31 March 2023

Ice cream and Caterina De’Medici

Ice cream is undoubtedly the prince food of summer all over the world. It is eaten all the time and in hundreds of flavors, from the most classic to the most daring, at all hours of the day. It is nutritious and easy to eat even while on the road. It comes natural to think that ice cream is therefore a “modern food”, created thanks to the invention of refrigeration, but the surprise lies in discovering that ice cream was invented centuries ago.

This is a portrait of Caterina De Medici

In fact, the ancestor of ice cream was first created for the powerful queen of France who lived in 1500 AD. Caterina De’ Medici by a renowned Florentine architect: Bernardo Buontalenti.

It was created to be served at the French court as a semi-frozen dessert. The recipe is still alive nowadays and it requires a sponge cake to be well soaked in rum or another sweet liqueur, and to be filled with ice cream (at that time it truly was whipped cream and frozen candied fruit).

The shape of the dessert was modeled after the inside of an helmet, and it was because of this shape that it took the name it still has today: the “Zuccotto,” which comes from the dialect word for “zucca” which means “head.”

Different tastes of ice cream at the shop

It is for this reason that Florence still boasts some of the best artisan gelato shops in all of Italy. Gelato artisans are famous for using secret ingredients, or special doses, that they would not reveal even under torture.

Thanks to experiments over the years to this day they manage to revisit classic flavors, such as chocolate, with flavors that are completely different from industrial ones.

Of course, they do not stop at just the classic, but experiment until they find their own distinctive flavors, which you can only find in these “gelaterie”, which you will surely dream about long after you return home.

Come experience the taste of authentic ice cream.
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