History of Jijona nougat
DEFINITION OF JIJONA NOUGAT
"It is the mass obtained by cooking honey, with the incorporation and kneading of toasted almonds, generally peeled, and egg white. It can be Alicante nougat (hard) and Jijona nougat (soft)."
This is how the MAPA (Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food) defines Jijona nougat.
But there are many definitions found of this typical Christmas product. In certain areas of Spain, nougat was made from peanuts, pistachios, or those nuts that were more affordable than almonds.
These could be antecedents of the current so-called nougats, many of them having a nut other than almonds as their base – and we are not talking about the respectable Agramunt designation of origin, also of remote origin and where the star is the hazelnut – and many others that have in common with nougat that it is a sweet that is eaten at Christmas.
This is how the Institut d’Estudis Catalans defines it: “Mass made of pine nuts, hazelnuts or toasted walnuts and optionally with coconut, candied fruit, chocolate, etc.” (1995: 1784). Figueras Pacheco in Historia del turrón states that the only common denominator among the different varieties of nougat is the fact that it is “a sweet paste that is sold in blocks or small boxes”. (p.34,l.2-3, op.cit).
We also have to take into account that due to the fact that we do not know the origin and that it has spread through territories of Hispanic influence, we find sweets, for example, in Latin America called “turrón” where its ingredients are, according to www.lacoctelera.com “honey, nuts, sesame seeds and raisins”.
We have found other sources of information that assure that in Argentina nougat has brandy as its main ingredient and that in Peru the “doña Pepa” nougat, well known in this country, has the following ingredients “600kg of flour, 240 boxes of butter, annatto, sesame seeds, egg yolks, yeast and salt”.
As we can see, in South America the word “turrón” has become popular for sweets well adapted to the characteristics of these countries, which are very different from our Mediterranean environment, where, theoretically, the origin of nougat arose.
Let’s focus again on our topic. Jijona and Alicante nougat are protected by the designation of origin of Jijona and Alicante nougat, controlled by the Regulatory Council of Jijona and Alicante nougat, which guarantees that the companies that are part of it, such as Antonio Plá Ferrándiz, follow a series of guidelines:
-Almond: the accepted varieties are Valenciana, Mallorca, Marcona, Mollar and Planeta, grown in Jijona and its surroundings. The final product must have more than 40% almonds, with the minimum established for Jijona nougat being 52% and 42% for Alicante nougat.
– Honey: minimum 10% pure.
– Sugar, egg white and wafer paper.
The manufacturing and packaging must be carried out obligatorily in Jijona in order to obtain the distinctive seal.
The qualitative characteristics that almonds must have according to the Regulatory Council are the following:
| Supreme* | Extra* | Supreme* | Extra* | |
| Humidity (maximum) | 5,0 | 6,0 | 4,5 | 5,0 |
| Proteins (minimum) | 11,0 | 9,0 | 12,0 | 9,5 |
| Fats (minimum) | 32,5 | 26,5 | 34,0 | 27,0 |
| Ashes (maximum) | 2,2 | 2,2 | 2,5 | 2,3 |
| * % of finished product |
||||
The Jijona nougat that we currently know is largely the result of the honey crisis of the 18th century. Rosemary honey, highly prized for the manufacture of Jijona nougat, proved insufficient, so a new ingredient was introduced: sugar, which, as we deduce from what has already been said, was supplied from Callosa d’en Sarrià, a neighboring municipality of Jijona.
Jijona nougat became a complementary activity to agriculture. Already in the 16th century we find documentation about the trips of the Jijona residents to the fairs and pilgrimages of nearby towns such as Elche. It began to be sold more and more in large quantities, which made Cuban cane sugar necessary, towards the end of the 18th century.
In those times, nougat production was concentrated in family workshops, located in private homes. That is why Pascual Madoz, quoted by Luján, did not appreciate during his trip the importance that this economic activity already had in the municipality, which led him to affirm that the Jijona residents were mainly dedicated to agricultural tasks. Normally, nougat was made in ordinary rooms owned or rented from neighbors. Antonio Plá Ferrándiz gives a good example of this, since the preparation of this sweet was done between the patio and the dining room of the house, although in later times an authentic workshop was built.
The 19th century is the century of the great nougat trips from Jijona to Madrid and Barcelona. It is also the time of the nougat boom throughout the State. Carlos IV prohibited the sale of nougat before and after Christmas, as he received complaints from Madrid pastry chefs for unfair competition. Without a doubt, this reinforced the fact that nougat is a typically Christmas sweet.
