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TURRÓN – Nougat from Jijona and Alicante

A few weeks ago, we published an article about Horchata, a very popular non-alcoholic, refreshing and nutritious drink made from chufas , or Tiger nuts as we used to call them when we were kids. We had quite a few requests from our regular readers, especially Spanish ex-pats living outside Spain, requesting more of the same. OK, that’s great to know that people are interested in such articles, so here is another Spanish speciality, which is available all year round, but especially at Christlmas – TURRÓN.

TURRÓN

One of the tales of The 0ne Thousand and One Nights speaks of a sweet similar to turrón de Alicante and so, legends apart, the most likely theory has is that turrón originated in the East. The ingredients are simple – almonds, sugar and honey – but the secret lies in the preparation, in the skill and patience of the master nougat—makers from Xixona. For over 500 years, they have passed their wisdom and their production techniques down through the generations.

Turrón from Jijona and Alicante is produced using traditional methods, and the end product depends heavily upon the skill of the master nougat-maker who provides the final touch even to large – scale production lines.

While turrón is produced using technology this technology actually boils down to a series of machines and tools designed by the nougat-makers themselves, such as the almond toaster, the stone mill and the boixet, the container in which the mixture is beaten, cooked and folded.

After more than 400 years of production, the boixet containers are now made of stainless steel, but the tools, the types of machinery and the production methods used to make the best Jijona and Alicante nougat have essentially changed very little.

The master nougat-makers control the temperature and the beating and cooking times, to get the mixture to the perfect point, and do so relying solely on their own wealth of experience: they take a little of the mixture and stretch it out to form a kind of wire, then roll it up and bite down on it, hoping that it will crunch. If it breaks, that point has been reached.

The shelled and toasted almonds are then incorporated into the cooked mixture using punxes, which are like wooden paddles. Two workers then use the strength of their bodies and the coordinated movements of their wrists, working in tandem on the punxes to mix the ingredients and ending up with a cooked mixture weighing some 60 kg.

TURRON PRODUCTION

For some time now there have been two clearly differentiated types of turrón, each with their own specific name: turrón de Jijona and turrón de Alicante. Ln simple terms, these are soft and hard nougat, respectively although this distinction can be misleading, as each turrón can vary greatly within its legitimate title.

To make turrón de Jijona, the mixture is laid out on special tables to cool before being recollected and placed in granite mills to be ground. The resulting compact mass is then passed through the refiner to obtain the desired thickness before undergoing a second cooking process in the boixet, to make it still more compact and prepare it for folding. At the end of this process, while the mixture is still hot, it is removed from the boixet and placed in moulds, where it will rest for 48 hours to set before being cut and packaged.

The production of turrón de Alicante begins with the toasting of the almonds while a mixture of sugars and honey is cooked separately on a high heat. The toasted almonds are then added to this mixture and stirred in to form a homogenous mass, which is then placed in moulds and covered with wafer. The moulds are filled with different weights according to the desired format of the nougat bars and are left to cool before packaging in their various shapes and sizes.

KINGS, WRITERS AND LAWYERS

It is more than certain that the original creator 0f turron would have used the produce of the land, and then other confectioners soon adapted the basic recipe to their own tastes. At first, turrón would have originally been produced using only honey mixed with ground, chopped almonds, with the mixture then being cooked over a fire until the desired point was reached. Nobody knows exactly when turrón was first produced, but it is nevertheless clear that Hebrew and Saracen communities were making it before the dawn of the 14’” century.

The first mention of the word turrón dates back to 1453, when it appeared in a letter from Queen Maria de Trastámara to the nuns of Santa Clara. Then, at the beginning of the 16′” century the Golden Age of Spanish literature, a play by Lope de Rueda referred to turrónes de Alicante, which implies that the audience were already familiar with it of old.

The next people to have surely known turrón were the merchants and lawyers of Madrid and Valencia, who used to receive from the towns for Christmas prodigious amounts of two typical Alicante sweets; fig bread (pan de higos) and turrónes, as evidenced by a document dating from 1582.

