Less sugar, more flavour; less ingredients, more sustainability: this is the ABC of gelato at Identità Milano 2022

Assenza (Corrado, Caffè Sicilia in Noto – Siracusa), Brunelli (Paolo, Paolo Brunelli in Senigallia - Ancona ), Casone (Matteo di La Glace, in Paris), this is the A B C of gelato at Identità Milano 2022. Each one makes it in a different place, using different ingredients and processes, yet they all make it giving the utmost attention to deliciousness, to a high concentration of flavours which, instead of stimulating pleasure through an excessive use of sugar, release the ingredients' natural goodness.

An alphabet, an equally natural extract of principles, which today are present not because of sudden improvisation, but through a constant work for which ingredients and people evolve together. 

Gelato fiordilatte from Corrado Assenza: he presented three versions, which change based on the milk (goat, sheep, cow), and the paired herbs

A – like Assenza: three tastings, and one common element, milk. In fact, fiordilatte times three, for every type of milk: sheep, goat and cow. The latter is the hardest to use, perhaps because it was mistakenly trivialised, while the former two, less common, require more focused research, the advice and genuine ingredients from shepherds and farmers. Hence we have both exceptional products, and one much more popular but worth enhancing and processing to obtain the desired balance. Corrado Assenza presents his stroll in fiordilatte, infusiosn of herbs from the Sicilian countryside, and candied fruits – lemon, orange, and bergamot. The latter represent the trait d'union with his Caffè, where candied fruits mark the end of the winter, and their soon use both in pastry making and in gelatos. The herbs are wild fennel, rosemary and sage (respectively for the goat's milk fiordilatte with candied orange, sheep's milk with rosemary and gin and cow's milk with sage and bergamot), herbs that, once picked, are infused in milk for 24 hours, so that the fats act on the essential oil to retain them. The aromas are then included in the creaminess of the gelato which, through its freshness, conveys the intact aromas of the ingredients, full, true, with elegance and pureness, ingredients that for Corrado are children of Nature.

Paolo Brunelli with his two-ingredient gelato made with rice and mucilage, the pulp that protects the shell of the cocoa beans; it has a similar aroma to honey, a molasse with a unique acidity

B – like Brunelli: from Sicily to the coast of the Marche, and from the coast of the Marche to Miles Davis who of course wasn't a gelato maker but one of the most incredible jazz players in the history of music. In the mid Fifties, almost Sixties, the cultural context wasn't very simple: the world evolved and Miles realised that his music could not keep the same rhythm, be stuck in the dogmas of classicism. It was time to innovate, be inspired by the most innovative music available at the moment, rock. He brought rock into his music, and in 1970 he launched a record titled Bitches Brew. Who cares if it's a difficult title to translate [into Italian]: its rhythm, its revolutionary strength are enough to convince Brunelli, a failed musician obsessed with music, to do the same with gelato. To create, and inject constant new influences into ice cream, starting from the ideas of the young team at Combo, his experimental lab, and then reducing the number of ingredients used in the recipes, ideally two. There's more, this new creature, this Bitches Brew-inspired gelato must be both ethically and culturally charming, and complete in terms of flavours. Now, the gelato or sorbetto that Brunelli presents has no animal ingredient at all, and this is also an excuse to invite colleagues not to demonise, or call their water-based products as vegan, because at the heart of veganism there is a very serious philosophy, which is much more than a selection of fruity flavours. The invitation is above all to group new recipes, to consider this evolution under a new category. Here's the list of ingredients: on top of water, in our case, 300 gr of rice and cocoa mucilage, that is to say the honey pulp that protects the cocoa beans, a molasse of unusual acidity, impossible to classify, a nectar that until recently would be discarded without thinking twice. Stop, the list of ingredients is over: hence, after making a rice broth, and removing the starch, this becomes a mix and is then strained, without throwing away anything, because what is left is used to make a wafer, or tofu to use at Combo. Having used all that can be used, the hope is that of making a product that is both a vegetal cuddle, and an agglomerate of affection built with two ingredients.

Gelato with bread crust from Matteo Casone to create in a sustainable way, without neglecting the flavours and sweetness typical of gelato

C- like Casone: the last trip, from Bologna to Brisbane in Australia, and then again to Bologna, where Matteo Casone, one day got a call he could not ignore. He met one (the) chef who had an offer to make him - Alain Ducasse. They spent a few days together, got to know each other and soon Matteo's collaboration at the court of Alain's Manufacture began, with a very precise goal: to remove every barrier in the world of gelatos, starting from that big wall that separates pastry-making from cooking; fostering the birth of gelatos with less sugar, but rich in flavours, also without borders: sour, bitter, everything is allowed, especially all the typical taste nuances of chef Ducasse which Matteo absorbs from Jean Marie Hiblot, who recently passed away, so as to enhance the true flavours of gelato. No more sugar, no more fats as he was asked during his years in Australia: today gelato takes a different direction, and Matteo follows this principle adapting it to the stimuli offered by sustainability. So that, supported by the managers of each restaurant, they recover the bread left after service to use it as the base for gelato. An idea which starts from the value that Casone gives to this ingredient, so important in Italian cuisine; an ingredient rooted in Matteo's origins, whose grandfather was a baker, and inspired by a book that struck Casone: Bread is Gold by Massimo Bottura. The crust of bread (with five cereals, seeds and sourdough) the most aromatic component, is given a second life: it is toasted and left in infusion in milk. The result is a creamy, dark mix, with unusual sour notes of malt, almost caramelised, but without destroying the original sweetness of the tasting, so that it can be paired with vanilla, chocolate; a gelato you can eat in the street, a gelato in every sense, and not just an element of fine pastry-making.

Translated into English by Slawka G. Scarso