzo del Comune, the Palazzo Domus Nova and the Loggia del Consiglio.

More reading:

How Michele Ferrero's hazelnut spread became a worldwide phenomenon

Francesco Cirio and the canning revolution

A hotel empire that started with a single London coffee bar

Also on this day:

1940: The birth of F1 motor racing champion Mario Andretti

1942: The birth of record-breaking goalkeeper Dino Zoff

(Picture credits: Tractor in orchard by böhringer friedrich; Porta Borsari by Didier Descouens via Wikimedia Commons; Zuegg pictures from Zuegg company website)


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Francesco Cirio - canning pioneer

Market trader whose name became known worldwide

Francesco Cirio

Francesco Cirio, who pioneered the technique of canning food products to preserve their freshness, was born on this day in 1836 in the town of Nizza Monferrato in what is now Piedmont.

His father was a grain trader and Francesco developed entrepreneurial instincts at an early age.  By the age of 14 he was working at the fruit and vegetable market of Porta Palazzo in Turin.

He soon became aware that there was a demand for fresh Italian produce in London and Paris and set up a company to export fruit and vegetables to other cities in Europe.

At the same time he heard about the work of Nicolas Appert, the French confectioner and chef, whose attempts to find ways to preserve food led him to discover that heat could be used as a method of sterilisation and that foods treated in that way could be sealed in cans and would retain their fresh condition for many months.

The method, which became known as Appertisation, was taken up by Cirio, who set up his first canning factory in Turin in 1856 at the age of 20, concentrating first on peas and then achieving similar success with other vegetables.

A poster from the early part of the 20th century
advertising Cirio's most famous product

Within a decade, the Cirio brand was appearing on the shelves of grocery stores all over the world and by 1885 the Societa Anonima di Esportazione Agricola Francesco Cirio, with its headquarters in Turin, had opened subsidiaries in Milan, Naples, Belgrade, Berlin, Brussels, London, Paris and Vienna.

Francesco died in 1900 but his partner, Pietro Signorini, continued the development of the company, which invested in the agricultural development of Southern Italy.  Canned tomatoes became a major part of the business and from the 1920s onwards, the name Cirio became synonymous with Italian tomatoes.

The business continued to thrive through the 20th century before it became engulfed in the financial scandals of the late 1990s. The company was wound up after a number of executives were arrested on fraud charges during the anti-corruption drive in Italy that saw several other of the country's biggest commercial names disappear from the shelves.

However, the Cirio brand lives on as part of the Gruppo Cooperativo Conserve Italia, a cooperative consortium of vegetable producers based in San Lazzaro in Emilia-Romagna.

Travel tip:

Nizza Monferrato, in the province of Asti, grew up around the Abbey of San Giovanni in Lanero in the 13th century.  It passed into the hands of the House of Savoy in 1703 and began to flourish in the 18th century, when it was noted for its silk production.  Interesting buildings include the Palazzo Comunale, the seat of the local government since the 14th century, and the Palazzo Crova, which is a good example of the town houses favoured by the nobility in the 18th century.  The red wine Nizza, a DOCG wine made with Barbera grapes, is produced in just 18 municipalities around the town.

Stalls on the Porta Palazzo market in Turin, where
Francesco Cirio worked from the age of 14

Travel tip:

The Porta Palazzo market, located in Piazza della Repubblica in Turin, where Cirio cut his teeth in the fruit and vegetable business, is the largest open air market in Europe with around 800 stalls.  It trades from Monday to Friday and attracts not only customers from the city but from neighbourhoods further afield and many foreign visitors.  There is a strong representation of local producers with more than 100 stalls every day directly selling products from farmers around Turin. The market was renovated in 2006.

More reading:

Michele Ferrero - the man who invented Nutella spread

Piedmont roots of chef and TV presenter Antonio Carluccio

Soave - the classic Italian wine

Also on this day:

Christmas Eve - la Vigilia di Natale

(Picture credit: Porta Palazzo market by Xadhoomx via Wikimedia commons)



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Soave - an Italian classic wine

How the dry white from the Veneto earned its DOC status

Soave from
the famous
Bolla vineyard

Soave - at one time the world's most popular Italian wine - was officially granted a DOC classification on this day in 1968.

The DOC status - which stands for Denominazione di Origine Controllata - was introduced midway through the last century as part of a series of laws designed to safeguard the quality and authenticity of Italian wines.

