Pencil-thin Turin breadsticks — flour, water, olive oil, salt, hand-stretched 30-40 cm. Dry, snappable, the antipasto staple of Piedmont.
1679, Turin — court physician Teobaldo Pecchio prescribed thin dry bread for the sickly four-year-old Vittorio Amedeo II of Savoy, whose digestion couldn't handle a normal Piedmontese loaf. Royal baker Antonio Brunero pulled dough into pencil shapes; the boy survived to become Duke and later King, and grissini stayed on the Savoy table.
Napoleon called grissini 'les petits bâtons de Turin' and ordered them couriered to Paris weekly. Two protected forms exist: rubatà (knobby, hand-rolled, 60-80 cm) and stirato (smooth, hand-stretched, 40 cm). Industrial 'sticks' are neither.
Pale ochre, crisp the whole length, snaps with a sharp crack. Olive-oil-savory, salt-forward, the surface knobby from the hand-stretch. Eats with cured ham draped over, dunks into vermouth-amaro pairings, holds three weeks in a tin.
55% hydration with 8-10% olive oil — low water and high fat are why they go shatter-crisp instead of bread-chewy. Bake at 200°C for 12-15 minutes; the pencil shape lets steam escape fast, drying them through. Hand-stretched 'rubatà' (rolled) shape is signature; machine-cut sticks are flatter, less rugged.
Variations
Rubatà torinese (knobby hand-rolled, 60-80 cm, the Slow Food Presidium form); grissini stirato (smooth hand-pulled, Asti and Alessandria); grissini al sesamo (sesame-coated, 1900s additions); commercial torinesi (machine-cut 12 cm, the supermarket form).
On the Palate
Where Grissini sits in the Italian flavor cloud
Ingredients
Serves 8How it's made
5 steps · 28 min active + 1 hour 12 min waiting
- 15 min
Mix 500 g flour + 240 ml water + 50 ml olive oil + 8 g salt + 5 g yeast.
- 28 min
Knead 8 min until smooth.
Watch outKnead until the dough turns smooth and satiny and springs back slowly when poked — the low water and oil make it stiffer than bread dough, so don't expect it soft.
- 360 min
Bulk ferment 1 hr.
- 415 min
Divide into 10 g pieces; hand-stretch each into 30–40 cm pencil-thin rope.
Watch outStretch each piece thin and even — pencil-thick, no fat middle; the uniform thinness is what lets them dry through and shatter crisp instead of staying doughy inside.
- 512 min
Bake 220 °C 10–12 min until snappable and pale gold.
Watch outPull them at pale gold when they snap clean with a dry crack — any give in the middle means they're still moist inside and will go leathery once cool.
Archive tool suggestions — not reviewed
These legacy suggestions have not been evidence-reviewed and are not presented as required tools.
