Satisfying Slush

 Satisfying Slush

The Celebrated Frozen Margarita
and Blender

    We went out for lunch the other day.  Mind you, it’s not always Italian on the menu for us.  We also enjoy Mexican, although neither of us, while growing up on the east coast, had the opportunity to sample this tasty fare.  Luckily for us, with a small Mexican cantina in town, we haven’t far to go for our newfound favorites.  Maria Elena enjoys stuffed Chile Rellenos a-la-cart, absent any of the trimmings like refried beans and rice.  Though not on the menu, she knows they are available for the asking just like braciole in a secret sauce is available any time in Calitri at Tre Rose.  My choice is a grilled Quesadilla.  Its combinations are near endless, with my current fav being a Quesadilla Fajita stuffed with fajita fixings along with beans, rice, and plenty of hot sauce.  When it comes to our Mexican drink, however, we are in lockstep.  Like many Mexican restaurant patrons, there is that lure of a Margarita, made however you like.  Beyond the choice of tequila for a classic on-the-rocks, salt-rimmed Margarita, there are also frozen slushy versions, pre-made, biding their time going round and round in a blender to stay chilled.

It had been snowing during our leisure sojourn.  The sky was bruised and dark.  Driving home, I was careful to stay centered over the flattened berm of slush that now outlined my side of the road.  I

Maria Elena Somewhere Between 
Winter and Spring, Slush and Snow

concentrated on keeping my wheels in the tread-marked kerfs made by earlier vehicles on either side of this endless ribbon of wet snow.  Maybe we should have stayed in the cantina longer for the roads to be cleared.  After a while, the scene was mesmerizing.  Like a brain freeze, occasionally induced when an icy drink is enjoyed too quickly, navigating the drive home became challenging even absent the slush sprays of passing vehicles.  Even with all this slushy intervention, we arrived home safely.  It had begun with the swirl of the Margaritas and continued, almost stirring up trouble driving home.  Though it hadn’t amounted to a brain freeze, slush, one way or the other, was on my mind. 

I’d vote twice that the best kind of slush is in a drink, not on the road.  The Margarita making machine I’d seen, mixed continuously to allow the antifreeze effect of sugar to bond with the water molecules before the water had a chance to freeze.  Clever, but not the first iced drink.  Although not likely to have originated in Mexico, ice drinks have been around for centuries.  The Greeks and Romans used snow from Mount Etna to cool their wines.^[1]  The first documented dessert approaching ‘shaved ice’ was recorded in 62 A.D. when Roman Emperor Nero sent slaves to collect snow from nearby mountains that was then flavored with a fruit and honey mixture. [4]  Different forms of the technique clearly spread with time.  The Italian word sorbetto and English sherbet come from a Middle Eastern sweet fruit juice and water drink with a similar sounding name, charbet. ^[2]

Today, whether we call them ‘shaved ice’ or ‘Italian ice’, both are sweetened frozen treats.  However, there is a difference in how they are prepared.  Italian ice is made in a process similar to ice cream, where the ingredients are mixed and then frozen.  When you make shaved ice, ice in the form of blocks is shaved into very fine, snow-like pieces and then flavored with sweet syrups and other toppings. 

Granita is a popular form of Italian ice.  It was granita and brioche – a great combination – that we thoroughly enjoyed for the first time in the now too-well-known town of Taormina some years ago. 

One of the Public Garden Follies

Early one morning we headed off on a walk of discovery from our hotel, the Bel Soggiorno.  We began by scaling some stairs near the hotel to Via Bagnolui Croci that soon led us to the most strikingly different Giardino Pubblico (Public Gardens) we’d ever seen up to then or since.  It was the creation of an English gardener, Lady Florence Trevelyan, who had settled there in the late 19th century.  The garden built on a steep hillside below Via Croci offered spectacular views of the sea as well as smoking Mount Etna to the south.  But its most striking feature remains the bizarre structures of no apparent purpose throughout this eclectic garden known as ‘Victorian Follies’ which today, after the city’s Greek Amphitheater, make this unique garden the second biggest tourist attraction in Taormina.  A short walk beyond the garden, Via Croci intersects Via Roma and Via di Giovanni.  I don’t know if it was a road less traveled, but we chose Via di Giovanni to meander along a while longer, and

A Quiet Moment at Bam Bar

as Robert Frost put it, we “took the one less traveled by, and that has made all the difference.”  We were fortunate for it soon led us to the popular Bam Bar, home to Granita Siciliana.

