PHOTOGRAPHS ELENA HEATHERWICK
Gleaming with sugar crystals and crowned with almonds, panettone has become a festive classic worldwide
“In Pinerolo, you don’t ask for a panettone, you ask for a Galup,” says Giuseppe Bernocco, owner of this “minor industrial” panettone producer some 50km outside Turin. Galup is a household name here – a Hoover, perhaps, for sweet-toothed Italians. Giuseppe bought the company in 2013, nostalgic for a time when Christmas simply meant gathering people for good food and games, without today’s commercial pressures. “Panettone unifies people around the idea of a real, old-fashioned Italian Christmas,” he says.