How to spot real gelato

Even gelato is getting ruined.

Among other things, only flat metal tins, no vibrant colors, overflowing bins, fruits that are out of season, or there are additives etc.

The article has some great pictures too, to help you spot it.

I don't know why it should be so hard to reproduce elsewhere. Over the last couple of weekends I've been in the city (N.Y.C.) quite a bit and had supposedly "real" gelato, or at least went into the store prepared to buy, and it is not the real thing. Even when it looks pretty good it doesn't taste the same.

And, indeed, it is not ice cream...less fat, and more dense.

See:https://www.thelocal.it/20170622/find-the-best-quality-real-artisanal-gelato-ice-cream-in-italy

The same practices applied to other foods like pizza are applied here: add more sodium and sugar, and multiply the portion size. Take measures to reduce the cost of manufacturing at the expense of quality.

That's my guess.

davef said:

The same practices applied to other foods like pizza are applied here: add more sodium and sugar, and multiply the portion size. Take measures to reduce the cost of manufacturing at the expense of quality.

That's my guess.

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Except New York pizza, we truly have the greatest pizza in the world

Promenade said:

Except New York pizza, we truly have the greatest pizza in the world

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The greatest pizza in the world is in Italy .

But seriously, due to the fact that most Italian Americans live in New York (I'm italian American) , it's no surprise that the pizza is better here. I have a cousin who traveled to Wyoming...their "pizza" was toasted bread, ketchup, and cheddar cheese. I kid you not.

Here's my amendments to the pizza design:
Take a plain pizza with mozzarella cheese and...

Replace the bread portion with tortilla, making it one giant nacho.

Add nacho cheese.

Add salsa (Mexican salsa)

Add sour cream

Add BBQ sauce

Side dish is penne a la vodka

Thank chef davef

Make sure you grab a few Tums on your way out.

You like to get a rise out of me, Davef, but I'll indulge you. That's not a pizza, and neither is the abomination with pineapple and ham which both you and my son like.

As to your prior post, there are large Italo-American, or now, part Italo-American populations in a lot of big northeastern and mid-western cities, like Boston, Providence, Rhode Island, Philadelphia, indeed all over the North East and Middle Atlantic states, like all of Massachusetts, Connecticut, upstate New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, etc. Then, cities like Chicago and other areas of the Midwest should be included. San Francisco used to have a large Italo-American community as well, and the farming areas surrounding it, and mining states in the west as well. One could add New Orleans too. Nowadays, there's a lot in coastal Florida.

Yet, you're right, the best pizza is in New York. All the signs in other places advertising "New York Style Pizza" are just bad advertising.

I have no idea why, by the way, except for the fact that New Yorkers are notoriously demanding and insist on high quality, but if someone would provide it in other places, they'd make a fortune. We have four pizza places in my small township of about 10,000 people, and they all do a booming business. The first and still the best is an absolute goldmine. The owner's house should be on a register of the best homes in the area. And all from a pizza.



Grandma's slice:



White Pizza...it may not be authentic, but I love it.



And of course, pepperoni pie...blotting with a napkin is advised, but damn it's good.

HOW CAN YOU EAT WHITE PIZZA? Gravy is mandatory !!!
Its so much fun to get a rise out of you and I don't know why. I guess it's your sense of humor and how I get enjoyment out of teasing those who don't have a pole shoved up...you know where. Thank your thick skin and sense of humor (quality traits).

Seriously, I would love to eat the monster I created. And if we by some strange circumstance bump into each other at a restaurant, don't blot your pizza....simply pour the orangish grease onto my slices. I love pizza grease, but my goatee hates it as much as you do....

I know someone who likes tuna on his pizza..ick!! I'm not having that! But it's a healthy alternative to what I enjoy...

And white pizza freaks me out...as a kid, I saw an ad where people were eating it and was shocked by the lack of gravy! Pizza without tomato sauce is just...bread and cheese. Id rather make grilled cheese...with BBQ SAUCE! (I love you BBQ sauce).

Angela said:

See:https://www.thelocal.it/20170622/find-the-best-quality-real-artisanal-gelato-ice-cream-in-italy

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This is just common sense for most Europeans. Americans are always corrupting foreign cuisines, and it's very rarely an improvement. I can only think of Californian fusion cuisine as a successful American culinary innovation. I have been to the States and it's sad to see what Americans think tastes good. Pizza and ice cream are very good examples. I often felt like watching children eat a Mars bar and think they are eating the best food in the world. To make it worse many Americans genuinely believe that they live in the best and most free country in the world, even if they live in a trailer park and just lost their Obamacare.

