Let’s get you pronouncing ‘nougat’ right first. It’s The Americans add a ’t’ at the end, and so it is also pronounced n-u-gut. Watch this here to get a better idea. The nougat is essentially a sweet that is made with honey or sugar, dry fruit/nuts and, more often than not, egg white. It is said to have been first made in Italy centuries ago (France and other European and Mediterranean countries, too, make excellent nougat), but the Italian word for nougat is ‘torrone’ derives from an Arabic word. So, chances are that it was the Arabs who first created it. Chocolate and nougat is an unbeatable combination, and so, in a sense, the popular Swiss chocolate bar brand Toblerone is a nougat. People in various countries make different types of nougats, and the sweet has a Christmas connection. In Spain and France, for example, Christmas is never celebrated without some nougat. According to the legendary Italian pasty maker, Flamigni, “If we take into consideration the general concept of ‘seeds kept together by a sweet paste’, we find out that nougat is in fact part of a wide range of products produced in many countries, from the Slavic countries to Middle East and India, and usually defined with the word “halva”. These genuine products can be considered to be the roots of our taste for sweets and they are probably the oldest sweets in the world.”
