Turrón de Agramunt

Appearance & taste

The nougat is light golden brown, its surface irregular, rough and porous. The mass is hard but breaks easily; in the mouth it is crunchy and melts at the same time. The specification describes the sweetness as very intense. Turrón de Agramunt is offered as a round disc or as a rectangular stick or rectangular bar, weighing between 15 g and 1 kg.

It comes with almonds or with hazelnuts, each in the suprema and extra grades. The moisture content is at most 5 % (suprema) or 6 % (extra), and the fat content, depending on the nut and grade, is at least 24.5 to 32.5 %.

Production

The mass consists of honey, peeled and roasted almonds or hazelnuts, sugar and/or glucose syrup, egg white or a dried substitute, and wafers. In the suprema grade the nuts make up at least 60 %, in the extra grade at least 46 %; honey makes up at least 10 % in both grades, egg white at least 1 %. According to the specification, the nougat’s characteristics result from a careful mixing of the ingredients and an exact cooking time.

Roasting the nuts, cooking, shaping and cutting the mass and packing take place in Agramunt. It is packed shortly after production at room temperature. The label bears the name and the PGI’s own logo.

Origin & history

The turrón is made in the municipality of Agramunt in the comarca of Urgell in the province of Lleida. The trade of the turronero is documented from the end of the 18th century, but according to the specification it was already a tradition then. Older evidence is hard to find because the municipal archives were destroyed in the Napoleonic Wars and production was a sideline to farming. In Serafí Pitarra’s play “La Dida” (“The Wet Nurse”), which is set in the year 1700, the heroine Paula from Agramunt is a turrón maker by trade.

In the past, the honey was cooked in a cauldron and stirred constantly with a wooden stick, the remo. The hazelnuts were roasted two days beforehand so that the turrón would not become brittle; stiffly beaten egg white lightened the dark mass. After resting for half an hour, it was divided with a spade called a rajola, and the pieces were weighed, shaped round or long and flat, and pressed between two sheets of pan de angel, a kind of wafer. Today machines take over part of the manual work, and the raw materials have largely stayed the same.

Production rose from 45,325 kg in 1995 to 71,980 kg in 1999. The Feria del Turrón de Agramunt has been held every October since 1989.