I will admit we were totally unfamiliar with granita but were quickly educated when the barista took us under his wing.  We learned that granita, an anytime treat, is a semi-frozen dessert that lives somewhere between ice cream and sorbet.  Their common denominator is that they are each enjoyed a spoonful at a time.  Granita made its debut in Sicily when various combinations of fruit juices and syrups were added to water and sugar and then stirred at a very low temperature to produce a dense mixture related to sorbet but with a smoother crystalline texture. ^[7]  At least in Sicily, that texture varies.  According to food critic Jeffery Steingartenon, granita on the western coast is coarse, while on the opposite coast,

Album Photo - Our Barista That Day

it is nearly as smooth as sorbet. ^[9]  I can only imagine how it varies along the entire boot of Italy.  This variance in texture depends on how the ice crystals are created.  If the adage “a picture is worth a thousand words” still holds, here is a video, Granita Siciliana, that presents the past and present of this treat.  If you follow along in Italian, great.  If you haven’t mastered those nouns and verbs yet, you can follow along with English subtitles.  In either case, the video not only allows you to almost savor this nectar but also offers a glimpse of vibrant Taormina. 

An excellent example of the slushy shaved ice variant is grattachecca.  Its name is derived from the verb grattare (to scratch) while checca is Roman jargon that once identified the large block of ice used to 

Our Bam Bar Granita & Brioche

refrigerate food before the frigorifero (refrigerator) was invented. ^[8]  This popular icy originated in the kiosks and bars along Rome’s Tiber River in the early twentieth century.^[3]  Unlike granita which requires some advance preparation to allow time for the sugar-water mix to gel, grattachecca is made on the spot with ice shaved from a block and flavoring added to the top just before serving.  This comes at a cost in way of its texture.  In Rome today, only a few kiosks prepare a grattachecca with ice grated from a single block by hand.  If the vendor is a purist with a strong connection to tradition, the rather common practice of using mechanically crushed ice cubes is an abomination.  Instead, a purist classically prepares this icy the traditional way with a tool called a raschietto that resembles a carpenter’s handheld plane to shave a block of ice that results in ice shavings that look like snow.  

This street food is widespread throughout Italy.  In the depths of Naples, in Spaccanapoli for example, with popular flavors of almond milk, black cherry, and mint, it is called rattata; in Palermo it is

A Rome Grattachecca Kiosk

known as grattatella; in Bari as grattamarianna; while in the Calabria region its name is scirubetta (a derivative of Middle Eastern sherbert), very similar to the others, but as opposed to shaved ice it uses freshly fallen snow. ^[5]

Weather permitting, here is a simple scirubetta recipe: [6]
1.      Wait for snow to start falling.
2.    Go outside and collect the freshest flakes in a pot (from the rooftop tiles is an excellent spot) and bring into the house.
3.      Scoop the freshly gathered snow into a small bowl or glass.
4.      Drizzle it with the liquid of your choice and stir.
5.      Enjoy!

Maybe you caught it, but the downside of a scirubetta is that it must

Shaving Ice With a Raschietto

be winter, and I’m guessing your roof is preferred on the chance your neighbors have pets.  

