Studying Italy’s coolest subject

I believed her when she said she was a student but not when she told me what she was studying.

“Ice cream! I’m studying ice cream at the Carpigiani University here in Bologna. I’m a gelato undergraduate. Yesterday we made fennel ice cream! It was scrummy!” Her friend giggled. “We’re coneheads!” she said in an American accent. “We’re over in Italy on ice cream internships! Great for the resume. Not that great for the figure!”

The Italian region is famous for Lamborghini cars, tortellini, mortadella and Ducati motorbikes as well as its pasta sauce. Now it boasts a gelato college and the world’s first and so far only ice cream museum.

Such things you learn just by sitting in a cafe, giving your most saccharine smile and asking the young women on the next table where you could find an ice cream. As opening gambits go, I wasn’t in the mood for “Where do you ladies suggest I go for a traditional hand-crafted, cured-meat sausage? Or some spag bol.”

Sweet tooths will out. And I was enthusiastically advised to “check out” the Cremeria Scirocco on Via Barelli. “They have the best wells in the world. You’ve got to try his Brazilian fruit pulp and anise icicles. You haven’t lived till you’ve licked on one of his white mint lollies.”

“And his savouries! Tuna and onion. Pumpkin and black pepper. Gorgonzola and walnuts.” I looked sceptical. “And peas! Someone told me you can get a curry ice cream but I haven’t found it yet.”

The undergraduates were clearly into their subject. Eager to convert me to the lactose-free lifestyle and become a better person for the renunciation of hydrogenated fats, the pair kindly escorted me around a few corners to Le Sorbetteria Castiglione. I stood looking through the window at the chocolate hearts, morettis, chestnut cremes and dolce contagios. I didn’t know which one to have.

“Fancy a kiss?” laughed the British girl. Her American friend quickly translated. “A bacio. It means a kiss. Hazelnut and cocoa. Yummy.”

Guessing my mouth didn’t have an nut allergy, they ordered me a classic combo of Sicilian cassata, pistachio and stracciatella (chocolate shavings). “Smell it first, warm the palate and enjoy!”

They were late for a lecture and I tagged along. Students on the €1,900 three-week Total Gelato Experience course where you learn artisanal crafts going back to the courts of the Renaissance princes. They learn that gelato is softer and has less air than ice cream because it is churned more slowly and not served frozen. It is healthier – in moderation – although it must contain butter fat.

As well as the specialised production techniques (two days are spent mastering a scoop) and modern ice cream management methods, the aspiring entrepreneurs learn a bit of history, too. One of the first ice cream shops outside of Italy opened in Paris in the 17th century.

The new museum is seven miles out of town in Anzola dell’ Emilia at the factory that has been manufacturing ice cream making machines since 1946. The girls said “ciao” and I paid my €3.

The ice cream school is above the museum. One of the first things I saw was a recipe for an 11th-century Arabic date sorbet. And a pomegranate one.

Luciana Polliotti, the museum’s curator and passionate ice cream historian, informed me that gelato was probably invented by an alchemist and astrologer to Catherina de’ Medici in the 16th century.

An Italian architect invented the fridge and the first gelato cart appeared in Varese in north Italy. Originally, ice cream was a luxury item.

The ice cone was only patented in 1903. Lollies , icicle or “ghiaccioli”, were invented by an 11-year-old San Franciscan, Frank Epperton, who in 1905 left out some soda, water and a stick and found it frozen in the morning.

Unsurprisingly, the museum has an impressive collection of ice cream-related machinery. And lots of photographs. There’s a nod to England with one showing children queuing in front of a Mr Whippy van.

My shoulder was tapped. It was the ice cream students asking me how I was getting on. They just wanted to make sure I knew the way back into a town.

"Remember Bologna for its gelato and for two girls telling you that a real man has three balls." They giggled, mimicked three scoops, gave me the thumb's up and another "ciao".

The Gelato Museum is open Mon-Sat by appointment only (info@fondazionecarpigiani.i)
Information on Carpigiani Gelato University at gelatouniversity.com