There couldn't be a finer or more important summer project than researching gelato. This worthwhile scientific endeavour is easily enhanced by a number of technical spinoffs, and by friends and family joining in.
For instance, you'll need a thorough comparison between gelato and ice cream, as well as other scientific comparisons between various gelato suppliers. Once you find your provider(s) of choice, you can research the multitude of flavours.
Luckily, you can start with Whistler's own Lucia Gelato, which Kathryn Shepherd churns out in the name of her daughter, Lucy. After studying the fine art of gelato making at a one-week crash course in Bologna, Italy, her original idea was to sell it at Whistler's farmers' market as a little hobby. Hah!
Four years, dozens of outlets and hundreds of flavours later, Lucia Gelato has proven to be a major project, much like the research of gelato itself, with Kathryn always experimenting.
One of her crazier combinations is a sorbeto, or sorbet, made with Red Bull, vodka and raspberries, available only on special order and often served at highly successful parties and weddings. (If you think that's offbeat, Escoffier has a recipe for asparagus ice cream.)
Today, I've interrupted Kathryn while she's whipping up a batch of Tropical Sun, made with fresh bananas, passion fruit and mangoes. But her favourite, and that of many others, is Two Tony's Espresso, also the result of much tasting and experimentation.
"My husband's name is Tony and one of our best friends is named Tony, and they are really into coffee. So when I actually changed coffee brands from 49th Parallel to Galileo, they had to come over and taste it and do a quality control to make sure they could still have their names on it," she says.
The well-approved result: a classic, smooth, richly balanced gelato - not too sweet and not too bitter - made with "a lot of shots of espresso," so watch it if you're doing late night research.
Just like there are dozens of styles of cuisine in Italy, there are dozens of ways to make gelato. Some are heavier and custard-like while others are simpler and more delicate.
The name "gelato" simply means "frozen" in Italian, and while it's come to be best known as a distinctive custardy type of ice cream, like Lucia Gelato, it really can be applied to a range of frozen desserts. So if you're looking for a definitive gelato in your research, forget it. It's all a matter of taste.
The original traditional gelato is typically high in butterfat and egg yolks. And while we can trace the first records of frozen desserts and ice- or snow-chilled foods to China, what we call gelato was introduced to Italy through Islamic conquests around 800 C.E. The Muslims of the day brought with them a range of ice creams and sorbet-like desserts they had learned about in Persia and India.
The first Italian ice cream shops, or gelateria, started up in Tuscany in the 1500s, but it's the people from southern Italy who are responsible for making ice cream popular in North America.
For instance, we have the Neapolitans of Naples to thank for delicious spumone, a layered ice cream or gelato of several flavours with mixed fruits and sometimes nuts. A cheap North American knock-off is the three-layered Neapolitan ice cream - chocolate, strawberry and vanilla - that usually comes in a tri-coloured solid brick.
Besides the classic sorbeto, a combination of fruit, water and sugar, your research might introduce you to coppe, several flavours of gelati served in a dish garnished with fruit; cassata, a decorative ice cream cake or mold that's made with several layers of gelati and served with whipped cream and condiments like fruit or nuts; or granita, a crystallized kind of sorbet usually flavoured with lemon or coffee. (The difference between sorbet and sherbet is that sherbet is usually made with a small amount of dairy ingredients. "Sorbet" is from the Persian/Arabic "sharbat" meaning "drinks" or "juice").
After many investigations, I've determined that my favourite gelato is the kind that sticks close to the classic tradition of using authentic ingredients, meaning real fruit or whatever, not syrups, pastes or powders, as is usually the case with most commercial varieties. The results are usually smooth and intense and not as sweet, with a chewier mouth-feel. Kathryn is right on board with that, too.
"My whole tag is fresh, natural, Whistler, so basically if you buy it at the grocery store I've made it within a week, which is not like anything else at the store," she says. "I just use the real things - if you buy raspberry sorbet, then it's sugar, water and raspberries. I don't use a lot of pastes or artificial colouring or flavouring. It's everything gelato is supposed to be."
As for the comparison between ice cream and gelato, one huge difference you'll find between commercial ice cream and gelato is air.
Good gelato is made with a single overrun, which adds air to increase the volume over the original mixture. Lucia Gelato, for instance is 20 per cent air, or overrun, while commercial ice creams can be as much as 100 per cent air, meaning what you get is half air. Naturally, there are exceptions, like the Udder Guys Ice Cream out of Cowichan Valley, where quality ingredients and less air also count large.
Less air means denser texture and more intense flavour. My research tells me that if you want really good gelato or ice cream, don't be fooled by size. Heft it - heavy is good.
The other big difference is temperature. Ice cream is typically kept at a lower temperature, so it's harder on the palate, and colder.
Gelato, on the other hand, should never give you an ice cream headache or any other kind of one. But do your own research, lots of it, to make sure.
Lucia Gelato, in the distinctive blue tubs, is available at all Whistler grocery stores, Pemberton Valley Supermarket and North Arm Farm, and Nesters in Squamish (the dairy-free, vegan sorbet is in the pink tubs). You can also get your Lucia Gelato hit at a variety of Whistler restaurants including Merlin's and Rendezvous Restaurant on Whistler, and every Sunday at the Whistler Farmer's Market.
Glenda Bartosh is an award-winning freelance writer on a gelato-in-residence fellowship.
