Turron: A bite of Spanish culture

In the Philippines, we celebrate Christmas with seasonal kakanin like bibingka and puto bumbong. From the west, we picked up the habit of serving fruitcakes during the yuletide season. Think of any sweet or dessert, and the noche buena feast will surely not be complete without it. An assortment of cakes, fruit salad, ice cream, leche flan and haleyang ube will surely make your mouth water and make you loosen your belt for more space for dessert.

Although Spain has a rich heritage of sweets and desserts, only one delicacy makes the Christmas feast complete in many Spanish homes: Turrón.

A lot of debate surrounds the origin of the turron to this day. However, it is agreed that the Moors, who came to Spain in 711 and stayed until 1492, brought with them the know-how behind a lot of Spanish sweets, including turrón.

The first written reference to the production of turrón, dating back to the 14th century, comes from the Arab and Jewish communities of Jijona in the province of Alicante. (It is an accepted fact that any Spanish food item that uses almonds, sugar, honey and orange flower water as ingredients has Arab or Moorish influence.) From then on, despite its non-Catholic origin, the fame of the turrón spread outside of Spain, and in the 16th century, it was exported to Japan.

María Lázaro in "Turron de España: Tradition in Portions" (Spain Gourmetour, Sept.-Dec. 1998) states that there are now 30 family-owned companies in Spain that follow the traditional method of producing turrón.

"They are the heirs to a tradition which mainly produces two types of turrón – the soft turrón made of honey, almonds and sugar, and the hard turrón which also includes egg white and wafer. Over the years, the creativity of the producers has enriched this basic mixture with fruits, chocolate and other ingredients so that there is now a multitude of varieties," writes Lazaro.

Of the family-owned turrón companies in Spain, Grupo Delaviuda, which produces the Delaviuda, El Almendro and La Bruja lines, is the world leader, producing 25 percent of the world’s production of turrón and 54 percent of Spain’s turrón production. Its factories in Sonseca, Toledo and in Jijona in the Alicante region produce 10,000 tonnes of turrón a year. All its almond and hazelnut requirements are sourced from Alicante, in the southern coast of Spain.

The firm takes its name from Maria Rojas, the widow of Manuel Lopez Ruez, a marzipan and confectionery producer who lived in Sonseca, a town in Toledo, Spain. In 1927, Rojas took over the Delaviuda brand, developed and managed the business after her husband’s death.

Filipino journalists, who visited the Delaviuda plant in Sonseca in Toledo, Spain, saw at Delaviuda’s Museo del Mazapan photographs of the traditional way of making turrón. Almonds, sugar and water are ground by hand and cooked into marzipan, the base for turrón and mazapan. Nowadays, the process isn’t as labor-intensive. The entire process of roasting almonds, grinding them, cooking them into marzipan and packaging them in sterile packs is fully automated. Human hands only come in contact with the mazapan for artisan-quality sweets.

Just how big is the turrón business?

The Spanish Association of Turrón and Marzipan Producers says that, in 1995, total turrón production reached 34,242 metric tons, of which 3,200 metric tons were exported abroad. Figures remained constant in the following years, with turrón production in 1996 and 1997 reaching 33,996 and 34,166 metric tons, respectively. Exports during these years reached 3,021 metric tons in 1996 and 2,794 metric tons in 1997. To further spur growth in the turrón market, the Spanish Institute for Foreign Trade in 1997 identified new markets for the Spanish sweets, as well as innovative packaging for the items that have helped further their presence in the world market.

Delaviuda counts Spanish-speaking countries outside Spain as its biggest markets. These include Venezuela, and Florida and California in the United States. In Asia, where turrón is considered a gourmet delicacy, it exports to Hong Kong, Japan, Thailand, the Philippines and China.

Turrón might be a gourmet specialty around the world, but for the Spanish, its production is a matter of pride and honor, its recipe a well-kept secret among families. The Spanish love turrón so much that its consumption far exceeds the sales of American-style chocolate bars. Next time you bite into a bar of turrón, just think: This sweet is a witness to the growth of Spanish culture as we now know it.