Quicó Plà, the last nougat maker to wear the typical costume
Quico Plá Ferrándiz, brother of Antonio Plá Ferrándiz,
was the last to sell nougat in the typical Jijona costume.
The Jijona residents made “nougat trips”, that is, they made marzipan sweets and nougat in Jijona and in December they loaded them into pastry boxes and took them to other towns where they settled from Christmas until after the Epiphany. The pastry box was a wooden trunk lined with zinc inside, which served as insulation. The nougat boxes were placed there. They explain that Antonio Plá Ferrándiz’s pastry box was so hermetic that, many years after his death, it was used to store blankets. Once they put mothballs that were intact after a year. When the nougat makers began to replace the nougat stand with a store and the means of transport went from animal power to gasoline, it was easier to sell the finished product. It is then that new specialties such as burnt yolk are introduced, invented by a Barcelona pastry chef in 1850.
In the 19th century, nougat was still sold in the typical Jijona costume, as we see in the painting Nyèbits i torronaires by Isidre Nonell at the end of the century and a year before Antonio Plá Ferrándiz decided to try his luck in Reus, in 1884, the brilliant Blasco Ibáñez wrote in Arroz y tartana:
“There was the one from Jijona, with a velvet hat, black cloth suit and the wide collar of the shirt held by a silver brooch. Next to him, the woman, with her round and rosy face and her hair pulled back towards the nape of her neck, falling in a thick braid down her back over the brightly colored scarf. The white table, of immaculate purity, supported, forming a column, the boxes of rough film containing the floury nougat, the boxes of sugared almonds and the pointed grapes, skillfully preserved and transparent, like wax and with a delicate amber color.”
According to Galiana, the last nougat maker who sold with the typical Jijona “roeta” hat was Antonio Plá Ferrándiz’s brother, José Plá Ferrándiz or tio Quinto, the nickname by which he was known:
The nougat cycle began at the end of August with the almond harvest. In autumn, the nougats were made, which, due to the fact that the oil from this nut is a good natural preservative, arrived immaculate at all the points of sale in the State. At first it was sold in cities near Jijona such as Murcia or Alicante but soon it reached the whole country. The vast majority, like Antonio Plá, sold the fruit of months of work at the entrances of the houses in the most important towns, the most appreciated being those in Catalonia, Madrid and the north. After the Epiphany, the season of fairs and pilgrimages began, where the nougat that was still left was sold.
At the beginning of the 20th century, the work done was so important that the first factories of old artisans began to be installed. Brands as well known as “El Lobo” or “Antiu Xixona” have resisted all the historical events of this country in the last hundred years. The small workshops have continued to pass from parents to children, offering quality and craftsmanship to their customers who are normally of great loyalty that goes from generation to generation.
In times of the civil war, Jijona nougat was used as currency. It is often said in Jijona that it was normal to go to Alicante to exchange fish for nougat, such was the value of this sweet in such difficult times. At this time, a proto Regulatory Council began to be processed. The thing was stalled and at the end of the 20th century, in 1996, after much fighting, it received the designation: Protected Geographical Indication by the EU, making Jijona nougat the first sweet in the community to obtain this seal.
The passage of time has not basically changed the production of nougat. Steam has been replaced by electricity but, for example, packaging is still done by hand.
SEARCHING FOR THE ORIGINS OF NOUGAT...
There are many references found about the possible origins of this delicacy called Jijona nougat. But none is complete enough. So we will start a journey that we do not know if it started far or near home, but it is sure to be exciting and very distant in time
First of all, we should say that we will approach the origins of nougat in general, since we have found information beyond the specific designation of Jijona nougat. Then we will try to get closer to this specific nougat, although it should be emphasized that the bibliography is very scarce.
Let’s look for the etymology now. Coromines affirms that the oldest word in Catalan is “terró”, as it is still called in Jijona and in the surrounding towns, since it is reminiscent of “tierra” or “terra” in Catalan, that is, a “terrón” of “tierra”, if you will pardon the redundancy. In Naples in the 18th and 19th centuries the word “terrone” continued to be used. It highlights that the most valuable information found in this regard is that offered by Italian sources since Italian and Catalan cultures lived very closely together in the time of Alfonso the Magnanimous. This theory is also shared by Luján (1990).
