Italians are famous for their love of food, and there are countless passages circulating on the Internet, counting the examples of Italians who "lost because of eating" on the battlefield of World War II, such as when other countries were busy developing new weapons, Italy invented the freeze-dried preservation food method because it wanted to eat delicious military food; on the battlefield 10 kilometers away from the supply station, because of hunger, the whole army cooked pasta to eat, and then the whole army was easily captured by the enemy; the battle would stop at lunchtime, and the spaghetti would be lost and hide behind the battle line... So many people say: Thank God, Italy joined the Axis powers during World War II, otherwise the Nazi Iron Cross might have really spread all over the world. Italians do like to eat and also like to talk about food, taking it for granted to spend a lot of time and effort preparing good food. Italy has a lot of addictive cuisine, pasta, pizza, ham, rice, sausages, etc., but today we are going to talk about the traditional desserts that are popular in Italy, the "net red" of the dessert industry.
1. Handmade ice cream
Gelato is not simply "Ice Cream", and if you tell the owner in Italy that you want Ice Cream, the owner will solemnly tell you that it is Gelato, not Ice Cream. Compared to regular ice cream, artisanal ice cream is fresh, low-temperature, low-fat, low-calorie, dense and very refreshing and natural, without a thick, sticky creamy taste. The reason why Italian handmade ice cream is more delicious and popular than ordinary ice cream is because its ingredients are very natural, the fat comes from fresh milk and high-quality cream, the milk aroma is natural and rich; the sugar comes from glucose syrup, cane sugar and fresh juice, making it refreshing and has a variety of flavor choices; because it is carefully made by hand, there is less air in, the taste is more dense and solid, more delicate; and it is sold fresh to ensure a fresh taste.
It is said that the origins of artisanal ice cream can be traced back to the ancient Roman period, when people would add ice and honey from Mount Vesuvius to eat. Later, in the late 16th century, the famous Italian Medici Family commissioned the famous artist Bernardo Buontalenti to prepare desserts for the arrival of the Spanish royal family, and he made handmade ice cream, so Bernardo is considered the inventor of Italian handmade ice cream.
There is now an artisanal ice cream parlor in every 5,000 households in Italy, and century-old shops can be found everywhere. Basically, every store maintains a small-scale production and operation, creating flavors with the personality and mood of the producer, so no store has exactly the same taste.
2. Tiramisu
As a representative of Italian desserts, Tiramisu is a fashionable dessert that is currently popular in major cafes, bakery stores and Western restaurants. Tiramisu is made of less than 10 kinds of raw materials, but it can bring a variety of intricate flavors and textures, it combines the bitterness of espresso, the sweetness of eggs and sugar, the mellow aroma of sweet wine, the splendor of biscuits, the richness of chocolate, the thick aroma of cheese and whipped cream, and the dryness of cocoa powder, intertwined layer by layer, which is intoxicating.
There are many legends about the origin of Tiramisu, but the warmest and most touching version is that an Italian soldier during World War II was about to go to the battlefield, but during the war, the family was surrounded by walls, and even a smart woman could not cook without rice. The soldier's wife loved her husband very much, and in order to prepare dry food for him, she made all the biscuits and bread that could be eaten in the house into a pastry, named "Tiramisu", which means "take me away". Every time the soldier ate Tiramisu, he remembered his lover at home. Tiramisu is not just a delicacy, but a feeling of love and happiness.
3. Italian custard
Panna Cotta is another very famous Italian dessert in addition to handmade ice cream and tiramisu. Panna Cotta literally means "boiled cream", which is made by cooking cream, sugar, fish gelatin powder and vanilla and then cooling and solidifying. Its method is very simple, the appearance is also very ordinary, milky white like pudding upside down on the plate, dug down with a spoon, like cut into soft tofu, but the texture is very smooth and delicate, like silk, rich milk fragrance with the fresh fragrance of other ingredients, melting in the mouth, really cute. Eat custard with fruit or hazelnuts.
The name jelly only appears in Italian food books after the 1960s, but it is generally considered a traditional dessert in the Piedmont region of Italy. In its most primitive times, it was made from cream from the italian mountains and boiled with fish bones. There are no fish bones anymore, there are ready-made fish gelatin powders, and the taste is more varied, you can add nuts, rum, Marsala and so on.
4. Mille-feuille puff pastry
Sfogliatelle is a traditional dessert in Naples, Italy. Sfogliatelle means "cascading" in Italian and is very well matched by its striped shell form. In Europe it is an excellent delicacy, and its particularity is enough to represent the top dim sum in various italian fine dining restaurants. The crust of the mille-feuille is layered on top of each other, and it is usually roasted to a particularly crispy finish, while the inverted inside is made of a mixture of Ricotta cheese, custard, almond cream, fruit preserves and other Italian specialties. The compound taste of crispy on the outside and tender on the inside is impressive.
Mille-feuille is said to have been founded in santa rosa in Naples in the 17th century: a nun added some sugar-stained dried fruit, sugar and whey cheese to the milk wheat dough left over from the kitchen, wrapped the ingredients in two muffins, baked them, and the final pastry looked like a monk's hood. This is the prototype of the mille-feuille. Modern people like to sprinkle powdered sugar on the mille-feuille pastry, which is especially crunchy and delicious when it is hot; you can also open a mouth in the middle of the mille-feuille pastry and fill it with custard sauce.
5. Cheese rolls
There are many flavorful snacks in Sicily, Italy, but cannoli is the most classic dessert in Sicily. Cannoli, which means "small roll" in Italian, requires the dough to be shaped with a hollow tube, fried in oil and then filled with filling. The filling is made from the local produce of ricotta cheese, but the shelf life of this cheese is only about 10 days, so pastry chefs outside of Sicily have replaced the whey cheese with whipped cream. Fancy cheese rolls decorate brightly colored ingredients such as chocolate beans, nuts, candied fruits or candied pumpkins on both sides, not only to add texture, but also to optimize the "appearance".
Freshly fried cheese rolls are sweet and crispy, and it's not just a dessert, it's one of The Italians' favorite breakfast meals. This dessert originally originated in the Sicily city of Palermo, where the local people prepare this small snack every time they celebrate carnival. The habit then spread and developed into a traditional Sicily delicacy that is also included as part of traditional Italian desserts. In the famous movie "The Godfather", you can also see the cheese roll - Connie (Connie) poisoned her godfather Altobello in the theater with a poisoned cheese roll.
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