There is no doubt that the origin of "grissino", the original Italian breadstick, can be found in the gastronomic tradition of Piedmont, even though it is far from clear how the events behind its origin and diffusion really occured. Basically, one has to decide whether to give more reliance to the legend or to examine the past relying on an historical perspective documented by dusty written records rather than by oral tradition alone.


What the legend tells...

What then is told about the "grissino"?

So the story goes: "Once upon a time, around the year 1680, a young Duke lived in Turin, whose name was Vittorio Amedeo II di Savoia and who, but for his early age, could have directly ruled the "Sabaudian state".
Still very young, he had proved to be exceptionally clever, with a strong passion for his father’s weapons. Aside from a difficult relationship with his parents ("the mother distant and reserved, the father at times indulgent and at others strict with his son, so as to dominate his character"), the young duke found in his frail health the hardest test of his childhood.
He had been born in Turin in the year 1666 and since the first years of his life he had been unhealthy and sick. The story tells how "at the beginning of 1668, when little hope was left to save his life, the Holy Shroud was exposed to invoke God’s help and pilgrimages arranged to obtain his recovery".
The young soverign especially suffered from intestine disorders (probably bacterial enterogastritis) that affected his development so that his buuld remained weak.
It was just during one of these bouts of illness that the "grissino" was introuced at court.
It was the year 1675, the duke Vittorio Amedeo was nine years old and seriously ill again – and about to enter the town’s legend. The father had recently died, so it was his mother, Maria Giovanna Battista from Nemours, who had to ask the court physician, Don Baldo Pecchio (from Lanzo Torinese), to find a new remedy that could heal and feed the sick boy, who was off his food because of the slow and difficult digestion.
The man had a stroke of genious and was able to diagnose a food poisoning, due to intake of bread polluted by pathogenic intestine germs. The reason for this was, that at the time bread was made in hygienic conditions that were hardly "correct" and, what’s more, it was scarcely baked or not baked at all.
According to the story, the physician, when young, had himself suffered from similar intestine disorders, which had been mended thanks to his mother’s intuition and creativity, when she had fed him with bread"well leavened, well baked with little crumb and very crisp".
The diagnosis and the success of the youth experience led the court physician to apply to the Savoia’s baker, in order to reproduce such a therapy. Antonio Brunero di Lanzo, this was the name of the therapist baker, was preparing the typical bread locally consumed at the time (the so called "Ghersa"), characterised by its long shape. No great insight was needed to separate from the leavening mix long strips of leavened dough, about half an inch wide and two spans long and then stretch them by handling and pulling.
From the strips so stretched and then baked, the two experimenters were able to obtain "well baked bread sticks, actually "bis-cotti" (baked twice), almost without water, crispy, aromatic, with little or no crumb and a golden crust". In other words the product that was deemed necessary to heal the young duke.
As is required in every nice legend, after eating this bread the Duke recovered. His build improved and he became the first Piedmont king in 1713. Besides enjoying all his favourite pastimes (hunting being the first), serenely and in perfect health, above all he managed a "great reorganization work of the State that was transformed into a highly centralized structure".
The King would arrive at his Venaria mansion with a basket full of "grissini" (breadsticks).
Even today, it is still told, his ghost haunts the castle rooms, leading a horse with a hand and in the other a red-hot breadstick.
Afer the Duke’s recovery, the "grissino" became "the favourite type of bread in the Savoia Household, so that it became known and appreciated by the finest royal palates of the time".

The legend anyway confirms how the aristocracy appreciated breadsticks:
"Carlo Felice di Savoia enjoyed music at the Teatro Regio best when in his box he could crunch his tasty "grissini", sometimes flavoured with the addition of trout meat".
"Princess Felicita had the court painter portray her with a "grissino" in her hand and from that time on he became, perhaps against her will, the "breadstick princess".

