The word “gelato”n Italian does not translate to mean “ice cream” but “frozen”. “It is more than just ice cream,” James Coleridge, owner of ‘Bella Gelateria’ in Vancouver, Canada and winner of the 2012 Gelato Festival told me, “it’s a culinary art.”

He was happy to elaborate when I asked him the difference between ice cream and gelato. “Ice cream has four times the fat of gelato (28% compared to 7%), is made with more air (60% air and 40% liquid), and, finally, ice cream is cold and hard whereas gelato is warm and soft.”

What he neglected to say, perhaps because it’s obvious, is the difference in taste. The reason, James told me, is “gelato uses only fresh hand made ingredients, where as ice cream is mass produced. Gelato is about giving people “experiences and memories. If its rainy I do chocolate, cremes. If it’s sunny I do fruit.”

“The common mentality today is faster, quicker, cheaper. Italian gelato is about finding our love. It slows us down.” Even more telling was the differences in the cultural approach to quality. A curiosity arose: does real gelato exist outside of Italy? James has proven it does. “In this country it’s part of the culture because they’re born with it. The rest of the us are still learning about it.

“Gelato is Italy,” Achille Sassoli, Carpigiani’s Event Manager said. Simple, but true. For most Italians anything less than pealing fresh peaches in the morning and grinding them to make a sorbetto is considered blasphemy.

When I explained to the gelato makers the differences between their hand made artistry and our mass produced mediocrity, they were disgusted. “It sounds terrible,” Vincenzo Pace, a gelato maker from Il Pinguino, Turin told me.

Although there is much debate about the discovery of gelato, common belief credits Bernardo Buontalenti, a versatile 16th century artist who worked closely with the royal Medici family. In 1559 he concocted a frozen cream made with milk, honey, egg yolk, wine, lemon and orange. Nearly five hundred years later, his creation has evolved to gelato, as integral to Italian way of life as wine, coffee and olive oil.

In Piazza Santa Maria Novella, the hot Florentine sun didn’t stop me from tasting every stand, each with their own flavor. Some were conventional: Nocciola (Hazelnut), Pistacchio, Stracciatella. Others experimental: ‘Lemon Caviar‘, a white peach base with mint and ginger and a citrus glaze, ‘Oro Verde‘, olive oil ice cream seasoned with pepper, poppy seeds, and salt, ‘Saffron’, and perhaps the most peculiar, ‘Pane e Cioccolato‘, a bread base with cherry and chocolate. If you don’t mind waiting in line, there is a bar that features ‘gelato cocktails’, a blended drink made with ice cream and alcohol.

In addition to trying eclectic flavors, a 15 euro ticket gets you a complimentary hour long instructional course provided by Caprigiani’s University of Gelato. When I arrived to the festival at noon, class had just begun. I took a seat and listened to Gianpaolo Valli, who taught both the owners of ‘Grom’ and James Coldridge. When I asked him what it was like to teach two equally successful, yet different businesses he said, “I teach people the basics, it’s like learning how to write. Once you know the grammar and rules, each person has to develop their own writing style.”

In class, Giampaolo gave an overview of gelato, from the history to the process of making gelato to opening a gelateria. (For more eager disciples, the Gelato University offers courses and internships around the world where graduates will receive a diploma).

At the end, he asked for volunteers. I was selected. Giampaolo oversaw four of us while we hand cut fresh banana, kiwi, strawberry and lemon to make a fruit sorbetto, the most basic gelato made by mixing fresh fruit, water and a simple base into the machine, pulling the lever and letting it freeze for five minutes. When we were finished, we got to eat our creation.

With Giampaolo as my guide it was hard to make a mistake. Mine, the lemon flavor, was tart and refreshing, like a frozen lemonade from an amusement park.

