Ask Chef Walter: Torrone in Rhode Island for the Holidays – Walter Potenza

In the heart of Federal Hill in Providence, the tradition of Torrone continues, with new flavors and diversity, for any palate and style. Let Tony’s daughter Adriana guide you through the journey. In addition, I detailed recipe for you to consider on how to make the soft torrone variety.

Friends:

The Christmas season is almost here, and if you’re anywhere in the world with even a faint Italian heartbeat, you can already smell it: the warm, honeyed perfume of torrone drifting out of kitchens and corner shops, promising sweetness after months of waiting.

In Italy, the holiday table is never the same two years in a row. There’s always the towering panettone (some years studded with chocolate, other years strictly traditional), the golden pandoro dusted with sugar like fresh snow, the ancient Pangiallo from Rome glowing with saffron and dried fruit, and an endless parade of biscuits that grandmothers guard like state secrets. Every region sneaks in its own treasure. You could spend a lifetime chasing them all and still find something new under the tree next December.

But today, let’s talk about torrone—the white (or sometimes chocolate-draped) brick of joy that Italians slip into stockings and break out again for Epiphany. If you happen to live in Rhode Island, you’re in absurdly good luck. Providence’s Federal Hill—still affectionately called “the Hill” by everyone who grew up there—remains one of the most stubbornly Italian neighborhoods in America. And right in the heart of it sits Tony’s Colonial, where Antonio Di Cicco himself was usually holding court behind the counter.

 (In Memoriam) We lost Tony this week after a long illness, and I am forever grateful for all the precious time I shared with him.

Walk in during December, and daughter Adriana, or other very prepared staff will greet you like family, steer you past the imported panettone mountain, and point you toward the torrone display: some made by trusted artisans in Rhode Island; others flown in from the old country. Ask them a question, and you’ll get the full story—who makes the soft kind, who still toasts the nuts the slow way, whose grandfather once wrapped every bar by hand. You’ll leave with more than you came for, guaranteed.

So, what exactly is this stuff?

Torrone was born in Cremona, that graceful Lombard city with the sky-high medieval bell tower called the Torrazzo. Legend says the first torrone was shaped like that very tower in 1441, created by a clever young pastry chef for the wedding banquet of Bianca Maria Visconti and Francesco Sforza. Whether that’s true or just a good story, the link stuck: torrone, Torrazzo—same proud silhouette.

It started in apothecaries’ shops (honey and nuts were once considered medicine) before pastry chefs claimed it. Over the centuries, it went from a cottage craft to a factory. However, if you stroll Cremona’s brick-paved streets today, you can still tell the difference at a glance: the hard, ivory-colored bars in parchment are the old-school ones; the softer, almost creamy versions are the ones Nonna prefers because they don’t threaten her remaining teeth.

There are really just two classic styles from Cremona:

Torrone friabile (crumbly/hard): less egg white, more snap. You have to bite carefully or risk a dramatic crack that echoes through the room.

Torrone morbido (soft): extra egg white whipped in, giving it that tender, almost fudge-like pull.

Both are built on the same holy trinity—wildflower honey, toasted almonds or hazelnuts (rarely both in the same bar), and the lightest kiss of egg white—then wrapped in host-thin wafers or, in more recent decades, dipped in dark chocolate because we apparently can’t leave well enough alone.

The ingredients carry quiet symbolism: honey for sweetness and preservation through the dark months, nuts for strength, egg white for rebirth as the sun begins its return after the solstice. Some say the recipe drifted north from Arab Sicily (they called it turron), others swear the Romans were already mixing honey and almonds two thousand years ago. The truth is probably all of the above—good ideas travel.

Walk through Cremona in November, and you’ll see the Torrone Festival take over the city: stalls for miles, bars as long as your arm, newfangled versions laced with pistachio cream or limoncello, because even tradition likes to flirt with modernity now and then. But the best ones still taste like they could have been handed across a Renaissance banquet table.

Outside Lombardy, every region has its own spin. Benevento in Campania makes a torrone loaded with hazelnuts and a whisper of Strega liqueur. Sardinia does a stark, almost austere version with just honey and almonds. Spain has its turron de Alicante (hard) and Jijona (soft), and the French have their own nougat de Montélimar with lavender honey. They’re all cousins, but Cremonese torrone is the original guest of honor.

So, when you’re standing in Tony’s Colonial this December, or in your favorite Italian shop wherever you are, pick up a bar—hard or soft, plain or chocolate-coated—and take a bite. Somewhere in that sticky, nutty, impossibly sweet moment, five centuries of Christmases will say hello.