This past Sunday, July 17, 2016 was National Ice Cream Day, and my feelings were mixed.
In one respect, it was a great time to be alive. With a nationally recognized occasion backing their respective dessert habits, foodies across the country treated themselves to a scoop, or two, or three and snapped pictures of their frozen eats for the world to see. Though I did not actually get a chance to get myself some ice cream (and I admit this with shame), I even joined the fray, posting a photo of one of my favorite cones on Instagram with the hashtag #nationalicecreamday.
However, while surrounded by all this screaming for ice cream, I also became wistful. In a few short weeks, the plentiful ice cream available in and around my New York home will no longer be at my disposal, for I will be skipping town to study abroad.
Of course, I hardly have a legitimate thing to complain about.
For the fall semester, I'm going to be kicking it in Italy, a foodie's paradise. There, I will likely eat better than I ever have for the majority of meals. Plus, if we're talking frozen treats, I will have full access to one of the greats: gelato.
This brings me to the following retort: "So what! You'll have gelato." Friends and family have assured me of this often, and they're collective point has some validity, to be sure.
Gelato seems pretty close kin to ice cream, and, to my understanding, there is nothing quite like Italian gelato. Of course, the NYC area has some formidable joints, like L'Arte del Gelato and Amorino, that more than get the job done.
But allegedly, Italian gelato is incomparable. And it will likely be in my belly on the regular, to boot. However, at the end of the day, gelato will likely fall short of fully filling the role of ice cream because the two desserts are not the same thing.
Ice cream and gelato are different beasts, apples and oranges, if you will. Of course, they are more or less cut from the same cloth. As previously suggested, many people dub gelato a kind of "Italian ice cream," and besides they both start with the same basic ingredients: cream, milk, and sugar. But then there emerges a proverbial fork in the road.
Citing the expertise of gelato aficionado Morgan Morano, Linda Poon of NPR's The Salt lays down the facts. When it comes to ice cream versus gelato, there are approximately three distinguishing factors.
Ice cream usually goes heavier on the cream. Egg yolks are also used to pack the resulting mixture together. Gelato, on the other hand, tends to include more milk than cream and, most often, excludes egg yolks entirely. The result is a difference in butterfat. Because of its reliance on cream, ice cream ends up having a higher butterfat content than gelato. As a result, the average ice cream is commonly thicker and heavier than your average gelato, allowing it to be served in the much-loved round, firm scoops rather than "soft, fluid drifts."
Ice cream and gelato are also produced by distinct processes of churning. As a rule, authentically produced gelato has far less air churned into it than does ice cream: while ice cream tends to be around 50 percent air, gelato is usually 20 to 30 percent. And this is simply because gelato doesn't need this extra fuss. In ice cream, air is necessary for making an inherently heavy mixture, filled with cream and egg yolk, light and fluffy. However, with its lower butterfat content, gelato is already exceptionally light and fluffy, so it does perfectly well with a low and slow churning process.
Finally, there are differences in serving. Usually, gelato is served at seven to 12 degrees Fahrenheit, a temperature that is about 10 to 15 degrees warmer than the one at which ice cream is served. Furthermore, the most authentic gelato is not scooped, but scraped with a spade.
None of this is to say that I will be dissatisfied with my gelato experience. As a matter of fact, there are many things about gelato that make it "better" in the eyes of many food lovers. According, once again, to Morano, the lower butterfat of gelato better allows its flavors to emerge. While eating, you are better able to appreciate these flavors too, because the treat is served at a warmer temperature that doesn't numb your mouth in the fashion of ice cream.
Still though, I appreciate ice cream for its own formidable qualities. In particular, I love the creative mix-ins included in the ice cream at home. I like the aesthetically pleasing round scoops, and even the ice-cold temperatures. (Brain freeze can be fun sometimes, right?)
To make a long story short, gelato will never be able to replace ice cream. However, in the same way, ice cream will never be able to replace gelato. Each frozen treat is a delicious entity unto itself, and so each should be appreciated, evaluated, and missed for its own unique properties.