Winegrowers had been pushing for such regulation because the increasing popularity of Italian wines around the world was impacting on quality as more and more producers sprang up to meet demand.

Soave was a case in point.  Originally limited to a small area of just 2,720 acres (1,100 hectares) in the hills to the north of the small towns of Soave and Monteforte d'Alpone, roughly 25km east of Verona in the Veneto region, production spread rapidly to an area more than six times as large.

The biggest demand was from the United States, which developed a taste for Italian wines in the boom years that followed the end of the Second World War.  Of the huge volume of imported bottles that arrived on ships from Europe, Soave was the most popular.

Its reputation then was that of a fine, high quality wine, not unlike France's Chablis in style - pale coloured, lively and refreshing and with crisp mineral flavours and a clean finish.

However, mass production led to a decline in quality.  Grapes grown on the flatlands in the expanding production zone did not yield wine of the same character as those grown on the hillsides, and more and more liberties were taken with the blend of grapes used.

Soave is produced using the Garganega grape

Most wineries honoured the fundamental requirement that a minimum 70 per cent of the blend should be the Garganega grape, which gives the wine its characteristic almond nose, but some were more liberal. And sometimes the Trebbiano di Soave grape that by tradition made up the other 30 per cent in the recipe would be substituted with the very different Trebbiano Toscano, or with other varieties producing different qualities.

At the same time, the volumes being produced led to prices falling, which while a good thing in some respects tended to have a negative effect on the wine's reputation.  With its rarity value gone, Soave began to be seen as a cheap wine, not one with which the wealthy could impress their friends.

Swanky restaurants began to drop it from their wine lists and the knock-on effect was soon felt by wine merchants, too, as customers looked for exclusivity elsewhere.

A similar tipping point was also reached in the United Kingdom and Soave's popularity began to wane, with Pinot Grigio taking its place as the favourite among Italian whites.

Although the area in which Soave makers could obtain DOC status after 1968 reflected the expanded production zone, strict rules on the blend had to be followed.  Garganega grapes had to make up between 70 and 100 per cent and Trebbiano di Soave between 0 and 30 per cent.

The beautiful rolling hills near Verona where Soave is made

Soave produced from grapes grown in the historical 1,100 hectares around Soave and Monteforte d'Alpone was marketed as Soave Classico.

Since the DOC classification came into being, two further indicators of provenance have been introduced.  Wines of the highest quality can qualify for the certification category Denominazione di Origine Controllata e Garantita (DOCG), while wines that do not adhere exactly to the DOC guidelines but are nonetheless judged as of good quality can be awarded an IGT (Indicazione Geografica Tipica) certificate.

Recent signs are that Soave is regaining some of the market share lost to Pinot Grigio.  More sophisticated and reliable production methods have led to higher quality wines, with subtle variations in taste relating to the location of the vineyard underpinning the crisp, non-acidic freshness.

Older wine connoisseurs are still tending to give it a wide berth but a new, younger generation of wine drinkers are discovering it afresh, tiring of Pinot Grigio, still enjoying the fashionable Sauvignon Blancs of Australia and New Zealand but finding Soave a pleasing alternative that is a little easier on the pocket.

The 10th century house at the centre of Soave Castle

Travel tip:

Soave, a small municipality of fewer than 10,000 inhabitants, is notable for its castle, which enjoys a commanding location overlooking the town.  Originally built in the 10th century to protect the area against the Hungarians, it was added to in the 14th and 15th centuries and has three lines of walls.  It was bought privately in the 19th century and restored, and is now open to the public, with several rooms of exhibits, including a dining room with medieval kitchenware.  The poet Dante Alighieri is said to have stayed there as a guest of the Scaligeri family, who were part of a noble Veronese dynasty.

Travel tip:

Nearby Verona, which sits astride the Adige river, is regarded as one of Italy's most beautiful cities.  It attracts hundreds of thousands of visitors whose sole aim is to find the 14th century house in the centre of the city where the balcony overlooking a courtyard was made famous by Shakespeare's play Romeo and Juliet, which he based on stories of Verona's warring Montague and Capulet families.  But there is much more to the city, which has a fascinating network of narrow medieval streets, some fine churches, handsome squares and impressive Roman ruins, the most famous of which is the vast Arena amphitheatre, designed to accommodate 30,000 spectators and now a major venue for music concerts and opera.

(Photo of Soave landscape by Alessandro Pighi CC BY-SA 4.0)
(Photo of Soave Castle by Casalmaggiore Provincia CC BY-SA 4.0)

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