Nutella

Nutella is the brand-name of a chocolate and hazelnut spread created in 1949 by the Italian company, Ferrero (also known for their Ferrero Rocher sweets). Nutella is used as a spread on sandwiches and on other food items.

Contents

1 Spread
2 Uses
3 Ingredients
4 Facts
5 See also
6 External link

Spread

Worldwide, the spread outsells all brands of peanut butter combined [link]. In Italy, Nutella has become a cultural and social phenomenon. Many books have been written about it, and it is the core of a celebrated scene in the movie Bianca, by the Italian filmmaker Nanni Moretti, in which a character relieves his post-coital anxieties by eating from a gigantic jar. It is also very popular in the rest of Europe, in Australia, and Brazil, mostly with children and teenagers. This is less true in the United States, where the product was only available as an expensive import until the 2000s. In the United States, basketball star Kobe Bryant was a former spokesman for Nutella, having grown up in Italy. The brand name has become synonymous with chocolate and hazelnut spread in many countries. There are however several exceptions for where other brand names have taken overhand:

Merenda in Greece
Nocilla in Spain (Nocilla is an originally spanish product. Nutella only entered the spanish market recently).
East Germans called it Nudossi.

Uses

In addition to be being a sandwich spread, it can be used as a flavoring ingredient in baking. Mixing it with whipped cream creates a filling for cakes and pastries. In many European cities like Paris, crêpes filled with Nutella spread and sliced fruit, often either bananas or strawberries, are popular snacks available from food vendors on many street corners. In many parts of Italy where bread festivals take place annually, stands offering different types of bread can be seen with jars of Nutella to spread on the slices offered to people attending the festival.

Ingredients

Nutella is the most readily available form of gianduja, which is a blend of chocolate and hazelnut paste developed in Italy after excessive taxes on cocoa beans hindered the early development and production of conventional chocolate. Gianduja is produced by many European chocolate manufactuers and is normally sold in solid blocks and not as a spread. Despite the economics which drove its invention, gianduja is definitely not an inferior compromise to chocolate, or a chocolate substitute, and while Nutella is the most popular form of gianduja there are many varieties which rival the highest quality chocolates in both price and quality. The European (Poland) ingredients are: sugar, rapeseed oil, hazelnuts(13%), cocoa(7,4%), skimmed milk(5%), lactose, soya lecithin, vanillin. The US ingredients are: sugar, peanut oil, hazelnuts, cocoa, skimmed milk, reduced mineral whey, partially hydrogenated peanut oil, soy lecithin, vanillin. The peanut oil used in Nutella production goes through a hot-solvent extraction process which removes all the proteins, leaving pure peanut oil which is generally non-allergenic.^{[[Citing sources citation needed]]}

Facts

Nutella is briefly mentioned in Chloé Doutre-Roussel's "The Chocolate Connoisseur", which includes an anecdote of her mother flying into Mexico with several jars and smearing it on her face to convince a Customs Officer that it was a facial mask, and not a banned food product. Among the facts listed in Doutre-Roussel's book regarding Nutella are:

The spread was initially named "Supercrema Gianduja", and was so popular that in the aftermath of World War 2 Italian stores offered a service called "smearing", which allowed local children to bring in a slice of bread on which they could have some Nutella spread.
Ferrero changed the name from "Supercrema Gianduja" to "Nutella" in 1964.
Italy produces 179,000 tons of Nutella every year.
Although the ingredients are well known, the exact recipe is kept "as secret as Coca-Cola's".
In Europe Nutella is sold in 400g and 750g glass jars, and also in a 200g glass tumbler with plastic lid. The glass tumbler is intended to be washed out after use and is intended to be a size suitable for a glass of milk to accompany a Nutella sandwich.
In Italy and southern France, 3 and 5 kilogramme ( 6.6 and 11 pounds, respectively) jars are available for sale.
In Europe the Nutella jar is usually made of glass, whereas in North America it is made of plastic.

External link

[Official U.S. Nutella website]