L'Italo-Americano

www.italoamericano.org 10 THURSDAY, JANUARY 25, 2018 L'Italo-Americano LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE W hile I write, I ' m s i t t i n g i n m y o w n house in the h i l l s o f t h e Langhe, a good feet of snow out- side. It's that time of the year when the scent of mandarins' peels burned on the stove fills homes all around the region and hot chocolate - the thick, dessert- like version we make in Italy - is the favored drink of choice for m a n y w h e n h i t t i n g c a f é s . I n Piedmont, however, and in our marvelous capital especially, another drink is king during the winter months: il bicerin. Little known outside the Alpine bor- ders of the region, this heart- warming delicacy, a concoction of coffee, cream and chocolate, has a long tradition and interest- ing history to tell, that brings us back to the years of Risorgimen- to, when the Savoias ruled over the Kingdom of Sardinia and Turin reveled in the baroque opulence of its streets and in the diamond and platinum majesty o f h e r o w n r e g a l c r o w n , t h e Alps. Savoias aside, nothing changed much, really. That the Turinese decided to add chocolate to their coffee shouldn't come as a surprise. The city is, in the end, one of Italy's chocolate making capi- tals, the place where hot choco- late was created. It was also, in those decades between the 18th a n d t h e 1 9 t h c e n t u r y w h e n bicerin was invented, a cultural melting pot, where the Pied- montese and the French, the Alpine and the Ligurian, the Italian and, indeed, a bit of the A u s t r i a n , c o h a b i t e d i n t h e streets and on the table. It was customary, then, to warm up the city's cold, icy mornings with the bavareisa (literally "from Bavaria"), con- sidered by many the original v e r s i o n o f o u r b i c e r i n . T h e bavareisa was made with a base of melted chocolate mixed with coffee and cream, sweetened with sugar molasses; the drink was usually served in large glasses and had been, indeed, all the rage in Turin and its sur- rounding areas, since the 18 th century. But how and when did the bavareisa turned into our bicerin? To understand it, we need to look into the history of one of Turin's best preserved secrets, the Caffè al Bicerin. This beautiful, historical gem w a s b o r n i n 1 7 6 3 , w h e n acquacedrataio Giuseppe Den- tis opened its doors for the first t i m e . W h a t ' s a n a c q u a c e - drataio, you may wonder: well, it was the artisan making and selling acquacedrata, Italy's own soda, made with water, cit- ron juice and sugar. To find Giuseppe's caffè, yesterday as today, you need to walk to Piaz- za della Consolata, in central Turin, and set your eyes on the building just opposite the Santu- ario della Consolata itself: there you have it, the birthplace of the bicerin. Mind, the café we see today was refurbished, along with the whole building, in the mid 19 th century by architect Carlo Promis, yet, the location has remained the same for 254 years. With its boiseries and mirrors, its white marble round t a b l e s , w o o d e n c o u n t e r a n d many shelves to show home- m a d e c a n d i e s , t h e C a f f é a l Bicerin is as quintessentially P i e d m o n t e s e i n i t s l o o k s a s bicerin itself is in its ingredi- ents. It's here, sometimes in the 1 9 t h c e n t u r y , t h a t p o p u l a r bavareisa was deconstructed – to use a verb popular in today's trendy food lingo - its ingredi- ents layered but not mixed in the glass, leaving the pleasure to stir them all to the customer. Initial- ly, the bicerin came in three ver- sions: the pur e fiur, made with c r e a m a n d c o f f e e , t h e p u r e barba, made with coffee and m e l t e d c h o c o l a t e a n d t h e ' n poc'd tut, Piedmontese for "a bit of everything," which included all the ingredients. The latter, of course, became the most popu- lar. In those years, you'd have enjoyed your bicerin with 14 types of bagnà, home-made tra- ditional Piedomontese cookies. Among them, the crocion, the t u r c e t , t h e s a v o i r d i n à , t h e FRANCESCA BEZZONE Turin offers us a "bicerin"of tradition michette, the garibaldin, the lat- ter obviously created after the Unification of Italy: they were arranged in baskets called cav- agnette and no one, in the Turin of Risorgimento, would have h a d a b i c e r i n w i t h o u t t h e m . And, let me tell you, our official regional drink had some fans in those days, including king Vit- torio Emanuele II and his mor- ganatic wife, Rosa Vercellana, known as la bela Rosin, Camil- lo Benso count of Cavour, the mind behind the Unità d'Italia and Silvio Pellico, writer and patriot, himself a son of Pied- mo n t. G iaco mo P u ccin i w as a l s o a n e s t i m a t o r a n d , w h o k n o w s , h e m a y h a v e h a d a bicerin while composing his B o h è m e o r L a T u r a n d o t . Famous Italian poet and Turi- n e s e D O C G u i d o G o z z a n o loved it, just as Friedrich Niet- zsche, who in Turin spent part of his life. Indeed, the world of art, that o f l i t e r a t u r e e s p e c i a l l y , h a s a l w a y s h a d a s o f t s p o t f o r b i c e r i n . A l e x a n d r e D u m a s appreciated its taste and the fact i t w a s a p r e t t y c h e a p t r e a t : " a m o n g t h e m a n y g o o d a n d beautiful things of Turin, I'll n e v e r f o r g e t t h e b i c e r i n , a n excellent drink made with cof- fee, milk and chocolate, which is served in all cafés, for rela- tively cheap." More recently, bicerin was part of Umberto E c o ' s n a r r a t i v e i n h i s T h e Prague Cemetery, published in 2010: "I had wondered to one of Turin's most iconic places of those years. Dressed as a Jesuit, I w o u l d g o t o t h e C a f f è a l B i c e r i n , n e a r t h e C o n s o l a t a church, to have a glass of that drink fragrant with milk, cocoa, c o f f e e a n d o t h e r a r o m a s . I couldn't know then that even Alexadre Dumas was to write about it, some years later." Umberto Eco brings us back ideally to where it all began, the Caffè al Bicerin, in Turin's city centre, just opposite one its and cultural landmarks, the santuario della Consolata. As the official birthplace of bicerin, this caffè holds the original recipe for it, with the authentic ingredients and, crucially, doses. Because if it's true that every Turinese café w i l l s e r v e y o u a d e l i c i o u s bicerin, it's also true that the people at Caffè al Bicerin are the only ones to know the exact recipe, just like the people of the Hotel Sacher in Vienna are the only ones to know that of their famous cake. One last thing: there is anoth- er typical Piedmontese drink c a l l e d b i c e r i n : a g i a n d u j a liqueur, made with lashings of Piedmont's favored hazelnut chocolate, cream and alcohol. However, when in the city, you can rest assured: the one and only bicerin is served piping hot, has no alcohol and carries within the beauty and decadent f l a v o r s o f a " T o r i n o d ' a l t r i tempi." This heart-warming delicacy, a concoction of coffee, cream and chocolate, has a long tradition and interesting history to tell, that brings us back to the years of Risorgimento

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