il GELATO
Close your eyes and delight in the moment you take that first spoonful of frozen bliss – Delizioso!
Who does not like gelato? It’s a warm day and you’re strolling around taking in the atmosphere. You spot a gelato shop. It only takes that first spoonful to ensure reverie.
Gelato, literally means ‘frozen’. More than a thousand years ago, the Arabs introduced sugar to Sicily along with a penchant for all things sweet. Who would have imagined that mixing the snows of Mount Etna with sugar and the sublime local flavours of lemons, mandarins, blood oranges, almonds, pistachios and hazelnuts, as well as the incomparable essences of jasmine and roses would deliver such enjoyment?
True gelato is everything ice cream should be – less air, sugar, and butterfat, and more intensity of flavour. The serious artisan gelataio uses only seasonal fruits and the freshest ingredients. The aficionado knows to seek out signs for gelato artiginale. Lurid colours and gaudy splashes of flavoured syrups atop of towering unmeltable mounds are to be avoided at all costs.
The telltale sign for me is that after savouring real gelato there is no sign of feeling sickly or bloatedness that the artificial types give you. You should only feel satisfaction.
On a recent trip to Rome, I came by a gelato shop with medals and trophies in the window stating the best gelato in Italy. Suffice to say, I returned there three days in a row to savour their their blissful flavours.
When next you are in Rome go to try it for yourself – https://www.ilcannolosiciliano.it/ – strangely enough it is called after the famous Sicilian Cannoli.
