Story: Organic Hazelnuts - Papa Dei Boschi's Pralines

The nature of the soil here produces a delicate, balanced flavour. On top of that, the climate plays an important role, as does the altitude at which the bushes grow. And the temperature changes from day to night are important to the ripening process. The plants need to receive direct sunlight from all sides, so we give them at least 30 square metres of space each. And everything is done manually – each plant is different. No-one’s taking a chainsaw through the plantation cutting all the trees to the same size. Each tree needs to be individually cared for and cultivated by hand. It’s a very sustainable process.

Implementing this type of production at this level requires a lot of trust and expertise. You can only achieve that within your own family. We never write down our experiences or recipes – it’s all passed on by word of mouth. Our knowledge of how to cultivate the nuts, our experience in processing them, forms the soil in which we develop our exceptional products. You need trust to make that work – and there’s nothing like family in that regard.

It’s a complicated process that involves drying the nuts after they have been gathered and roasting them correctly. We dry the nuts in their shells on a concrete surface in the sun for five to six days before they are roasted. It’s important that there is only a single layer of nuts, with none lying on top of the others, so that the nuts can benefit from the sunshine on all sides and dry out evenly. When roasting, you have to be very cautious and precise; it’s absolutely vital that the nuts don’t burn, so the temperature can’t be too high. You also can’t use a convection oven. But the biggest threat to the nuts’ sunny flavour is damp, and the associated risk of mould. That’s why we gather the nuts and dry them in the sun as quickly as possible. It’s important to be careful and attentive at every stage of the process.

We start harvesting from mid-August onwards, but will start with two or three smaller batches to ascertain the quality. The moisture content of the nuts needs to be five per cent or lower. After they have been dried, we store them in their shells for a further two months. It’s important that they are only removed from their shells on the day they are roasted. The shorter the period between cracking the shell and roasting, the better the nut. As shells make up 600 grams of every kilogram of nuts, this takes up a lot of space. That’s why a lot of industrial nut producers remove the shell shortly after the nuts are harvested – but the quality suffers as a result.

Hazelnut bushes start flowering around Christmas and are in full bloom in January. If the winter is too cold or wet, the flowers are damaged and the bushes suffer. The same applies when the soil is too damp; good hazelnuts don’t grow near rivers.

... BUT THE WEATHER IS GETTING MORE AND MORE TEMPERAMENTAL... Over the course of a decade, it’s normal to have a year with too much rain, or one with too little – or a very hot, dry summer, or one that’s too cool. But it’s clear that extreme weather events are occurring increasingly closer together. For example, last summer was too dry. That resulted in the branches not growing properly, and we only harvested half as many nuts as we did the previous year.

I like them salty as well as sweet. When roasted, they go well in muesli, with an aperitif, on steak tartare or with pork tenderloin. Nuts sprinkled on beef carpaccio or used in sauces for in rabbit dishes are my personal favourites. But 80 per cent of our products are used to make ice cream, nut butters and chocolate.

Hazelnuts have enormous potential. They’re high in Omega-3 fatty acids and are well-suited to a healthy lifestyle – you can fit them into any diet. Their combination of flavour and nutrition is unbeatable.