Summer = granitas but not only, ice cream is also the protagonist of the hottest season of the year. We'll let you in on a secret: did you know that ice cream was born in Sicily?
Due to Covid-19 we skipped the first spring ice creams at all, but we are sure that you have recovered their consumption properly. Perhaps, however, you don't know the history of ice cream and it is said that it was born in our beloved Sicily.
It all began in antiquity…
In ancient times fruit, milk and honey and other foods were refrigerated to preserve them and later peoples dedicated to breeding came to know iced milk, available in the winter period (Source Wikipedia).
In China, already during the Tang dynasty (618-907), there are reports of cold dairy products, including a dish prepared with kumiss , heated and fermented milk, with the addition of flour and camphor leaves and refrigerated before being served.
Before the invention of ice cream that we all know, we have to talk about sorbet, which comes from an Arab recipe. The latter knew the method of refrigeration through the addition of salt to the snow; in Europe this process is described after the middle of the 16th century.
In the late 1600s a dish of "ice cream" appeared on the plate of the English royal court of Charles II of England. An ice cream as a "dessert" was also served in Sweden during a gala dinner at the end of the seventeenth century. These "ice creams" were made with cream, fruit and flavourings, without eggs and contained many ice crystals.
In the eighteenth century the iced creams with sugar, fruit and aromas began to become famous, to which eggs could be added, which gave a creamy consistency.
The ice cream recipe is made in Sicily!
Well yes, ice cream was born in Sicily, as an evolution of the sorbets that came out of the snow of Etna, then perfected in Florence. The origins of ice cream go hand in hand with granita , sorbets and the famous nivaroli, but it became famous at the Florentine Renaissance courts. The sorbets, super loved by Caterina de' Medici, were made by swirling the liquid to be frozen in primitive ice cream makers immersed in wooden tubs filled with crushed ice and salt. The mixture thus obtained was then placed in metal molds, kept for a long time under ice: the molds had the shape of pyramids, fruits, lambs, doves and more.
When did the ice creams appear? In the seventeenth century always in Sicily, precisely in Aci Trezza. Francesco Procopio de' Coltelli had inherited from his grandfather an unusual machine invented by his grandfather for the production of sorbets. Since the contraption produced amazing results, he decided to take it with him to beautiful Paris, opening one of the most famous clubs in the city: the Café Procope . Most likely it was in the French city that the addition of milk took place, combined with the unique flavors of Sicily: pistachio, almonds, lemons, oranges, but also chocolate and coffee.
Did you know that ice creams were the favorite sweets of Louis XIV, Voltaire, Robespierre and Danton?
Ice cream: a dessert with worldwide success
The success was worldwide, indeed planetary! The first ice cream parlor in New York opened thanks to a Genoese, Giovanni Bosio. The idea of putting ice cream between two wafers was born in Milan in 1906, thanks to Giovanni Torre di Bussana. In 1927 the Bolognese Otello Cattabriga created the first automatic ice cream maker to make the whole production process less tiring.
In 1884 we have news of the first Italian ice cream shop, made by cooling ice cream, sugar and large tubs of "brine" Where? In Turin, have you ever heard of Pepino? The Neapolitan family of the same name moved to the Piedmontese city in the distant nineteenth century and still produces ice cream today. This resale was certainly the first in northern Italy to bring ice cream to a popular level and the only one to be able to boast the Royal House Supplier Patents .
Do you know when the ice cream cone was born? In 1903, thanks to an ice cream maker from Cadore (Belluno) Italo Marchioni. The container made of wafer with the side open towards the top to be filled with ice cream helped to increase the popularity and diffusion of Italian ice cream.
Curiosity : it is said that a certain Ruggeri from Florence (cooking enthusiast), thanks to a preparation that included cream, zabaglione and fruit, became famous, so much so that he made a fortune in Paris. He would have prepared the ice cream on the occasion of the wedding of Caterina de' Medici and Enrico d'Orleans. There are no documents attesting to the veracity of this story, but there is no doubt that the production of ice cream with eggs and flavorings began in Tuscany in the sixteenth century and from here it spread to France thanks to the cooks of Caterina de' Medici.
