What will foodies call to mind if you refer to Italy? They will make a long list including pasta, spaghetti, tiramisu, cappuccino, espresso, and don’t forget the most famous dessert, gelato. Gelato is not only a dessert but a delicacy, a cuisine, a feast, it reveals the passion for life.

 By: Ruiyin Fang 120909123 Class2 

Italian will not feel pleasant if you equate gelato with ice cream. As a featuring food in Italy, it is different from ice cream. Ice cream can be classified into three kinds by fat content and sweetness: ice cream, gelato and sorbet. Ice cream is an American style with higher fat and sugars while sorbet contents none fat and lowest sugars, gelato makes a balance between the other two.

If you compared gelato with ice cream, you will find the former is more natural and healthier . More sugars and cream are added into ice cream to make it tastes sweet, creamy and softy. The ingredients of gelato are eggs, milk, sugar, as well as fresh fruits and nuts, handcraft makers try their best to keep the quintessence of fruits. The sweetness you taste is from the fruit itself instead of extract of fruit. Image if gelato is growing out like a plant,you will find the taste of it should be like this.

Differ from the ice cream produced on flow lines, gelato is made by handcraft maker. Every handcraft maker inherits the traditional family workshop and the skill of making gelato from father and grandfather. Every 5000 people own a gelateria (gelato workshop in Italian), you can find a gelateria that has a history of a hundred years in a corner of city. Those handcraft makers follows the traditional way and keep a small production, the recipes varies according to the mood of maker. Thus, gelato reveals thepersonality styles. No wonder someone says that you cannot find exactly two same gelato in the world.

“Making gelato have to get up early everyday with great passion,” said Silvana, the handcraft maker of a famous gelateria, “I began to make it since 1948. Still, I can’t wait to produce it every day I get up, coz I enjoy the process of producing.” Her words revealed an attitude different from profit-seeking food industry. Gelato is not only a way to make a living but a passion to life.

No matter in China or other countries, the shop assistant of ice cream shop scooping out a round ice cream ball that you can figure out through mathematical formulas, but who cares the shape! But in a gelateria, the young Italian girl stirs the gelato with something like a shovel, and then daubs it on the ice cream cone. Daubs, yes! Just like the artist daub the paint on the paper, the gelato is just like a soft colorful cloud, a blooming flower, who can deny that it is a work of art?

If you visit a century-old shop in winter, you will find it is still thrive in such cold weather, everyone holds a gelato cone in hand, speaking various languages, laughing, just like a big party. Italian enjoy the life with pasta, opera, beach and sun, and the gelato. Gelato reveals an attitude of Italian, full of passion and enjoy life. This kind of food is fragile and  melt fast, you have to pause your steps to focus on your gelato. When you enjoy your gelato under sunshine, you are snatching a bit of leisure from a busy schedule.

You can got more information about the history of gelato if you are interest in it.