The origins of gelato – food of kings, emperors and pharoahs

Now we are nearly in June, all things summery come to mind. If you are visiting Italy, it is more than likely you will be enjoying a gelato or two!

Eating chilled desserts is nothing new – and the Egyptian pharoahs were among the first to serve ice sweetened with fruit and fruit juices to cool them down after a long trip up the Nile.

However, the Florentine dynasty, the Medici family, is perhaps responsible for the origins of gelato as we know it today. The Medicis held a competition to find the best frozen dessert and a farmer named Ruggieri devised a fruity, iced sorbet, which captivated the tastebuds of Catherine de Medici.

Later, the aptly named Bernardo Buontalenti was hired to prepare a banquet on behalf of the Medicis for the Spanish king – and based on Ruggieri’s sorbet recipe, Buontalenti took the frozen dessert a step further and served a creamy frozen dessert and thus gelato was born.

So the origins of gelato as we know it really date from the sixteenth century, thanks to one of the most powerful dynasties in history – though there is no record of what their favourite flavour might have been!

Gradually, it became popular in other European countries and America, with New York tasting its first gelato in the mid-18th century.

Today, no holiday to Italy is complete without at least one scoop of gelato! Recently, temperatures in Rome have reached 38° – and as it is illegal to bathe in Rome’s fountains, gelato has been flying out of the freezers.

If it is good enough for kings, emperors and pharoahs, it is good enough for the rest of us mere mortals. Buon appetito!

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