Despite being expensive, Italian ice cream is popular with Brazilians

Brazilian taste is not so far from Italian. The best seller around here is pistachio.

Italian-style ice cream, also known as gelato, is increasingly popular among Brazilians, whether due to its unique texture or because it is handmade. However, before arriving in Brazil, artisanal ice cream has already made a lot of history in Italy. “I have never seen so many artisanal ice cream shops in any other country in the world as in Italy,” says maestro gelatiere Sergio Dondoli, from the award-winning Gelateria Dondoli, located in the city of San Gimignano, Italy.

Despite the strong Italian tradition in making ice cream, it is believed that the delicacy originated in the East and the mixture of ice, fruit and honey was taken to Italy during the Roman Empire. After the Empire ended, the ice cream tradition dissipated. The revival came with the Italian Procopio dei Coltelli, considered the father of modern ice cream, who in 1686 began serving fruit ice creams to the aristocratic palates of the historic Caffe, in Paris. The success was such that King Louis

The difference is that in Italian gelato is used to name ice creams that contain milk and/or cream in their recipes. Sorbet is one whose base is water and does not contain milk in its recipe, like most fruit sorbettos, for example.” A good fruit sorbetto is made up of 50% fruit (except acidic ones, which contain 30%). and a mixture of sugars, thickeners, which serve to give texture, and water”, explains gelatiere maestro Sergio Dondoli. “Gelato contains milk, cream, eggs and other ingredients that give it its flavor, such as chocolate, pistachios, etc.,” he adds.

Marco Radicioni, from the Otaleg gelateria in Roma

But it's not enough to just mix the ingredients, you need to know how to dose them. "Ice cream is a creature, it's alive and you need to know it and respect it", explains Marco Radicioni, owner and gelatorie of the Otaleg ice cream shop, in Roma, in Italy. Ice creams in general are made up of solid parts, liquids and air. Yes, air. It is part of the recipe, helping to give texture and its percentage ends up differentiating artisanal ice creams – which usually contain around 30% – from industrial ones, which often contain almost 100% air.

“Have you ever let industrial ice cream melt completely? If so, you may have noticed that there is a layer of water underneath and a layer with the color of ice cream on top. This happens because of excess air, which would not occur in an artisanal ice cream”, explains the Italian Carla Reggiani, chef and one of the five owners of the PuroGusto ice cream shop, located on the luxurious Rua Oscar Freire, in São Paulo. In Italian ice cream shops, craftsmanship is the flagship. At PuroGusto, the production room is entirely made of glass, allowing the customer to see the ice cream being prepared. Fruit ice creams are all natural and only those with fruits that are more difficult to find in São Paulo, such as cajá, for example, use pulp.

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“I use a high-quality supplier, who brings me the preserves with just the fruit, without adding water”, explains Carla. Fruits that are very difficult to handle, such as jabuticaba, also arrive at the ice cream parlor in pulp. The other less “temperamental” fruits are peeled and cut there. “We receive shipments of 30 kilos of Sicilian lemons and an employee squeezes them and then puts the juice in bags to make ice cream”, explains the chef. All stages of the ice cream are prepared in the ice cream shop.

Firstly, it is necessary to “pasteurize the ice cream to reduce the material load and mix the ingredients”, explains Carla. This process is done on an industrial machine and takes around 1h30.

Afterwards, the “raw ice cream”, as the chef likes to say, rests for 12 hours and, therefore, this process is carried out the day before the ice cream goes on sale. Then, it is placed in a machine for another six minutes to cool down and then goes straight to the display cases. As soon as a flavor starts to run out, it starts to be prepared for replacement.

Flavours

Italian ice cream shops here in Brazil usually offer traditional Italian flavors, such as stracciatella, which is the equivalent of our flakes, and introduce flavors that only we have, such as açaí and paçoca, for example. Although classic recipes have their place, chefs are always experimenting with new combinations that may or may not have good results.

Italian Edoardo Tonolli, one of the owners of the Bacio di Latte ice cream chain in São Paulo, thought that making raspberry and chocolate ice cream would be “crazy”, but he ended up becoming one of the chain's best sellers. On the other hand, chocolate and orange looked quite promising, but it didn't even make it to store shelves.

Brazilian taste is not so far from Italian. Carla says that PuroGusto's best seller is pistachios. The same happens at the Otaleg ice cream shop, in Rome, which also has pistachio as the best seller and zabaione, that cream placed in the sweet tiramisù, in second place. But Marco Radicioni also doesn't stop inventing new flavors. “I make a new flavor every day and I also make suggestions from customers, even the most bizarre ones,” he says.

Both Bacio di Latte and PuroGusto charge R$11 for a cone or small cup, which can have two flavors and they think it doesn't cost much. “It’s an affordable luxury,” says Tonolli, from Bacio di Latte. “The person isn’t just eating a little tub of ice cream, there’s a lot behind it. The quality ingredients, the research…”, says Carla, from PuroGusto. Accessible or not, it's worth trying even if just once. (ANSA – www.ansabrasil.com.br)