Behind every stand, the students of Saffi, a high school dedicated to the industry of hospitality, serve gelato to eager eaters learning about public relationships. Saffi, one of the few schools in Italy that guarantees the students a job after graduation, is going to open a special class about “the art of gelato making” sponsored by the Carpigiani University of Gelato in Bologna, which provided machines, ingredients and knowledge to the Festival. “Our goal for next year is to have the students from Saffi create their own flavor to enter in the contest”, proudly stated Achille Sassoli. “In addition two lucky students will be sent to the University to receive their diploma.”

What I like about the festival is experimenting with new flavors, so I always go for whatever is the most creative. Unfortunately when I tried Oro Verde, the olive oil doused with seasoning, I coughed, mistaking pepper and salt toppings to be bits of chocolate. Its creator laughed at me: “pepe” means “pepper’!

Among the many flavors I tried that day, several stood above the rest. The most refreshing was the Lemon Caviar from Vivoli, one of the most famous gelaterias in Florence who has been making ice cream for nearly 80 years. In the gelateria, you can still find sisters Silvana and Patrizia hand making gelato, and their mother working the counter.
The other, a chocolate sorbetto from Il Pinguino, Turin, made of 100% cacao and water, tasted like cold chocolate drink and was both light and satisfying. I had two cups.

The ‘Pane e Cioccolato’ was made by Roberto Benedetti from Altopascio, a city known for their bread. The recipe was inspired by his childhood memories, when he used to eat bread dipped in fresh milk, with chocolate. He won the well deserved prize for the “Best Apprentice Gelato Maker“. His gelato was thick and grainy, like a frozen paste. Perhaps the only fault, if you can call it one, was that the chocolate pieces were too big.

‘Noce Pecan e Sciroppo d’Acero Canadese‘, a walnut, pecan gelato with maple syrup, made by James Coleridge was the last flavor I tried. “It has four distinct flavors,” he told me, “designed (as it melts) to hit different parts of your mouth through salt, sweet and nut, and maple syrup as you breathe.” It did all that, and more. With large chunks of salty nut in every bite and a dazzling glaze of syrup, my only regret was that I didn’t have a second cup. After I was done, I felt confident in giving him my vote.

Much has changed abut the gelato festival. Because of it’s expansion, it has relocated to Piazza Santa Maria Novella in the heart of the city center. In the previous years, it was held in Piazza Pitti, the famous square which Buontalenti constructed.

“We had over 200 applicants this year, and we chose the best 60”, said the 28 year old Gabriele Poli, who founded the festival three years ago. “My goal is to spread the word about gelato and create new jobs in Italy and abroad.” His plans for the future are equally ambitious. “Next year we hope to have a Gelato Festival Tour with stops in every major city in the world, featuring the best of their local gelato.”

“The food industry is the only one that emerged in the time of crisis”, explained Achille Sassoli, specifying that it’s “the one who will lead Italy out of their current recession”. And the winner of this edition seems to exemplify that ideology: “to me winning means that I’m doing something right,” he told me. “When it comes down to it, I’m just a custodian who protects the world of hand made gelato. There’s been people before me. There will be people after me. This is just my time.”

Read our article on Honest Cooking!

On the East side, Salò faces the Italian largest lake, whose calm waters lap the marble banks of its main promenade, the perfect spot to sight see the historic city centre’s gems.

During our walk, we steer towards a picturesque maze of alleys and narrow streets, packed with charming boutiques and coffee shops, fine restaurants and Art Déco buildings.

Predictably, our curiosity is magnetized by the many enticing windows of delis and pastry shops: ricotta pies, apple charlottes and frosted pastries tease us from behind the glass. Each step, a visual temptation. Chocolate cakes coated with black icing shine as mirrors; jelly fruit tarts shimmer from the counter, drawing us inside every store.

Dazed by the multitude of delights, to make the right choice, we ask around: “Where can you have the best gelato in Salò?” The locals have no doubts: “You must go to La casa del dolce!, just keep on walking this way until it merges into a secluded, little square.”

