Panettone

The connection between food & religion

Panettone has become a national symbol of the Italian Christmas, and lately assimilated into the festivities of many other Catholic countries, however, this celebrated ancient bread is a typical product of the gastronomic tradition of Milan . Over the centuries, a great number of legends have grown up around the origins of this dessert. It is said for example that a certain Toni, a Milanese baker in the service of Ludovico il Moro, Duke of Milan, invented the panettone, which was called “pan de toni”……toni,s bread in his honor.

Another legend assigns the invention to the patrician Ughetto della Tela. It is a romantic account, set in the 15^th century. According to it, Ughetto fell in love with the beautiful Nelita and, to be close to her, worked as a boy in the shop of the girl’s father, a Milanese baker. To win Nelita’s favor and her father’s acceptance, Ughetto decided to add raisins to the dough of the breads that were the baker’s usual product. The truth is more prosaic. Panettone grew out of the daily habits of the humble farmers of the Milanese countryside who used the few resources available to them to improve the flavor and appeal of the daily fare.

Panettone was of the same lowly origins as polentina, a mush made from rye, millet and corn, and much time was required for it to become the sumptuous dessert it is today. The evolution of the recipe was slow and appears to have been linked to the growth in the range and quantity of products available on the market. The transformation of a poor and lowly bread of rural tradition into the tall, puffy and spongy panettone of the present day was due entirely to the skills of Milan ’s bakers.

In the 1606 reprint of ‘Raccolta delle Parole Milanesi dichiarate”, a collection of Milanese dialectical terms, edited by Giuseppe Capis, panaton was defined as a “large bread, which is made on Christmas day”. Alessandro Manzoni, a 19^th-century Italian author who wrote the famous novel “I promessi sposi”, describes how Renzo Tramaglino, one of the book’s protagonists, goes in the 16^th century from the countryside to Milan, where he is astounded to find ”round, very white bread” which was not usually eaten in rural areas.

The bread of the city, the production of which was confided to bakers, was white and virtually unknown outside the city’s walls. While the ancestor of panettone is the dark, fairly flat bread of the country tradition, the “puffy, white bread” than more closely resembles the modern panettone is a product of the city. Panettone began to be known in the countryside around Milan only in the second half of the 19^th century. It is not easy to establish when it ceased to be bread and became a dessert, However, the addition of raisins to the bread to sweeten it is no recent novelty. According to the Latin author Petronius, a dessert bread of rye stuffed with raisins was popular in ancient Rome .

What is certain is that panettone developed by degrees. Made initially with simple, standard ingredients, it was gradually enriched through the addition of more sophisticated products. In the 1818 edition of Francesco Cherubini’s “Vocabolario Milanese Italiano”, panettone was described as follows. “Panatton or Panatton de Natal. A type of bread from wheat flour enriched with butter, eggs, sugar and raisins, or sultanas; the surface of the dough is cut in an almond shape so that the result, after baking, is numerous crescents. Its weight of about one kilo or more, and made only at Christmas.

Since candied fruit is not mentioned, it is obvious that the practice of adding it was introduced later. While panettone has become the symbol of the Italian Christmas, it is a delectable dessert that deserves to be appreciated through the year. It makes an excellent snack for children and is a natural complement of the coffee and milk of their grandparents.

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