It is not surprising that the etymology of the word nougat is linked to the word tostar (to toast), due to the fact that toasted nuts are important in the manufacture of nougat. Coromines finds links between tostar (turrar) and turrón, resulting in the word “turrón” in Spanish, “torró” in Catalan or “torrone” in Italian. This philologist defends that the origin in Catalan is not from the verb “torrar” since the number of nouns derived from verbs with “o” is rather scarce. According to Coromines, the original word is not “turrar” but the aforementioned “terra”. This verb would only be an assimilation of the aforementioned noun. (1992: 628-630).
According to Corominas, the first documentation in Catalan of both “terrons” and “torrons” is found in the 15th century and as a surname already in 1250. Luján does not corroborate the thesis, since according to him the first documented word of “terró” is found in the first half of the 15th century in this little song:
“Donar-li et dels terronets
e de les neules qui n’havia…”
He also affirms that the first written document of the word “torró” is later, already from 1507.
The book called Llibre de totes maneres de confits (Book of all kinds of sweets) from the second half of the 15th century already speaks of the procedure to follow to make nougat: “per fer torrons d’avalanes torrades amb mel e fer-ne tauletes, tu pendràs les avallanes e torrar-lesas, e…pendràs…una lliura de mel per lliure de vallanes, e metràs-la al foc…; e metràs per liure de mel un blanc d’ou; e lensar-lo-hi-has; com la melsia tébea; e lavorns menea-u,…e coga…, e cuyta la mel…les avallanes metràs-les dins…e mesclar-les: e lensar-ho-has sobre una taula…e estendràs-ho tot, e fer n’as tauletes de calt en calt…” (BABL XIX, 120, quoted by Coromines, op. cit.).
The Gran Diccionari de la Llengua Catalana sets the possible origin in a century earlier: the 14th, although no documentation is offered in this regard. It mentions the possibility that its origin is in the verb “torrar” without being ratified and highlights its origin until now unknown. (1998: 1654)
Reviewing bibliography in this regard in Spanish, we find some references from María Moliner who adds that it is a common Christmas sweet (1998: 13,138) and the Gran Enciclopedia Espasa (2002) highlights its homonyms in French (nougat) and in Italian (torrone). It is also mentioned that, sometimes, it is made with sugar cubes. According to this source, its main varieties are “de Jijona, de avellana, de Alicante, de guirlache, de nieve i de frutas”. (op.cit.). The Real Academia does not provide new data to what has already been cited. The etymology found does not take us beyond the 13th century but we have found different allusions to older origins of nougat:
Greek origins: Josep Piera (1994) assures that in Greece is “on se sol dir que ens arriben les primeres referències del torró”, that is, where it is usually said that the first references to nougat reach us. According to Indro Montanelli a Storia dei greci, quoted by the same Piera “al voltant de l’estadi s’improvisava una mena de tir al blanc, sibil·les barates, menjadors de foc, engolidors de sabres, dones-canó i paradetes amb torró d’ametlles”o “around the stadium a kind of shooting range was improvised, cheap sibyls, fire eaters, sword swallowers, cannon women and almond nougat stalls”.
Rodríguez provides new data stating that nougats are already cited in 662 BC during the first Olympiad, around the temple of Zeus.
Arab origins: this seems to be the most plausible theory. The Arab-Muslims imported foods of great importance to the West in the 8th century, such as rice, sugar, formerly very important the one cultivated in the province of Alicante in Callosa d’en Sarrià, and the fondness for sweets such as marzipan or what would be the future Jijona nougat(. Luján and Rodríguez cite another example in One Thousand and One Nights, where the desserts are very similar to Alicante nougat. We will expand on this point later.
Jewish origins: there are many references that report this possibility, but none gives enough data. Galiana Carbonell (1986) speaks of the “Halva”: “The Sephardic Jews in their communities, made a paste similar to Jijona nougat, which they called “Halva”. Néstor Luján maintains that nougat could be one of the forms of Jewish sweets and Piera that it is of Jewish base, palate and mentality (1994). We wanted to know the magnitude of Jewish influence in our territory. So we have chosen a map of 14th century Catalonia as a random example of one of the towns of the Iberian Peninsula, in addition, according to Luján, nougat is the Catalan dessert par excellence.
