Chill Out

Venice, Italy - Last summer my household acquired an ice cream maker. This happened at the same time that we were participating in "the great appliance give-away", getting rid of vegetable steamers and panini presses that we had never used, so it was ironic that an ice cream maker should come into our possession; but there it was. We spent the summer concocting some amazing flavors, including an ultra-creamy strawberry and a buzz-inducing champagne sorbet. We perfected our ice cream making skills over the course of the summer, which culminated with a divine mint chocolate chip, made with mint leaves snipped from my garden and dark chocolate chipped off an organic bar.

That is the extent of my expertise in the area of making ice cream. Of course, I have many many years of experience eating ice cream, resulting in many strong opinions. I am partial to flavors that involve various combinations of chocolate and peanut butter or chocolate and coconut. I am addicted to Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby, which is vanilla ice cream, swirled with chocolate, peanut butter and chocolate-covered pretzels. (Don't knock it till you try it.)

This is all by way of background on my frame of mind when I arrived in Italy, where - frankly - there is no such thing as ice cream. In Italy, there is gelato - and lots of it.

Gelato is usually made with milk and sugar, as well as chocolate or nuts or whatever the flavoring; ice cream uses cream instead of milk. That's right - the primary difference between American ice cream and Italian gelato is the fat content. According to Wikipedia, gelato usually has 5-8% butterfat, compared to ice cream which has twice as much. So, we immediately notice one advantage of gelato... half the guilt!

Incidentally, I just finished reading a murder mystery by Donna Leon, the Agatha Christie of Italy. Starring the contemplative Commissario Guido Brunetti, Leon's books are all set in Venice. In the context of the murder mystery, Leon often includes vividly detailed (and sometimes mouthwatering) descriptions of food. You get they idea that she was a food writer before she made it big writing detective novels. This is from her novel Blood from a Stone:

"Brunetti hadn't been in the bar for years, ever since the brief period when it had been converted into an American ice-cream parlour and had begun to serve an ice-cream so rich it had caused him a serious bout of indigestion the one time he had eaten it. It had been, he recalled, like eating lard, though not the salty lard he remembered from his childhood, tossed in to give taste and substace to a pot of beans or lentil soup, but lard as lard would be if sugar and strawberries were added to it."

Now that I think about it, that sounds a little like the strawberry ice cream that we made last summer.

Gelato may not be as rich as ice cream, but it is dense with flavor. Apparently this is a result of the lack of air in the product, so there is more flavor packed in. It is served semi-frozen, which makes it softer and - if it's possible - more sensuous than ice cream.

Although gelato comes in a wide variety of flavors - including chocolate, coffee, hazelnut, etc - there are very few flavors that involve chunks, swirls or other embellishments. This takes some getting used to. In an earlier blog, I revealed that I am very American in my tastes when it comes to such things: I like my omelets, pizza and ice cream with a lot of stuff in/on it (as evidenced by the Chubby Hubby addiction). But I have to admit, there is something ambrosial about the pure, undiluted flavor and texture of gelato.

So, you are wondering, am I prepared to give up the luscious, lard-like delights of my native land for the joys of gelato?

Absolutely not. Somehow, I don't believe that the richest gelato can possibly have the healing powers of a pint of Chubby Hubby. But when in Venice, do as the Venetians... As such I am finding nocciolo (hazelnut) to be a pretty good substitute.