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Spumoni Day
"🎶 Chocolate chip and everything that's nice;
Tutti-frutti once and spumoni twice!"
~ Louis Prima, "Banana Split for My Baby", 1951
Spumoni — chocolate, cherry, and pistachio gelato! Are you a fan, or were you rather put off in childhood by versions studded with mysterious little bits of candied fruit and nuts? If so, it may be time for a revisit both the dessert and this deliciously coloured tartan, for classic flavours and their respective colours!
Gelato is ice cream’s smoother, silkier Italian cousin, traditionally made with more milk and less cream than American ice cream and churned with less air, giving it a dense, creamy texture. It’s also served a little warmer, which softens it and allows the flavors to come through more intensely.
Traditional spumone—from the Italian spuma, meaning “foam”—originated in Naples and is rather grander than the familiar striped carton from the supermarket freezer. It was traditionally a molded, layered dessert, often combining different flavors and colors with nuts, candied fruit, and sometimes a layer of whipped cream, then sliced rather than scooped. Italian immigrants carried spumoni abroad, where it became especially popular in Italian-American communities and evolved into the familiar combination of chocolate, cherry, and pistachio. In fact, spumoni helped inspire another famous three-flavor favorite:
Neapolitan ice cream, which simplified the idea by dropping the fruit and nuts and eventually settling on chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry.
So perhaps those suspicious little candied bits deserve another chance after all. Mangia! 💚 💗 💛 💙 🍨 🍨 🍨 🇮🇹
For today, Ice Cream Day, we have the Gelato tartan. Gelato is the Italian word for ice cream, generally lower in fat, but higher in sugar, than other styles of ice cream. Gelato typically contains less air and more flavoring than other kinds of frozen desserts, giving it a density and richness that distinguishes it from other ice creams.
The history of gelato is rife with myths and very little evidence to substantiate them. Some say it dates back to frozen desserts in Sicily, ancient Rome and Egypt made from snow and ice brought down from mountain tops and preserved below ground. Later, in 1686 the Sicilian fisherman Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli perfected the first ice cream machine. However, the popularity of gelato among larger shares of the population only increased in the 1920s–1930s in the northern Italian city of Varese, where the first gelato cart was developed.
This tartan, by designer Carol A.L. Martin, includes the colors of a classic Italian ice cream flavor, Spumoni.
Spumone (from spuma or "foam"), plural spumoni, is a molded Italian gelato-style ice cream made with layers of different colors and flavors, usually containing candied fruits and nuts. Spumone was created in a pasticceria owned by the Lo Monaco family in Sicily.
Typically, it is of three flavors, with a fruit/nut layer between them. The ice cream layers are often mixed with whipped cream. Cherry, pistachio, and either chocolate or vanilla are the typical flavors of the ice cream layers, and the fruit/nut layer often contains cherry bits—causing the traditional red/pink, green, and brown color combination.
It is popular in places with large Italian immigrant populations such as the United States and Argentina. In fact, August 21 is National Spumoni Day in the United States, and November 13 is National Spumoni Day in Canada.
Spumoni is the staple dessert in Italian culture after a dinner of ravioli.
To make your own spumoni ice cream terrine, click the spoon of ice cream for a recipe.