Talk:Gelato

A case of mistaken identity

Another misnomer I have recently encountered, one very relevant to gelato is this: in certain parts of the USA, most notably on the East Coast (particularly in New Jersey), the word 'gelati' is being used to describe a parfait (layered dessert) containing alternating layers Italian water ice and soft-serve, ice cream or custard. Strictly speaking, 'gelati' is the plural of 'gelato' and the aforementioned dessert bears no resemblance to true gelato.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Gelatomaster (talk • contribs) 02:07, December 15, 2005‎

Water Ice? What's That?

Noteworthy, is the fact that "Italian Ice", or "Water Ice", as the East Coast of the US knows, does not exist anywhere in Italy or Europe. Granita, a frozen mix of fruit puree, sugar and water, would be the closest thing to what Americans call "Italian Ice". Maybe someone would consider moving the quoted "misnomer" above to the Gelato article, as a note. It is confusing to many east-coasters who are experiencing Authentic Gelato for the first time.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.82.9.84 (talk • contribs) 17:54, February 9, 2006‎

gelato and traditional

The Italian word gelato is derived from the word congelato which means frozen. The expression "gelato ice cream" is so American-centric. Gelato IS ice cream. "Italian ice cream (Italian-style ice cream) or gelato" would be a far better rendering. If the article then goes on to explain the differences between Italian gelato and traditional American-style ice cream (which is not necessarily traditional in other parts of the world), then that would be a valid comparison.

However, the comparison of gelato vs. "traditional ice cream" is rather bizarre. An informed study of the introduction and popularity of ice cream in the US suggests that gelato is the traditional ice cream that then was transformed into a popular American confection.

Seriously guys! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 93.56.103.12 (talk) 21:14, 24 August 2012 (UTC)

I agree. I'm italian and this article is full of nonsense. Here in Italy we call "gelato" both the artisan ice cream and the industrial ice cream. On the packages of industrial ice creams made in Italy there's written "gelato" and the translation in English on the same cardboard boxes is "ice cream". Even we call "gelato" that unpalatable "sundae" that they sells at McDonald's. This article is USA-centric, it only testifies that people in the USA calls with italian names foods that were instead invented by Italian-American people that no longer has anything to do with the Italian culture. Other examples of these abominations (and moreover with daring combinations of flavours) are Fettuccine Alfredo, heavily altered butter noodles or macaroni, and Italian soda, that no one in Italy ever drinked. --79.45.32.150 (talk) 13:18, 22 September 2013 (UTC)

I am going to delete the opening part of the Production paragraph, namely: "Making gelato is similar to making ice cream". As the opening paragraph of the whole article says that gelato is simply the Italian word for ice cream, then to perpetuate a false distinction is not warranted.--621PWC (talk) 16:39, 17 April 2014 (UTC)

The only real difference here is that the "gelato" described in the article is a sundae made in the USA and marketed as "italian" just for fashion, while in Italy we actually just make ice creams without worrying if they are italian or not... Even the "american-like" sundaes that you can eat at our local McDonald's are called "gelato" (italian word for "ice cream") by us. We just make difference between "industrial" and "artisanal" ice creams. --79.41.91.32 (talk) 00:21, 15 July 2014 (UTC)

Recent addition (August 2014)

Thank you for your contribution. However there are two problems: 1) If you are using a source, you need to include an inline citation so that readers will know where the information came from (without having to dig through the article's history. 2) I see nothing to indicate that mrpisagelato.com.au is a reliable source. The text you added makes several claims about gelato and ice cream that are unsupported and seem to be biased in favor of the business's product:

• "gelato is prepared hand-crafted fresh in batches daily" - This is certainly true in some cases. Other times the gelato is made in advance.
• "ice cramsic...is commonly made weeks or months in advance" - Ice cream from my kitchen is made minutes before we eat it. It is still ice cream.
• "(gelato) has a richer, creamier and smoother taste". This is subjective. Honda would likely say that the difference between a Honda and any other car is that theirs are "more stylish, more reliable and make you look cool."
• (gelato) does not contain the same nutritional fats and sugars". I have no idea what this is supposed to mean. Cream and sugar are "nutritional fats and sugars". Both are used to make ice cream and gelato.
• "Ice cream has a much colder taste in the mouth". ("In the mouth..."? I'm not sure where else a taste would be...) This is subjective and confusing: "colder" is not a "taste".
• "(ice cream) is usually served in skoops, whereas Gelato is served with a spatula". Again, not always. Even if this is true, does this make the product any different?
• "Gelato...is hand made in small bundles and not made in bulk quantity". Gelato is hand made ice cream? When I make a batch of ice cream does it become gelato? When my local gelato shop makes a batch of gelato (with several machines, BTW), how small must the batch be to remain gelato?
• "ice -cream is user's anonymous machines". Again, I make small batches of ice cream. Yes, I use a machine to continually stir it (much like the local gelato shop). If I use my father's hand-cranked ice cream maker, does it become gelato?
• "(ice cream uses) industrialised pre-mix ingredients". My vanilla ice cream uses milk, cream, sugar and vanilla.

