Italians no longer see ice cream as just a sweet

By: Trademagazin Date: 2024. 03. 19. 08:16

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At the invitation of the Italian Foreign Trade Institute, Gian Luca Cavi, master pastry teacher of the ALMA School of Culinary Arts, came to Budapest and gave a lecture on the latest ice cream trends. He clearly sees the secret of the success of Italian ice cream in the love of the ingredients, and even outright respect for them. He emphasized that the development of the classic line, the traditional ice cream, lies primarily in the continuous expansion of the knowledge gained about the raw materials. At the same time, in Italy, the so-called also a contemporary gastronomic trend, in which ice cream breaks out of the dessert category and becomes an equal dish on the restaurant menu and a defining element of certain dishes.

“There is a lot of buzz around ice cream here

Cavi says.

In addition to the traditional one, a new restaurant line has also appeared, which perceives ice cream not as sweets, but as food, and this change in attitude is the real novelty. This concept imagines ice cream in a restaurant environment, as part of the menu, and organically connects it to each course. He sees it no longer only as a cooling summer dessert and not only as a sweet, but as a seasonal, even salty or spicy dish, which can also be found in a complete menu.”

Cavi, who leads a contemporary ice cream making course at the internationally renowned ALMA Cooking Academy, demonstrated the classic and new direction of Italian ice cream with versions made from similar ingredients. The main element of both ice creams was the Sicilian pistachio, one of the products of the Pistacchiosofi company based in Bronte, dealing with the artisanal processing of pistachio-based products. Natural pistachio cream was added to the granita base (Italian iced porridge) of the classic version, but sweetened with honey instead of sugar.