Hazelnuts: The Pride of Italy’s Piemonte region

Lisa Minucci

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2 min read

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Aug 17, 2023

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Hazelnuts.
Nocciole.
Achene gold.
Hazelnuts are a valuable and revered crop in Piemonte. The orchards have become as ubiquitous as vineyards, forested hillsides razed to chase contanti per chili, cash for kilos. And don’t cha just know entire towns have been awash in mud during strong rains (and then once it’s sunbaked-dry, the area’s dense, dusty dirt), soused by newly unmoored hillsides balded by greed.
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Not a fan of any monoculture, I’d still prefer trees to vines, and dappled sunlight filtered through the hazelnuts’ delicate leaves steals my breath. In just a scant few weeks, hazelnuts will fall from their ligneous roosts, driving the cinghale mad with desire. In the blackness of a rural Langhe night, wild boar can be heard in the forests, happily cracking the shells from nuts fallen from one of the millions of wild volunteer hazelnut trees.
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Raked or vacuumed from their forest floor, the harvest is dried, then maybe toasted, laying a blanket of the nuts’ thick, oily perfume over the hills and fields of Piedmonte. Some are grown organically, and sold proudly by various cooperatives. In the shell or cracked and sold intero, in pieces, or in meal for making tarts and biscotti, the flavor is unmistakable, powerful.
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My sweet wife stopped eating sugar a year ago. Just cold-turkey stopped. In truth, she was never the junkie I am, but I could make a plethora of desserts or use maple syrup (🇨🇦) liberally over most anything since we were both partaking. She was my sugar beard, as it were (is that too dykey?).
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While I’m proud of her willpower, I’ll admit it still rankles me to indulge alone. I certainly don’t eat cookies in the closet, but nor do I flaunt the odd fulfillment I receive from my addiction. The unfortunate (for her) exception is gelato. There are only a few benchmark flavors on which a gelatier can be judged for the quality of their work (hazelnut, pistachio, coffee, chocolate). Unconsciously, I moan, making indecipherable noises as I lap up the earthy, woody, flowery richness of hazelnut gelato, always paired with chocolate, one scoop each; always on a cone, and now, always blessedly unshared.