Food- Panforte

Italy is known for its biscotti, a hard biscuit eaten with a hot beverage, but this week in Siena our class experienced a true treat.  We stopped in a semi-industrial neighborhood to visit what appeared to be an average snack food manufacturer.  However, it turned out to be a unique and tasty experience.  A bit of history before I begin:

Quite a time ago, before protein bars were produced, an ancient high-calorie food was created to perform similarly.  This food source was called panforte.  Panforte literally means strong bread, and was composed of fruit, honey, flour, and water.  This simple food provided fatty nutrition, but had a tendency to spoil quickly, making it an inconvenient snack. 

During the Crusades, Italian traders would follow traveling soldiers to sell goods.  This is how exotic goods- especially spices- would eventually make their way back to Siena.  These spices were used for food, drugs, and perfumes, and really became an alternate form of currency.  Soon, Siena began adding these spices to panforte, created a much more flavorful, and longer lasting treat.

Now panforte is mass-produced, but there are those who craft it who are proud to stick to the most natural and most traditional forms of production.  Of course, they do use large, modern day machines, but the recipe remains the same.  The reverence they show to this historic food is apparent by the absolute cleanliness of the factory.  We all had to cover our hair and shoes just to enter, even though the production lines were closed that day.  Another point to note is that not everyone can work with panforte.  In fact, those who do are call “masters” of panforte and are carefully selected through lists of applications.  To make sure that you are getting a truly Siena style panforte, this company actually has a legal stamp on every package of original flavor panforte guaranteeing its authenticity.