There’s a story about a minor miracle in the life of Blessed Solanus Casey, who was beatified in 2017 after a life of holiness and care for the poor, and whose feast is celebrated on July 30. According to the story, a young novice approached Casey for spiritual advice regarding his worries over a health concern. The priest offered the young man guidance, encouraging him to trust in God. Shortly thereafter, someone else stopped by and offered Casey two ice cream cones to enjoy on the hot summer day. The busy priest put the cones in his desk drawer and forgot all about them until the young man he had counseled earlier returned to let him know that his worries had been assuaged. To celebrate, Casey pulled out the ice cream cones and found them wholly intact.
Whether this was actually a miracle or not, many people can understand the simple pleasure of celebrating over ice cream. Eating ice cream can lighten up the pleasure centers of the brain, triggering the release of dopamine and serotonin. Toby Batung has a name for it: He calls it joy. Batung and his wife own three Toby’s Homemade Ice Cream shops in Northern Virginia. He can almost see joy radiating off kids when you hand over their cups and cones. “It’s the best part of a pretty great job,” Batung says.
Small wonder then that Pope Francis chose to celebrate his name day by honoring the dignity of humankind and the right to delight with thousands of portions of gelato.
It’s also no surprise that majority-Catholic countries around the globe have some deeply beloved version of ice cream. Today, when four in 10 U.S. Catholics are immigrants or come from immigrant families, there is a good chance one of those delicious traditions will end up at a parish social near you.
While these events are likely to be tasty and fun, they are also “often where God’s quiet work unfolds,” according to a social media post sharing details of an upcoming ice cream social at St. Constance Catholic Church outside Detroit. “Smiles shared, conversations sparked, new friendships formed—these are the gentle places where the Holy Spirit moves.”
The social media post continues: “Sweet treats become sweeter when shared. Community becomes deeper when nourished by love,” according to those who lead this Detroit-area parish, where once entirely Polish neighborhoods are rapidly giving way to new Latino ones.
The immigrant ice cream most familiar to most Americans is probably gelato—though gelato is technically not ice cream at all.
The American dairy business takes the definition of ice cream seriously enough to have it written into federal law through the Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act. A product may only legally be called ice cream for commercial purposes if it contains the right ratios of air to milkfat and other ingredients. To achieve the right ratio, the product has to be churned. The air produced in that process is called overrun. Lack of overrun is why French-style ice cream—also known as frozen custard—is not ice cream.
Gelato and ice cream share basic ingredients, but gelato has less air, less fat, and often more sugar. Together, these tiny tweaks allow intense flavors to come through and make it possible for gelato to sit at warmer temperatures, allowing it to be eaten at its creamiest without totally melting down.
Though first imported small-scale into Italian immigrant community storefronts, gelato has been widely available in the United States for decades. Gelato purist Enrico Zecchini, chief marketing officer for Gelato & Co., does not consider this stuff gelato at all. His company is based in Bologna, Italy, home to both a gelato university and a gelato museum.
To truly be gelato, the product must be made fresh, several times a day, on site, as it is in the Gelato & Co. shops in Colorado, Texas, and Florida. If it is not, Zecchini says, “it can be a good product, but it is not gelato.”
Regardless of what one calls it, the effect ice cream and its kissing-cousins have on communities appears the same. “Ice cream brings people together,” says Alfonso Ruiz, who makes and sells nieves de garrafa, a frozen treat from Mexico that is a sort of hybrid between ice cream and sorbet.
Nieves de garrafa can have dairy but often doesn’t, putting it solidly in the not-ice-cream category. Instead, like many desserts that originate from more tropical climates, nieves is more fruit-forward, rooted in the sugars of tamarind, mango, berries, and vanilla. It is, however, churned as can be. Traditionally this happens by hand in a special bucket and involves salt. These days, there are machines, Ruiz explains. It doesn’t matter. It is nieves. Everyone comes to his Whittier, California shop on Sundays after church, he says.
While Batung considers at least some of his ice cream Filipino, technically it is American or Philadelphia ice cream with Filipino flavors. His biggest seller by far is ube, yam-flavored ice cream the color of Barney the Dinosaur.
Ube is also the flavor that got him started, catering to Filipino immigrants at festivals who were hungry for a taste of home. When he started the stores in Northern Virginia there was a degree of skepticism about yam ice cream. Today, ube is a darling of the haute dessert world and Toby’s biggest seller. “Ice cream is a good way to get people to try new things,” Batung says.
Yala Greek Ice Cream, a storefront in Washington, D.C., uses a different milk than other U.S.-based brands, one that is far more common in Europe and easier for many people to digest, says Chrys Kefalas, a lawyer-turned ice cream entrepreneur and Yala’s founder.
The milk makes for a lighter-feeling ice cream and lets flavors like Greek yogurt with sour cherries, and phyllo, honey, and walnuts, shine through.
As far as Kefalas knows, his is the only Greek ice cream in the country. It is also the tangible taste of his memories, of summers in Greece, of feeling loved and accepted by his beloved immigrant grandparents.
“My grandfather wanted everyone to feel at home, ” Kefalas says. “The experience I want people to have here is about community,” which are values he was taught in his Greek Orthodox upbringing and Jesuit education, he says. “It is all about welcome, about treating strangers as friends.”
And, as Batung says, what could be more welcoming than joy in a spoon, a taste and sensation that ties everyone, from everywhere, to their happiest memories?
Image: Unsplash
