THINGS YOU DIDN'T KNOW ABOUT: GELATO

Artisan ice cream is undoubtedly the most famous Italian dessert in the world and numerous stories have been handed down over time around its birth and history.

The first appearances in the history of frozen drinks or sweets similar to ice cream in Italy occurred in Sicily and were the result of the Arab domination that took place in our peninsula in the ninth century. In fact, these populations used to enjoy cold drinks called sherbet, which were characterized by the use of distilled fruit juices with the flavor of lemon, orange, pomegranate, cherry, tamarind and cherries.

The Arabs of Sicily used the snow from Etna and from the mountains in the area to freeze these drinks in containers, which were then sweetened with sugar cane imported from Persia.
Thus it was in the lands of Sicily that the first ancestor of Italian artisan ice cream was born.

But who invented the gelato that we all know?

According to the historical reconstructions of the Istituto del Gelato Italiano, the invention of artisanal ice cream is strongly linked to our territory and to Italian cuisine, and to witness its birth you have to wait for the Renaissance and the sixteenth century. Ice cream was invented in Italy by the architect Bernardo Buontalenti, at the court of Caterina de 'Medici in Florence, who in 1565 was the first to claim the invention of the most loved Italian dessert in the world.