La Cucina Italiana - De Italiaanse Keuken - The Italian Kitchen

An Italian Christmas Tradition, the Turun or Torrone of Cremona, has conquered the world. Almost every Italian little town has their own recipe as does just about every Southern European town. Yes the Torrone of Cremona, now widely distributed year round in US grocery stores, is an Italian Christmas delight. The origins of Torrone are a bit more confused than the success of the natural candy bar.

The most widely accepted version tells of the master chef of Cremona created this sweet in 1441 on the 25th of October in occasion of the nuptials of Francesco Sforza and Bianca Maria Visconti. A wedding that would bring together the two most powerful families of the known world. That must have been some wedding; the dowry was the City of Cremona. Some say Torrone was created in order to use the egg whites left over after preparing thousand of pastries while others indicate that Turun and Cupedia were versions of the Arab and Roman Empires respectively. Both of these sweets would have origins several hundred years before Christ.