Yes, we need to clarify what gelato is and what makes it different from ice cream (if anything). We need independent reliable sources for this. - SummerPhD (talk) 15:05, 1 August 2014 (UTC)

Any "gelato" is an ice cream, there's no differences. The usage of the italian word in the USA suggests they indeed mean "artisanal ice-cream". Calling those "italian-style ice cream" is redundant: since ice creams (frozen desserts made with milk, not with water like the sorbets, that were made by many cultures in ancient times) were invented by italian cooks, basically any ice cream tries to mimic the italian style.--95.232.240.179 (talk) 15:57, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

This article really makes no sense

I am Italian, living in Italy. This article really makes no sense, "gelato" in Italian means "ice cream", that's all. It's not a different product! In Italy we call "gelato" everything: both ice cream from the supermarket and from the ice cream parlour. When somebody says "I want a gelato" it can also be a supermarket (industrial) one! This article is silly, it should be included in the ice cream article. 151.42.7.85 (talk) 01:25, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

Yes, in Italian and in Italy. This article is discussing a specialty product that is call "gelato" in American English, as the introduction tries to make clear. In the U.S., no one sells that product as "ice cream" as it sells for a considerable premium. Similarly, en.wikipedia's article hamburger (as well as our uses of "frankfurter" and "weiner") refers to the ground beef patty sandwich rather than a resident of Frankfurt (two terms for a hot dog, not residents of Frankfurt or Vienna). Sandwich, of course, is the food, not the Earl or the town in Kent.

English is a mutt language. We use and abuse words from far and wide to describe cuisines that have been similarly mangled. Should you visit the U.S., I'd advise bracing yourself when any restaurant serves you anything they describe as "Italian".

If you think the article needs to make this clearer, please make some suggestions. If you feel the article should be merged into ice cream, I can help you get the discussion started, but I highly doubt it will happen. - SummerPhD (talk) 04:22, 2 November 2014 (UTC)

What you say is true, but the article does have a rather parochial American tone to it at present. I'm not going to add a globalize template though, given the article is short and already has one template. Maybe it would be better to de-emphasise the US stuff rather than try to add info about what 'gelato' means in Britain, Ireland, Canada, Australia etc. --Ef80 (talk) 19:10, 8 January 2015 (UTC)

I don't understand why en.wiki should be written in "American English". Isn't this the same Wikipedia in English that is written and read by british people too? --95.232.240.179 (talk) 15:47, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

WP:ENGVAR has some guidelines on which way to jump: if it's a subject with no particular tie to either Britain or America, we just stick with whatever English the earliest version of the article happened to be written in. But there's absolutely no reason why we can't use American English to explain a subject's differences in Britain and America. --McGeddon (talk) 15:59, 8 July 2015 (UTC)

You mean that there's absolutely no reason you can't use "American English" (Canada is included? That's "America" too.) aside from the fact that the English language was born in Great Britain and that, except in the USA, every non english-speakers in the world learns british English as a foreign language in schools and private courses? Ok, so why don't you write articles in other English dialects too? Maybe an article about the Queen of Britain should also be written in australian English, since she's their Head of State... --95.232.240.179 (talk) 17:35, 14 July 2015 (UTC)

It's a reasonable article and it does make things fairly clear (I'm a Brit living in Italy). But it is a very US-centric article considering that gelato is used in many countries (see the inter-lingual links on the left and those are about gelator rather than the native term for ice cream). I guess this article would be like having two articles about chocolate - one for proper chocolate as found in the US and one for what Americans call chocolate which most of the rest of the world wouldn't feed to an animal. Or having an article for the word liberal in the US and one for what it means in the rest of the world.--XANIA - ЗAНИA^{Wikipedia talk | Wikibooks talk} 23:53, 15 January 2015 (UTC)

Irrelevant article

In light of all that has been said above, I will go through the article to clarify that this is about a US American concept. Not about the Italian term gelato, which merely means ice cream. Let's see what is left afterwards. Iago2¹² 17:58, 23 May 2019 (UTC)