[Sca-cooks] Re: Period Ices/Sorbets/Cold Treats?

[Elise Fleming]

Magdalena vander Brugghe wrote:

>I have read, and would *love* to get this confirmed, that the
Italians
>would drag ice down from the mountains, chip it and serve it on the
>street with fruit juice.  Basically a period Sno-Kone.  Does anyone
here
>know if there is any truth to this?

I'm still scanning Elizabeth David's book and can't find any
evidence that what we know of as snow cones, sorbets,
sherbets...existed within period.  It seems as if they originate as
novelties after 1660 or thereabouts.  There were ingenious ways to
cool _wine_.  And in my earlier post I had mentioned ice.  David
says that it was snow, not ice.  The 1688 English-Italian dictionary
that David quotes gives as a meaning for "sorbetto" 'any kind of
supping broth; also a kind of drink used in Turkey, made of Lemonds,
Sugar, Corrans, Almonds, Musk and Amber very delicated called in
England Sherbet.' "  David continues... "Torriano (the dictionary
editor) made no reference to frozen sherbets.  He didn, however,
give an entry for 'gelato' as 'frozen, congealed, gellied'.  This
too was an entry new since 1611, and although it does not yet appear
as a noun it is not without relevance to the story of ices, because
when translating seventeenth-century and indeed earlier culinary
Italian IT IS ALL TOO EASY TO FALL INTO THE TRAP OF SUPPOSING THAT
'GELATO' MEANT SOMETHING FROZEN OR CONGEALED WHEN IN FACT IT MEANT
'GELLIED'."  (Caps are for emphasis, not shouting.)

Fruit encased in ice as part of a dessert display _was_ done.  But
this isn't fruit juice poured over ice, or frozen in cream...

Alys Katharine, getting hungry for ice cream