But the nougat-makers of Jijona are greatly indebted to Francisco Martinez Montiño, master chef to King Felipe ll, writer and gastronome, who first served turrón at the royal table one Christmas. Subsequentlv a tome entitled Conduchos de Navidad (Christmas Fare) noted that houses in Xixona smelled of hot honey due to the production of turrón and that “the turrón de Jljona is famed, a compound of almonds and honey well ground and mixed and with its cooking point and that of Alicante, which is also made in Xixona and in which the almonds are not ground but chopped.

Following the success of turrónes at the royal court, it was only a matter of time before they spread to the best houses in Madrid and then gradually appeared on all of the tables of power in the principal Spanish capitals. In those times, the whole town used to work in the nougat industry: children shelled the almonds and then the men and women would produce the turron, using a process not unlike the current one, and sell it from town to town and at the most reputable fairs.

The turrón being produced in the 18th century contained sugar and egg white, which could have been the forerunner of turrón de Alicante. Undoubtedly at some point, it occurred to somebody that milling the paste while it was still hot gave rise to an end product so soft that anyone could eat it. And thus turrón de Jijona was born.

MARKETING

The first stage of turron production is simply an alternative to farming. ln the final quarter of the year as the agricultural cycle draws to a close, the people of Jijona devoted themselves to making turrón, and then peddling it in the run-up to Christmas. The bars of turrón would take one of two routes at Yuletide, either ending up on the best tables in the regional capitals of Spain or being sent
overseas.

Madrid was the greatest consumer of turron, leading the old producers to relocate and set up their stalls there or sell it to retailers. As for the overseas market, the people of Xixona set out to conquer the world in the 19th century. The first turron producers opened in Havana, becoming in a way a sweet reminder of the home that expatriate Spaniards had left behind. And from Cuba they spread throughout the Americas, where the marketing missions of these forward-thinking nougat-makers were always met with success.

By the late 19th century the production of turron had become a fully fledged industry using steam-powered machinery and expanding its sales networks over-seas, particularly in Latin America and North Africa. industrialisation coincided with the birth of the great turrón dynasties, some of which continue to produce nougat to this day But the story doesn’t end there. In 1939, the creation of a regulatory council for the protected geographical denominations of Jijona and Turrón de Alicante was authorised, which now covers over 20 associated companies and has played a decisive role in the development of the industrial fabric of Xixona. Said regulatory council has actively contributed to the evolution of this economic sector and has ensured that the names turrón de Jijona and turrón de Alicante remain a byword for quality

But, in the end, it has been the nougat-makers of Xixona themselves – both great and small – who, thanks to their skill and determination, and with the support of the regulatory board, have regaled us with such a huge selection of these culinary Christmas delights and have made the idea of a Spanish Christmas without turrón simply inconceivable.

This year’s forecast from the Consejo Regulador de Jijona y Turrón de Alicante regulatory council predicts similar production levels to last year for the traditional Spanish nougat known as turrón. A report issued by the organisation has revealed that a total of 8,031 tons were produced in 2006, with the regulatory councils 22 member companies turning over an impressive 68 million euros for turrón production. Other statistics within the report show that 31,631,594 quality—assurance seals of approval were also issued, with these figures certifying that the turrón being sold meets the quality and production standards set as part of the regulatory council ’s strict regulations.

Most of the protected-label turrón was produced in the form of bars weighing up to one kilo, which accounted for 7,652 tons in 2006, although there was an interesting increase in the amount of turrón produced in blocks weighing between 1 and 12 kg (82 tons} and in turrón in a paste or liquid form sold in tubs of up to 20 kg (297 tons).

Production aimed at Spain’s national market accounted for a very large percentage of the total, with 6,705 out of 8,031 tons consumed domestically The remainder of the production- 1,326 tons — was exported to the United States, Mexico, Argentina and France.

The regulatory council also continues to work on the promotion of the protected Jijona and Alicante turrónes through participation in events such as fairs and contests. One such example is the organisation of the first event to marry the sweet D.0. Alicante wines as accompaniments to the protected Jijona and Alicante turrónes, which was held in Vinoélite in April.
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