In australia we have always had white pizza ( if you went to an italian pizza place )......with the new crop of italian Migrants from 2010 , ......only change is..out has gone different sizes of pizza....only one size like in italy, family size

http://www.birichino.com.au/menu-verticale040517.pdf

the only thing I can think about which might be different is the gluten free option for pizza


By the way , those American Pizza franchises have virtually never succeeded of have already gone bankrupt...........I do not see places like dominos being around in the next 10 years

Coriolan said:

This is just common sense for most Europeans. Americans are always corrupting foreign cuisines, and it's very rarely an improvement. I can only think of Californian fusion cuisine as a successful American culinary innovation. I have been to the States and it's sad to see what Americans think tastes good. Pizza and ice cream are very good examples. I often felt like watching children eat a Mars bar and think they are eating the best food in the world. To make it worse many Americans genuinely believe that they live in the best and most free country in the world, even if they live in a trailer park and just lost their Obamacare.

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I guess you made some very bad restaurant choices. It's best to prepare no matter where you go. There's lots of American food that's outstanding, from all of New Orleans cuisine to those of New England including seafood based dishes, to southern barbecue, to Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, the latter not my favorite to be sure. I assure you that when I have summer guests from Europe, and I take them to a clam bake, or I grill aged porterhouse steaks accompanied by sweet corn on the cob, twice baked potatoes, and finish it off with pecan pie, they're all very happy indeed.

Plus, given what I saw of some cuisines in Europe, particularly in the British Isles, even McDonald's is a vast improvement. As a
honeymooning young woman who didn't know you were better off eating in foreign restaurants when in England, I had one horrific dinner after another. On the sixth night, when I ordered chicken and vegetables, and got a soggy mess of gelatinous chicken and soppy, tasteless vegetables (obviously they just threw everything into a pot of boiling water), I started to cry and demanded to go back to France. Oh, and don't even ask about the supposed "pies" in the pubs. It's best to draw the veil of silence over the whole thing.

I also don't know where you got the Mars bars thing. I don't think I've ever eaten one, although a snicker's bar is a secret treat. I thought deep fried Mars bars was a Scottish thing.

@Davef,
Oh, Lord, sauce, not gravy.

Our white pizza has so much garlic that it's best to eat it when there's no chance of encountering another human being for at least 24 hours. It's the only food with a lot of garlic that I like.

@ Angela

Yeah, garlic (avocado, beans, warm milk left in the car at college bc you lift weights and need it for later to get your protein in (personal experience)) makes you clear the room if not held in, lol.

@Sile

Dominos barely even qualifies as food, let alone pizza. It's cardboard with "cheese".

And some restaurants can't even get names right...the chef mascot's name at chuck e cheeses (forgive me for even mentioning this soul sucking chamber) is Pasqualey....(yes, it ends in a Y)

To be pedantic for a moment, this is the only "authentic" pizza, a Margherita from Naples. Everything else is a later experimentation with it.

They'd never seen it in our parts until masses of southerners moved up.



This is the bread like food we ate:

Farinata made with ceci flour:



There's also focaccia. but that's really a bread. I like it best plain with lots of coarse salt and olive oil and some sprigs of rosemary. Other people like onions on top. It's great with cold cuts because you can just slice it in half and make a sandwich.





I have to admit, though that the focaccia of Recco, with melted cheese, is very good.

Angela said:

I guess you made some very bad restaurant choices. It's best to prepare no matter where you go. There's lots of American food that's outstanding, from all of New Orleans cuisine to those of New England including seafood based dishes, to southern barbecue, to Pennsylvania Dutch cooking, the latter not my favorite to be sure. I assure you that when I have summer guests from Europe, and I take them to a clam bake, or I grill aged porterhouse steaks accompanied by sweet corn on the cob, twice baked potatoes, and finish it off with pecan pie, they're all very happy indeed.

Plus, given what I saw of some cuisines in Europe, particularly in the British Isles, even McDonald's is a vast improvement. As a
honeymooning young woman who didn't know you were better off eating in foreign restaurants when in England, I had one horrific dinner after another. On the sixth night, when I ordered chicken and vegetables, and got a soggy mess of gelatinous chicken and soppy, tasteless vegetables (obviously they just threw everything into a pot of boiling water), I started to cry and demanded to go back to France. Oh, and don't even ask about the supposed "pies" in the pubs. It's best to draw the veil of silence over the whole thing.

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American food is derived from English food and in my experience one is not much better than the other. Of course in big cities like London and New York you can get very decent food but it's usually French, Italian, Japanese, Indian or the like, not British or American cuisine.

Once you go to a smaller cities, or worst of all in the countryside, food becomes pretty much inedible. In continental Western Europe (so not Britain or Poland) many of the best restaurants are found in the countryside, where non-local tourists rarely go because you need a car to reach them. That's also a protection from clueless American tourists who might leave the bad rating because they didn't get a grilled T-bone steak with corn on the cob in an haute cuisine restaurant.

I also don't know where you got the Mars bars thing. I don't think I've ever eaten one, although a snicker's bar is a secret treat. I thought deep fried Mars bars was a Scottish thing.

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That was just an image. It could be a Mars bar or any other snack or sweets, or even popcorn or frozen pizza, which a big part of Americans consider as gastronomy.

Focaccia? Most of those foods you posted I've never heard of...i'd never expect to find them listed in the menu at Pizza King, Joe's Brick Oven Pizza, Bar and Grill, Olive Garden, or Papa John's.

