Italian Flavours in Venice

Credit photos: Andra Dănilă

Pizza

Italian pasta

Prosciuto con melone - a traditional Italian anti-pasti  (an appetiser before the main course)

And, of course, gelato (ice cream)! The word gelato is derived from the Latin word "gelātus" (which means frozen). Gelato is made with milk, cream, sugar, and flavoring such as fresh fruit, chocolate, nut purees. In ancient Rome, in Egypt or in Sicily, people made frozen desserts from the snow and ice brought down from mountaintops. The first ice cream machine was perfected in 1686 by a Sicilian fisherman, Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli. But the popularity of gelato among larger shares of population only increased in 1920s - 1930s in Varese, a city from Northern Italy, where the first gelato cart was developed.