Origin in Jijona: According to Sempere in “Jijona y la paternidad del turrón” (Jijona and the Paternity of Turrón), turrón may have originated in Jijona. This author bases his claim on the book Anales y documentos históricos sobre el turrón de Jijona (Annals and Historical Documents about Jijona Turrón) by Fernando Galiana, which states that turrón was already known before the 14th century in the city of Jijona, but this does not seem like a plausible theory, since, as we have seen previously, it was already present in other Catalan-speaking towns. We do not rule out that the way of making turrón in Jijona may have a remote origin in Jijona itself.
Origin in Cremona: In Gli italiani a tavola by Felici Consolo, cited by Luján, it is explained that the word “torrone” comes from the word “torre” (tower), since this was the way this sweet was served. At the wedding of Bianca Visconti and Francesco Sforza in 1441, “torrone” was served as dessert, which was already being imported to Rome from Cremona, a legend that Italians now recognize as a sweet of Arab origin.
Origins in Barcelona: A popular legend states that during the siege of Philip V on the city of Barcelona, a pastry contest was held, the purpose of which was to discover a sweet that would stay fresh for a long time: as long as the siege lasted. Mr. Turrons won the contest, giving his name to this long-lasting sweet. (Luján, 1990). Another version is the one collected by Jaume Sàbat Almasqué, who states that in 1703, when the plague was ravaging Barcelona, a contest was held for pastry chefs capable of cheering up the sadness of the people of Barcelona. This was won by Pere Torró, creator of turrón (“torró” in Catalan). These stories are not very truthful because, as we have already seen, there are documents that prove that the origin of turrón is much older.
FROM DAMASCUS TO JIJONA
It could be that the Umayyads, an Arab people from present-day Syria and the first Muslim settlers of the Iberian Peninsula, were the bearers of the way of making sweets such as turrón, since they were a people of great Byzantine influence, a fact that leads us to paraphrase Piera in stating that the oldest precedent of turrón is of Greek origin. But it must be noted that these are only our conjectures.
It seems that, during the Muslim domination of the Iberian Peninsula, the custom of making a sweet similar to turrón called alajun or alfajor by the Muslims and jalab by the Christians spread, according to the historian from Jijona, Fernando Galiana, Candela Garrigós, and texts from the 12th century.
Due to the fact that this theory is very widespread both popularly and among the books consulted, we emphasize that, surely, the Arabs were the bearers of turrón, since the first contact with the Iberian Peninsula, that is, from the time of the Umayyads. This is the route that the Umayyads followed and, very possibly, the alajun or primitive turrón from Jijona:
Surely the Arab influence would not be so linear, that is, although we see on the map that the area of Naples and Sicily had already been conquered by the Arabs in the time of the Magnanimous, they were not the first to bring this sweet to these lands. According to the sources consulted (Cónsolo in his Gli italiani a tavola), turrón arrived through the troops of Alfonso the Magnanimous. That is why it seems that the Italian word “torrone” comes from the Catalan “torró” and that the way of preparing this sweet both in Italy and in Spain is not very far from each other.
The influence also came in reverse: marzipan, an Arab sweet, arrived in the Iberian Peninsula via Sicily.
Here we show a map of the contact between the Crown of Aragon and the Italian islands, to better understand these influences that arrived long before, from Damascus.
According to Luján, marzipan probably comes from the Arabic word mahsaban, which means almond and sugar paste and wooden box, where this sweet was precisely served. In old Catalan texts this word appears in both meanings. As a Latin word it already appears in 1202 (marzapanus). This example helps us to corroborate once again that the way of making sweets alla árabe is very rooted in the westernmost area of the Mediterranean in the Middle Ages. Good account is given of this in the Tirant lo Blanc by Joanot Martorell in 1490, where marzipan is already mentioned.
The letter from Queen María de Trastámara in 1453 to the nuns of Jijona asking for turrón from this town because it was the best she had ever tasted proves the diffusion of this sweet among, at least, the highest social classes.
The literary quotes relating to turrón and turrón de Jijona allow us to make an approximation to the history of this sweet. We have had a pleasant surprise to see that the finest pens have written about this sweet over time.
In the times of Carlos I, the tradition of turrón was so widespread that greats of the scene such as Lope de Rueda used it as an excuse to write cuadros de costumbres, as in Los lacayos ladrones. Here we offer the quote from Figueras Pacheco:
“DALAGÓN: So that you can be trusted with anything to eat.
GUILLERMILLO: What thing?
DALAGÓN: What thing? Tell me, shameless: the turrones that were on top of the desk, what about them?”
GUILLERMILLO: The turrones? Sir, didn’t he ask me to give them to him, and he locked them with his own hand inside the desk?