The promptness and conviction of the answers don’t leave room for incertitude. As we leave the buzz of main street behind us, we reach a cozy piazza, paved with stones and dominated by an aged, tuff church. Half hidden by two thriving jasmine hedges, the sign of “La casa del dolce” finally peeps out. It stands at the entrance of a small, modest looking space.

The ice cream is not flaunted to the passerbys as is it was in the gelaterias in the center of town. Inside, everything is hidden, like a treasure that longs to be discovered. And just like a treasure, once found, leaves you speechless. At the foot of that bounty, words fail. Immaculate presentation, exceptional variety of indulgences, catchy names, daring tastes combinations. “God, let the taste be half as good as the sight.”

After having tried almost every available flavour, our verdict is enthusiastic. Their masterpiece is ORO NERO (black gold), a treat of 66% dark chocolate infused with green tea, bergamot and bitter chocolate sauce. The different textures and temperatures of the ingredients blend perfectly, endowing the palate with a sublime sensation. Once the ice cream’s sweetness dissolves, the richness of the sauce pervades your mouth and you can distantly taste a fresh perfume of green tea.

AMERICANO, a combination of dulce of leche, muesli, banana and Maraschino (an Italian cherry liquor), awakens in our taste buds memories of the best banana cream pie. Its delicate dichotomy of creaminess and crunchiness gratifies our mouths with a unique sensation, velvety and grainy at the same time.

SORBETTO OCUMARE’s recipe is incredibly simple: pure water and 71% dark Venezuela chocolate. Essentiality makes it one of the best sorbet we have ever tasted. The flavor is unadulterated: a taste of ice, colder than any other, where the milklessness leaves the after taste of bitter dark chocolate intact.
AFTER EIGHT’s consistency falls nowhere short of perfect: the crispness of its chocolate bites melts on the tongue merging with a sweet, chilly taste of mint.

Just when we think not another morsel of gelato can be consumed, our attention is captured by ORGASMA. Nobody could find a word better used to describe its pleasure than the creator, Joseph Barone. “This flavor comes from the union of four elements: cream, white chocolate, almonds and caramel, harmonized together to provide a sensation as satisfying and unutterable as the orgasm.” Barone seems to take his creations very seriously. “What is gelato for you?” we ask him, curios to know how he would describe his passion. He thinks silently for while before surprising us a definition that couldn’t be more poetic: “Gelato is… the art of cold. The art of combining ice and sugar and make them express different flavors”

Twelve years ago, Barone quit his job as a chef to pursue his passion for sweets. He embodies pride in presenting his products and the devotion to details that every food artist should have.

Despite that his store is teeming with customers, he satisfies our questioning with a good-natured smile. In the curious flicker of his eyes, one can read the enthusiasm for experimentation that led him to revisit the Italian confectionery tradition.

“I live my life thinking about ‘tomorrows work’, because my best flavour is the one I still haven’t invented”, Barone says. “My goal – he continues – is to create a gelato different from anything exists in Italy.

In ten years, I’d like my ice cream shop to offer only unconventional flavors… fun flavors like my TIRAMISÙ GELOSIA, a mascarpone base combined with dark chocolate, Marsala cream, eggnog, amaretti cookies and chopped meringue”.

“In Italy it’s kind of a riot when I don’t serve hazelnut – he complains –; here the public is too conservative. That’s why I’d like to move to America, because I love challenges and I believe that mixing variety and high quality ingredients is the only way to make the difference”.

As if he wasn’t creative enough with his gelato flavors, Barone also opened a Chocolaterie close to his gelateria (via Fantoni). This charming, fascinating coffee shop is a kind of gateway to Heaven: homemade chocolate of any shapes, semireddo cakes and frozen spoon dessert are a temptation we cannot resist.

We end up completing our tasting with samples of Pistachio Cremini and Pine Nut and White Chocolate Gianduiotti.

 The chocolate is so pure, thick and intense that one, small bite is totally satisfying.