Italy on Ice

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The Plain Dealer - Italy on Ice - November 13, 2002

Article by Douglas Trattner

Ever since Bernardo Buontalenti created gelato for the court of Francesco de' Medici in 1565, Italians have been blissfully scooping the chilly delight from paper cups with small wooden spoons. In Italy, gelato acts as both social lubricant and internal air-conditioner on those sultry Mediterranean evenings after dinner and well into the night.

It is 8:30 in the morning and Valerio Iorio is pouring a gallon of fior di latte, or "flower of the milk" into a stainless-steel Italian-made gelato machine. He's working in the shiny new basement of La Gelateria, his gelato shop at Cedar Road and Fairmount Boulevard in Cleveland Heights.

Iorio, co-owner of Valerio's Ristorante in Little Italy and Osteria di Valerio & Al in downtown Cleveland, is beginning his long and lively day the same way he always does: making gelato and drinking his thimble of espresso.

Gelato may be regarded as Italian ice cream, but Iorio is quick to point out that the two are as different as Calista Flockhart and Anna Nicole Smith.

"We start with just whole milk, sugar and water," he says between sips of his espresso. "Ice cream is made from cream and has a much higher fat content. It also has much more air whipped into it." By allowing less air into the process, gelato finishes silkier and denser than ice cream Americano.

Many premium American ice creams contain as much as 20 percent fat, whereas gelato tops out at around 8 percent.

A scoop of Ben & Jerry's Chubby Hubby towers over the competition with a hefty 33 percent fat. Yes, Americans have figured out a way to cram more fat into our version of the frozen dessert. What's wrong with a little fat in dessert? Fat masks flavor. Fat is also responsible for the unpleasant film left on the inside of your mouth after a bowl of French vanilla.

"The most beautiful thing about gelato and sorbet is the harmony of flavors," says Iorio. "To taste the fruit, to taste the sweetness - but leaving your mouth completely clean."

When you walk into the Annunciation blue La Gelateria, you will be confronted with a wealth of reasons to amble off course from your diet. Thirty-six reasons to be exact. From a stable of 60 styles, 36 flavors are available on a rotating basis. Two coolers - each filled with 18 1-gallon stainless-steel tubs with paddles for scooping - separate the milk-based gelato from water-based sorbet. It's a kosher cooler system of sorts. Sorbet, the water-based version of gelato, is made simply with fresh, seasonal fruits, fruit extracts and sugar. No additives or artificial colors are added. This fact may explain why your banana sorbet is not a radioactive yellow, but rather off-white, more representative of what a banana actually looks like in the wild. It also explains why your blueberry sorbet contains bona fide bits of blueberry skin.

Iorio says that gelato is kept at a slightly warmer freezer setting than is ice cream. Cold masks flavor as well, one of the reasons cheap American beer tastes so much better ice cold. The combined effect of less fat, less air and warmer temperature, and fresh, all-natural ingredients is evident the second I slide a plastic spoonful of grapefruit sorbet onto my tongue. Imagine distilling an entire grapefruit's essence into a shot glass and throwing it back. Yet the flavor is well-balanced at the same time. It is more citrusy than sweet, without being too tart. It has a velvety texture, with none of the grainy ice flakes typical in granita.

A small paper cup of chocolate gelato finds its way into my hands. It is the familiar earthy brown color of chocolate ice cream, but the similarities end there. Paradoxically, though made without cream, this gelato is far creamier than its American kin. The gelato also packs big chocolate flavor without the sugary sweet burn that accompanies some ice creams. If your doctor has put the kibosh on sugar in your diet altogether, take solace in the fact that at least two or three sugar-free flavors are on hand at La Gelateria every day.

"Ever since I had the opportunity to make gelato in Sardinia in 1987, it has been a dream of mine to open a gelateria," says Iorio.

La Gelateria, 12421 Cedar Road, Cleveland Heights. Phone 216-229-2637. Hours are noon to 11 p.m. Sunday through Thursday, and noon to 12 p.m. Friday and Saturday.

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