And you've never had a Mars bar? You're missing out! You need to broaden your horizons!

davef said:

Focaccia? Most of those foods you posted I've never heard of...i'd never expect to find them listed in the menu at Pizza King, Joe's Brick Oven Pizza, Bar and Grill, Olive Garden, or Papa John's.

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Focaccia is very common in Italy. Very traditional in Liguria, it is also found in many other regions, in similar typologies or in many local variants with different names. You never heard of those dishes, because the Italian-American cuisine doesn't represent the whole spectrum of the real Italian food. When I was in the US I went to a Italo-American restaurant and was a little disappointed.

Angela said:

Farinata made with ceci flour:

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The Tuscan version (Torta di Ceci or Cecìna) is better in my opinion, thinner and more crispy than the Ligurian one.

Angela said:

I have to admit, though that the focaccia of Recco, with melted cheese, is very good.

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Focaccia di Recco with cheese is very good, I agree with you. The cheese is usually stracchino.

davef said:

HOW CAN YOU EAT WHITE PIZZA? Gravy is mandatory !!!

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White Pizza is called "Pizza bianca". I think is more traditional of Rome area, but since the last decades is findable anywhere in Italy.

Pizza was originally from the Arabic world, so I wouldn't call it a true Italian food by definition.

Seanp said:

Pizza was originally from the Arabic world, so I wouldn't call it a true Italian food by definition.

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Flat breads are made all over the world. It doesn't make them all pizza.

This is not pizza.

Any more ******** and you'll be out of here shortly.

Seanp said:

Pizza was originally from the Arabic world, so I wouldn't call it a true Italian food by definition.

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You confuse the etimology of the term pizza with the recipe. Obviously you do it for purpose, since you are a single-purpose account of an Apricity user.

The term pizza derives from the Latin pinsere in turn of the Greek πίτα, pita, that is still of unclear origin. The pita (I think is originally pronounced "pitsa") is common in the whole Balkans.

In any case the Italian pizza is a recent Neapolitan recipe, 19th century or 18th century, that has little to do with the Balkan pita. Although, similar dishes are even older.

Pax Augusta said:

Focaccia is very common in Italy. Very traditional in Liguria, it is also found in many other regions, in similar typologies or in many local variants with different names. You never heard of those dishes, because the Italian-American cuisine doesn't represent the whole spectrum of the real Italian food. When I was in the US I went to a Italo-American restaurant and was a little disappointed.



The Tuscan version (Torta di Ceci or Cecìna) is better in my opinion, thinner and more crispy than the Ligurian one.




Focaccia di Recco with cheese is very good, I agree with you. The cheese is usually stracchino.



White Pizza is called "Pizza bianca". I think is more traditional of Rome area, but since the last decades is findable anywhere in Italy.

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By us, the thickness varies depending on the place. I suppose that makes sense given we're sort of a border region, neither fish nor foul.

I like it thin and crispy too. This is from the Cinque Terre:


My real passion in terms of bread is sgabei, our fried bread. I've never seen it further down into Toscana.



I don't know how I come back thinner after three or four weeks in Italy.

In terms of Italian restaurants in the U.S., there are some good ones, but they usually cost an absolute fortune. For example, there are quite a few who bill themselves as northern Italian restaurants (sometimes actually run by Croatians), but sometimes by chefs from Italy, and they try to get it right, but it's still not quite the same. It's not even the same for me. I try to just duplicate my mother's "recipes", and still it tastes different, and not as good, frankly. You would have to import every single ingredient, even the water, I think.

Felidia's menu:
http://felidia-nyc.com/menus/#dessert-menu

Ai Fiori-billed as "Italian Riviera", i.e. Ligurian cooking. The prices here are not to be believed.
http://aifiorinyc.com/menus/dinner_menu

Marea-
http://marea-nyc.com/file/7367/Marea-Menu-Dinner.pdf

Meanwhile, some of the best Italian food I've ever eaten in the U.S. was at Rao's a southern Italian restaurant in East Harlem. It's not cheap, but it's delicious. Of course, it's all cash, and you have to wait up to a year for a reservation! The only guaranteed way to get in is to know someone who is a regular who won't be using their seat. Take a look at these pictures. It's southern Italian cooking at its best.
http://marea-nyc.com/file/7367/Marea-Menu-Dinner.pdf

Pax Augusta said:

Focaccia is very common in Italy. Very traditional in Liguria, it is also found in many other regions, in similar typologies or in many local variants with different names. You never heard of those dishes, because the Italian-American cuisine doesn't represent the whole spectrum of the real Italian food. When I was in the US I went to a Italo-American restaurant and was a little disappointed.



The Tuscan version (Torta di Ceci or Cecìna) is better in my opinion, thinner and more crispy than the Ligurian one.




Focaccia di Recco with cheese is very good, I agree with you. The cheese is usually stracchino.



White Pizza is called "Pizza bianca". I think is more traditional of Rome area, but since the last decades is findable anywhere in Italy.

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Thanks, I ought to try these recipes at some point!