Napoleon after having tasted what he called "les petites batons de Turin" was enthused. He developed a sweet tooth for them and tried to have them made straight in Paris.
Therefore Napoleon, to enjoy the real Turin grissini, had to set up a fast postal service to have the delicious bread sticks directly from Turin every day.

The people followed the habits set by the court so that the use of grissino could quickly spread in Turin and the nearby country until it became an irreplaceable item in the daily diet.

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The war events

In 1859 the French and Piedmont forces, allied for the liberation of part of Northern Italy from the Austrian occupation, met "at the same table" for a meeting of generals and troops.
This fact forced the local bakers to prepare lots of bread, to the point that the production of breadsticks was affected. This "markedly decreased, to the point that it was not possible to meet the minimum requirements of the population. The people was on the point of an insurrection so that, to appease their anger, the regulations for the production of the various types of bread were modified". Casimiro Teja (satirical journalist) on the "Pasquino", the satirical paper of the time, tells the story of this drama in 1859, drawing two funny sketches about people from Turin starving because without their "daily bread", although they could have no less than other fourty-five types of bread, each invariably rejected.

The value reached by "grissini" in those years for the citizens of Turin could also be seen if one should dig under the obelisk dedicated to Siccardi in Piazza Savoia in Torino that has the date 1853 engraved on it. In the foundation of this monument in a box one could find "positive symbols to document for posterity the level of civilization reached by the Piedmontese " in the second half of the XIX century.

In fact "in a niche are kept the issues number 141 and 142 of 1850 of the "Gazzetta del Popolo", a copy of the act on the abolition of the Ecclesiastical Courts, a few coins, seeds of rice and other cereals and a pack of "grissini".

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Hystorical hypotheis on its origin

Let us go back to the beginning and try to examine the origin of "grissino" as they are related to the legend about Vittorio Amedeo II.

The effort seem to promise positive results. Considering that already in 1679 the heavy demand for this product had made it necessary to set a ceiling price for bread and breadsticks, it seems impossible to date the birth of the same "grissino" only four years before. Therefore one has to search for an origin further back in time.
According to the historian F. Cognasso ("Storia di Torino" Giunti Martello publisher, 1978) the Florentine abbot Vincenzo Ruccellai, going to France on a diplomatic mission, in January 1643 would have found at Chivasso near Torino, "a novelty, with a bizarre shape, that is a bread loaf an arm long and thin like dead bones ".

Reporting the novelty in his diary, the abbot, who would have otherwise remained unknown, without realizing it, found a special position in the debate concerning the chronological origin of the "grissino". From his notes, it is possible to assume that around the middle XVII century the "GHERSIN" (little bread loaf, i.e "grissino") was already an established and common product, present also in the provincial centres, known not only for its alimentary and taste qualities but also for the dietetic ones (an aspect not to be underestimated considering the times).
Going further back in time, a reference can be found in documents concerning bread-making experiments, to a special type of bread called "Pane Barotellatus".
Since Barot in the Piedmont dialect means stick, this could represent the origin of today’s "grissino".
It can be realistically assumed that its creation was due to the the economic developments of the XIV century.
The "GHERSA", the long bread loaf mentioned above, typical of Turin, was sold at the time by piece and not on weight as is the case today with bread.
It can be assumed that, because of a gradual depreciation of the local currency (the "soldo"), the purchase power of buyers for the same amount was reduced,. Therefore the bakers, so as not to lose out, had no choice but reduce the size of the "GHERSE" that the peasants could buy paying the same money.
It can be imagined that the typical Turin exchange dialogue:"Dame ‘na GHERSA" (give me a "ghersa", loaf) progressively became "Dame 'un GHERSIN"("give me a little loaf"). A proof could be found considering the similar process in the Milan area where people passed from the "MICA" (the round shaped Milan bread loaf) to the "MICHETTA" (smaller).
Quindi si può affermare che all'origine del grissino vi sia stata la combinazione fortunata fra svalutazione e necessità di un prodotto dietetico-medicinale per altro già di largo consumo in Torino.

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