It’s definitely getting colder these past few days, and now that the clocks have gone back, it’s darker in the evenings. A far cry from sitting outdoors overlooking Lake Como, eating gelato at 10pm as we did this past Summer. I’ve neglected to bring you the fruits of my gelato research tour of Lombardy. Mea culpa (that’s Latin, I know, but it’s close enough!).
We toured around Lombardy, sampling the delight of Lago Iseo, Lago di Garda (again!) and Lago di Como. One thing that we noticed was that they have moved away from using spatula for icecream in a lot of places, which was not well received by our reviewers! Scoops do not cut it!

Italian gelato dates back to the 16th century. Most stories give the credit to Bernardo Buontalenti, a native of Florence, Italy, who delighted the court of Catherina de Medici with his creation. Italians almost certainly introduced gelato to the rest of Europe, with Sicilian born Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli being one of the most influential individuals in the history of gelato – he was one of the first to sell it to the public. My daughter had heard of Ice N’Roll, a new phenomenon from Thailand apparently, and we watched with interest! Icecream is poured onto a freezing surface and then rolled up with a blade to form icecream roses! Here’s a great video of it in action. Apart from the wonderful ice cream you get in Italy, there are several artisan producers all over the island of Ireland, such as Tipperary Organic (www.tipperaryorganic.ie) or Baldwin’s (www.baldwinsicecream.com), Linnalla Farmhouse Icecream (www.linnallaicecream.ie) and Fabio’s Italian Ice Cream in Sligo – this is the real deal! There are queues out the door of Fabio’s year round!
In Northern Ireland, Glastry Farm (www.glastryfarm.com) and Morelli’s (www.morellisices.com) are well-known and there is a lovely wee farmhouse ice cream parlour in Irvinestown, Co. Fermanagh, called Tickety-Moo.
If you ever thought about trying your hand this yourself, I’ve a whole chapter dedicated to the art of ice cream making my book Money for Jam!