We all scream for... gelato?

Ice cream for breakfast?

Sounds like something only Ben or Jerry would think of. But during spring and summer in Palermo, Italy, it's commonplace. There, people on their way to work at the break of day stop at the gelateria for the morning meal: a flat brioche that looks like a giant hamburger bun which is sliced and filled with gelato, the Italian version of ice cream.

It sounds a little excessive, unless you're Italian. As guidebook author Michael McGarry points out, for Italians gelato is "prized as much as frescoes and devoured as passionately as pasta." Food writer John Henderson is equally emphatic. When it comes to gelato, he declares, "It is Italy's nightcap. It is its lunch break. It is its dietary supplement. Heck, it's one of Italy's four basic food groups."

It's not surprising that the country is home to some 24,000 gelaterias. In Rome they actually outnumber wine enotecas 20 to 1. Collectively these shops employ more than 100,000 people who dish up more than 1.5 billion servings of gelato every year. One taste of gelato and you'll likely agree that it is definitely worth eating at every meal, even breakfast. I still vividly remember the first time I tasted real Italian gelato on a sidewalk in Florence almost 25 years ago. It was, as they say, a watershed experience. For the remainder of my visit there I seldom passed a gelato shop without stopping for a sample. And with every trip to Italy since I've followed the same modus operandi.

Gelato has this capacity to enthrall because though it is technically the Italian version of ice cream (the word actually means "frozen"), it has about as much in common with American ice cream as Martha Stewart does with Betty Crocker. They're both in the same category, but they're miles apart.

The main thing you notice about gelato is how soft, smooth and dense it is -- about twice as dense as regular ice cream. That's because, unlike regular ice cream, it's churned at slow speed which results in less air being pumped into the finished product. Regular American ice cream is typically 50 percent, or even 60 percent, air. Gelato, on the other hand, usually contains only about 20 percent air. This, coupled with the fact that authentic gelato does not contain lots of flavor-masking cream, means its taste, often more exotic than ordinary ice cream to begin with, is especially intense. It leaps right out at you.

Italians have perfected this souped-up version of ice cream through years of practice going all the way back to the Roman Empire. In 62 A.D., the Emperor Nero created what was essentially the first version of Italian gelato when he had snow and ice collected from the Apennine Mountains and flavored it with honey, fruit and spices. But it wasn't until the middle of the 16th century that gelato was poised to became an Italian tradition, when Bernardo Buontalenti, a native of Florence, introduced the dessert to the court of Francesco de Medici, where the royal chef Ruggeri, the first ice cream maker of the modern age, further refined it. In due time it spread to the public, first sold from push carts in town squares and these days from fashionable shops all over Italy, to become, as McGarry puts it, not just the Italian equivalent of ice cream, but a way of life.

Chocolate Coconut Gelato

This recipe is courtesy of Maestoso Gelato, a new wholesale gelateria in Cape Girardeau now supplying Bella Italia restaurant.

Ingredients: 1 vanilla bean, 1 cup grated coconut, 2 and 1/4 cups milk, divided 3/4 cup sugar, divided 1/2 cup cocoa, sifted 4 egg yolks, 3 ounces semisweet chocolate, melted 1 ounces cr?me de cacao

Directions: Split and scrape vanilla bean and add with coconut to 2 cups of milk. Heat 1/4 cup sugar over medium heat until liquid and light brown. Carefully stir in remaining 1/4 cup milk. Reduce heat, add coconut-milk mixture and stir until caramelized sugar in dissolved. Whisk in cocoa one tablespoon at a time. Beat yolks with remaining 1/2 cup sugar until pale yellow. Whisk half of milk mixture into egg mixture. Whisk in chocolate. Add to remaining milk mixture and cook, stirring, until thickened. Strain, add liqueur and chill completely. Freeze in gelato maker.

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