By this point, absent a brain freeze from too many ice drinks, your ‘liquid of choice,’ can also be alcoholic like a Margarita.  As Italy has its caffè corretto, coffee that, let’s say, has been ‘corrected’ with grappa, and sometimes sambuca or brandy, so too icy creations like granita and grattachecca have their intoxicating cousins.  Hidden behind signature drinks like the fashionable Aperol Spritz and peach-flavored Bellini are lesser-known contributions to Italy’s canon of cocktails that serve as Italy’s answer to Frozen Daiquiris and Kahlua-based Mudslides.  

Bam Bar’s Granita Siciliana was a hit for us in Sicily.  In Rome, grattachecca cooled us in kiosks along the Tiber.  The search for slushies next draws us northeast of Roma to Florence, the birthplace of many beginnings like the Renaissance, and some claim civilization itself.  It was also here where the Negroni serendipitously appeared.  It lives in the genre

The Classic Negroni

of the aperitivo, the before-dinner drink.  While early alchemists tried their best to turn lead into gold, it was at Cafe Casoni where cocktail chemistry made a leaping advancement.  The more prominent version of its muddled lore relates that its birthday was approximately 1919.  Little more is certifiable.  Sometime during that year, flamboyant Count Camillo Negroni (short for Count Camillo Luigi Manfredo Maria Negroni), a frequent café customer; said to have been a no-lie, true, rodeo clown in the American Wild West as well as a riverboat gambler, arrived and made a special request.  That historic day, Cammillo asked barman Bosco Scarselli to top off his regular libation, Campari and vermouth, with gin instead of standard soda water.  Fosco complied and, in a further creative step, garnished it with an orange slice instead of lemon, thus giving birth to the Negroni, named after the Count, that we enjoy to this day.

I have grown or better said ‘learned,’ to enjoy this Italian classic.  The first time you sip one, it tends to quickly prompt a love or hate response.  Words like ‘bitter’ and ‘medicinal’ accompany that first reaction.  But low marks on a first impression may require a second examination.  It’s also not something to down like a shot or tumbler half full of bourbon like we see in a movie.  That’s acting with coke.  A bittersweet negroni must be nursed and sipped, which prolongs the moment and the pleasure.  Its simple preparation may account for its popularity.  It is concocted with one part gin (preferably Bombay Sapphire Gin), one-part sweet Vermouth, and one part Campari and then garnished with an orange wedge or a twist of orange peel.  Try one, be part of the fantasy, and take part in the magic of this very Italian tradition.  You may enjoy it but if not, it has a sweeter slushy cousin.

The Negroni’s familial relation with this classic Italian staple can transform a sultry summer day into the soft cooling patter of a summer shower by serving it

The Frozen Negroni

frozen.  As in a Mexican restaurant, a frozen negroni can be made quickly in large batches, by hand, with the aid of a blender.  There is also no shaved or crushed ice involved.  Here is a recipe complements of Joe Campanale. ^[11]

Ingredients: (Note that this slushy version modifies the 1:1:1 Negroni alcohol ratio. Here the Campari’s flavor is emphasized)

1 ounce Campari

1/2 ounce Sweet Vermouth

1/2 ounce Gin

1 scoop sorbet (try grapefruit!)

Orange slice garnish

Directions:

Combine all ingredients in a bowl and mix with a whisk.

Pour the mixture into a rocks glass and, if desired, top with an additional splash of Campari and garnish.

The following Frozen Negroni recipe, compliments of Elana Lepkowski, is biased toward the Gin over the Campari in balance, takes longer to prepare, offers more servings, and can be prepped in advance. ^[12]

Ingredients for 3-4 Servings:

4 ½ ounces Gin

2 ½ ounces Campari

2 ½ ounces Sweet Vermouth

3 cups ice

Orange slices, for garnish

Directions:

Combine gin, Campari, and sweet Vermouth in an airtight container.  Place in the freezer and freeze for 8 hours, up to 3 days. (The alcohol prevents it from freezing solid)

When ready to serve, add the chilled alcohol and cups of ice to a blender.  Blend on high speed until uniform and smooth, about 30 seconds.  Pour into rocks glasses or small wine glasses.  Garnish with an orange slice and serve immediately.

