Flavor Review: Talenti - Cappuccino

   This week found me in foreign worlds. The world of gelato. Gelato is becoming quite a trendy thing in America these days because it is Italian and cool and new. It is actually not new. In fact gelato has been around much longer than our ice cream. Gelato is just the Italian word for ice cream. So, intrinsically the two are not so different.

   Some of the ingredients used to make gelato differ from those of ice cream, and the amounts they are used in also differs. Guar gum? What the devil is that? Not wholly sure, but I will wager it is used as a stabilizer that prevents it from freezing solid, so that it is smoothly scoopable.  It's possible that it also acts as an emulsifier. Emulsifiers, or thickening agents, vary from brand to brand, and it is not surprising to see that they vary in gelato as well. Eggs are the most commonly used emulsifiers, and, as you can see, Talenti uses them too. Their gelato is also less fattening, lighter I should say, than the other leading brands. They must use skim milk, and other low-fat ingredients.

   I have often seen the sumptuous pint containers of Talenti resting in isolation behind the freezer doors in Publix, but have never been able to scrape up the extra cash needed to purchase one. Their price tag usually bests that of Ben & Jerry's and Haagen Dazs by about $1.40, thus turning me always toward the later two choices. But, this time Publix had it in their parsimonious hearts to discount them. I had to do a double take when I made my routine pass through the ice cream aisle. Two for $7.00? That's $3.50 a piece! After checking to see if my algebra was correct, I hesitated no longer, and grabbed the tastiest looking two of the select few flavors offered at our Tuscaloosa branch (which just stocked B&J 'Peanut Brittle' and 'Late Night Snack' two weeks ago.......over a year late!).
   Feeling thrifty, I left, and consumed them...mostly for your benefit, the reader, so that you can fear the foreign and strange woods of gelato no longer. It is safe.

   My first review is on the first flavor I tested, Cappuccino. The thing that burned its impression into my mind was its consistency and texture. After taking out of the freezer where it had set for a day, my spoon cut through it like a knife through butter (attributed to those unknown ingredients like the guar gum). That is the power of gelato. Its smooth creaminess is what trumps our native ice creams. In this area, I have yet to find a commercial brand that matches Talenti.
   My first bite made me feel like I was walking through a library with a Starbucks over in the corner where little thin guys with beards are nestled with their burnt coffees and laptops and trend-fitting glasses, trying to fit the social standard of their aspiring "group" by writing poetry and looking somber. It was odd, and it took several blinks to let my mind know that I was, in fact, still in my dusty apartment and that I did not have a beard (but my glasses were sitting on top of my book shelf).
   It was the best commercially produced coffee ice cream I have tasted. It beat Ben & Jerry's easily. I could not distinguish the notes of chocolate or coffee alone. It was so well blended together that they arrived at the taste buds as one, inseparable flavor. That is how the taste of Cappuccino should be. But my complaint is this: it was too espresso-y. Though the blend was smooth, it tasted like burnt coffee grounds, and that leaves the off-putting picture in my head of a soggy heap of grounds sitting in that white paper thing in the top of a coffee maker. Not my kind of flavor. The flavor I strive to emulate is that of true brewed coffee straight from the beans. It even says espresso here on their webpage. They admit it. Nay, the real way to create a coffee flavor is to use the actual beans, and the flavor they contain by seeping them into hot milk and cream.
   A good addition to the base were the dark chocolate shavings scattered throughout. They provided a texture difference, when one grows numb to the smooth gelato, and longs for a crunch or a crisp. But they were only slightly better than if they had thrown in Hershey's chocolate chips. They had good taste, but there still lingered that waxy chocolate crap found when cheaply manufactured chocolates are frozen.

   No doubt that Talenti is classy ice cream, and it is better crafted than Ben & Jerry's. On the back of the pint they make the point that it is craft ice cream: "Crafted by Talenti". But they are of a different mold. Talenti strives for that Old Europe style gelato, where the flavors, in their simplicity, get at the real ingredients instead of slapping you in the face with something new in every bite like B&J does. There is nothing wrong with harnessing true flavors, but one does grow bored of the repetition and vapidity experienced near the end of a pint of plain ice cream.

   Look for my next post on the second of my Talenti flavors.

Reese O'Shirey, Esq.