DALAGÓN: By my life, he’s telling the truth! Have you seen what a great oversight mine has been?
The word turrones, as is to be supposed, plays in the passage many times. The complete phrase turrones de Alicante, appears at the beginning of it and is repeated when the master argues with Peyrutón and shakes his ribs”. (p54, op.cit.) Already in the time of Felipe II, turrón was consumed so much at Christmas that this monarch decreed in 1595 in an attempt to reduce municipal expenses “that in turrón and fig bread to present at Christmas I prohibit and order that my city cannot spend more than fifty pounds each year” (Rodríguez: Turrón, el sabor de la Navidad”).
In the Golden Age, Tirso de Molina wrote the famous novel El burlador de Sevilla where the turrón from Villena is mentioned.
It is perhaps this time that Figueras Pacheco called the golden age of turrón de Jijona, since it was only made of honey and almonds. The honey, according to this author, came from Alcoy, Villena, Cocentaina and Callosa d’en Sarrià, municipalities very close to Jijona. Other nearby towns where we also find references to the use of turrón de Jijona are Ibi, Tibi, Castalla and Biar. This last town already owes its name to honey: Apiarium the Romans called it, that is, the place from where honey is extracted.
But we cannot conclude, as we have been saying throughout this text, that Jijona is the cradle of turrón, since Pacheco does not provide more information.
What is said above corresponds to the first phase of the history of turrón de Jijona, a stage where turrón did not stray too far from that primitive one surely brought from Damascus to Jijona.
WHERE WE HAVE OBTAINED THE INFORMATION
Bibliography:
CARDONA, M, DOMINGO, R. (1999). Historia del món. Occident, Bizanci, Àfrica, el món musulmà, Amèrica, Extrem Orient. Ed. Larousse: París.
COROMINES, J. (1992). Diccionari etimològic i complementari de la llengua catalana. Volum VIII SOG-UX. Ed. Curial, Ed. Catalanes, Caixa de Pensions “La Caixa”: Barcelona.
FIGUERAS PACHECO, FRANCISCO. (1955). Historia del turrón. Ed. Botella: Alicante.
GALIANA CARBONELL, F. (1986). Anales y documentos históricos sobre el turrón de Jijona. Ed. Consejo Regulador de la Denominación “Jijona”: Alcoy.
GIRALT i RADIGALES, J (dirección). (1998). Gran diccionari de la llengua catalana. Ed. Enciclopèdia Catalana: Barcelona.
HERNÁNDEZ ALIQUES, J (dirección). (2002). Gran enciclopedia Espasa. Ed. Espasa Calpe: Barcelona.
LUJÁN, N. (1990). Diccionari Luján de gastronomia catalana. Ed. La Campana: Barcelona.
MOLINER, M. (1998). Diccionario del uso del español. Volumen II. Ed. Gredos: Madrid.
RODRÍGUEZ, J. (1997). Mitos y ritos de la Navidad. Origen y significado de las celebraciones navideñas. Ed. B: Barcelona.
TARA, J.M. (dirección). Historia de la Humanidad. Tomo 3. Ed. Planeta/Suramérica: Buenos Aires.
VV AA. (1995). Diccionari de la llengua catalana. Ed. Institut d’Estudis Catalans: Barcelona.
VILAR, P (dirección). (1988). Història de Catalunya. VIII. L’expansió baixmedieval. Segles XIII-XV. Ed, 62: Barcelona.
Historia de Alicante
Articles:
“Jijona y la paternidad del turrón”. Revista “Siembra”. 26. XII. 1987.
“La CE se opone a la protección para la denominación del turrón de “Xixona””. Diario “Información”. 25. I. 1992.
Candela Garrigós, R. “Aportación documental a la historia del turrón”. “Programa de Festes de Moros i Cristians de Xixona”. VIII. 1997.
Garrigós, B. “La comercialización y la venta del turrón a finales del siglo XIX”. “Programa de Festes de Moros i Cristians de Xixona”. VIII. 2002.
Piera, Josep.”Xixona i els torrons”. “El Temps”. 3. I. 1994.
Sempere, A. Jijona y la paternidad del turrón.
Webs:
Torró – Viquipèdia
La Verdad Digital – Gastronomía
Fira del Torró i la Xocolata a la Pedra
Bitácora de Jasp(muy recomendada)
Indicación Geográfica Protegida ‘Jijona’
Consejo Regulador de Jijona y turrón de Alicante