A final icy, our favorite, the frozen Sgroppino,

Loosen up With a Sgroppino

brings us to Venice, and with not much of Italy remaining, our final stop.  Sgroppino is a tough word to get your consonants around which can be attributed to it being drawn from Venetian dialect where the verb sgorpãre means ‘to loosen’, which seems an apt choice of descriptive words for this versatile alcoholic beverage.  With many uses that range from serving it as an anytime cocktail, a sorbet-like palette cleanser, a dessert, and following dessert, as a digestivo, when exactly to order or serve one (maybe two) can be problematic.  Open to interpretation then, it seems to allow us to enjoy one (maybe two) just about any time.  Basically, it’s a Prosecco slushy with a little vodka and a lot of tart frozen lemon sorbet with the added punch of limoncello.

Recipe for 1 Serving: ^[10]

Ingredients:

1 ounce Vodka

1 ounce Limoncello

1 scoop frozen Lemon Sorbet (not sherbet or ice cream)

1 splash Prosecco

Lemon wheel garnish

Directions:

Scoop the sorbet into a bowl. Pour in half of the Prosecco and whisk until you have a smooth icy mixture.

Whisk in the vodka and the remaining Prosecco.

At the moment, with 8-11 inches of snow on the way, it is definitely not hot outside.  In fact, having just snow-raked the roof to make room for more, it offers an excellent opportunity to gather fresh snow for a scirubetta.  The forecast is snow in hours, lasting days — but I guarantee, that very soon, as the earth tilts and corrects back toward the sun, a cooling slushy iced drink, alcoholic or not, will be much appreciated.  Whatever their names, they’re refreshing.  Go ahead, make one for yourself,

A View Toward the Arno River from the 'Se-Sto Restaurant-Bar' Atop Florence's Westin Hotel Capable of Brewing Any Drink You'd Like

and be part of the tradition, absent only the view across some lovely Italian piazza.  Better yet, go for it.  Head for Taormina, Rome, Florence, or Venice for the proper setting and really enjoy those picturesque views that can stop your heart while you nibble on cicchetti snacks like fried artichokes in Rome’s Trastevere district or an equally crispy Sicilian arancini rice ball with a tasty surprise inside.

From That Rogue Tourist,
Paolo

[1] Italian Ice, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_ice#cite_note-9

[2] Seattle Sorbets, https://www.seattlesorbets.com/what-is-sorbet#:~:text=Sorbet%20can%20be%20traced%20back,)%E2%80%9D%20or%20%E2%80%9Cjuice

[3] Whether Shaved by Hand or Machine, This Roman Treat Is Just as Frosty, Povoledo, Elisabetta (September 9, 2016). The New York Times

[4] Shaved Ice, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shaved_ice

[5] Grattachecca - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

[6] La Scirubetta Calabrese: Ancient Snow Cone,  Bleeding Espresso, https://bleedingespresso.com/2017/01/scirubetta-calabrese-ancient-snow-cone.html

[7] Watermelon Granita Recipe, https://cooking.nytimes.com/recipes/1014903-watermelon-granita

[8] Granita and Grattachecca: are they the same thing?, Granita and Grattachecca | Rivareno

CAPTION: La Scirubetta Calabrese with Fig Honey (by @egidio_painter on Twitter)

[9] The Mother of All Ice Cream. The Man Who Ate Everything, Steingarten, Jeffrey (1997). Vintage Books. pp. 361–380. ISBN 0-375-70202-4.

[10] Frozen Sgroppino, https://punchdrink.com/recipes/frozen-sgroppino/, by Joe Campanale 

[11] Frozen Negroni, https://punchdrink.com/recipes/alta-lineas-frozen-negroni/, by Joe Campanale

[12] Frozen Negroni Recipe, Summer Eats, https://www.seriouseats.com/how-to-make-frozen-negroni-slushie-gin-campari-cocktail-summer#, by Elana Lepkowski