The Secret is in the Toasting
While eating and drinking my way through Northern Italy last fall, I stopped in Alba, in the heart of Piedmont, to pick up some victuals.
As this was the time of the nut harvest, every shop was selling vacuum-sealed pouches of fresh hazelnuts, as well as pouches, or packages, of hazelnut-encrusted everything. Even the locally made nougat is studded with fresh-crop, lightly toasted hazelnuts, or nocciola, as they are known there.
