Gelato vs Ice Cream: The Sweetest Showdown of All
Writing this guide to gelato and why it’s different from ice cream took me far longer than it should have because the truth is, I was planning my Italian honeymoon, which means deciding where to get gelato each day and night. I’ve imagined walking around Piazza Navona with a cup of limone gelato in one hand and a cone of stracciatella in the other. I’ve imagined being greeted by the hotel concierge with a pint of pistachio and receiving a tour of the Colosseum while housing a double scoop of tiramisu. I love ice cream, too, but you can’t exactly watch a svelte man named Luca form the perfect cone of nocciotella inside a building older than the United States of America. But aside from the setting, what’s the difference between Italian gelato and ice cream, anyway?
“It’s really a question of semantics. Gelato is just the Italian word for ice cream. However, there are definitely certain qualities that gelato tends to have, and a different set of qualities that ice cream tends to have but it really depends on the individual producer,” says Hallie Meyer, owner of Caffè Panna, a New York City-based shop that churns out Roman-inspired gelato. Dr. Robert Roberts, Professor and Head of Food Science at Penn State University, adds that gelato can also include sorbet, water-based gelato, and high-fat dairy products.