Christmas is approaching and in Turin everyone, young and old, is waiting to see the multi-coloured bags of Cri-Cri appear in supermarkets and confectionery shops.
There's nothing more festive than unwrapping the colourful wrapper of these hazelnut-hearted pralines and feeling the tiny sugar lumps that cover them crunch under your teeth.
This delicacy of Turin’s confectionery art comes with a very romantic story. According to a legend, a young student was in love with a certain Cristina. Before each meeting, the boy would go to his trusted confectionery and buy the sugar-coated chocolates that his Cri, as he called her, adored. Whenever the shop assistant saw him, she asked him: "Cri?". And he answered, with love-filled eyes: "Cri." The name of one of Turin's most iconic sweets seems to derive from this sweet anecdote of yesteryear.
In actual fact, Cri-Cri were invented in 1886 by confectioner Giuseppe Morè from Torre Pellice, a town in the province of Turin, and then produced on a large scale by Turin’s ICAF company. The only difference with today's pralines is that once the mompariglia, the coating made of sugar balls, was multi-coloured while today it is white. With the advent of gianduiotti, the Cri-Cri lost some of their fame, until the ICAF company was taken over by Sebastiano Garofalo, who fell in love with this delicacy.
In this case, too, the story is romantic: at the end of the 1950s, in fact, Sebastiano Garofalo and his wife Maria learned about the ICAF company while looking for wedding favours. The elderly owner, struck by the enthusiasm and love for life of the two youngsters, suggested they buy his business as he had no heirs to leave it to. The decision was soon taken and in the name of the Cri-Cri which, from that moment, became the chocolate eaten at all Turin's parties.
So, if you are passing through Turin at this time of the year, don't miss your chance to buy a bag of Cri-Cri. You won't find them anywhere else in Italy.
See also:
Scuola Leonardo da Vinci Turin
The welcoming friendly atmosphere of our school will make you feel at home and you can relax with your classmates in the small gardens of the adjacent pedestrian area.
