Print friendly
E-mail story
Tip Us Off
iPod friendly
Comments
Bookmark This
del.icio.us.
Digg!
furl
google
newsvine
reddit
technorati
Facebook
Yahoo!It is time to write of something sweet and cold. Bowls of colored jewels—pale watermelon surprised by a squeeze of kaffir lime, coffee paired with almond, or the ultimate classic: clean white lemon with bits of yellow peel. Slushy and refreshing, true granita may bear some vague resemblance to a snow cone, but it is so much more than those cloying crushed-ice concoctions.
I first tasted the genuine article in a town on the outskirts of Naples, and have since learned it is a Southern Italian passion. My cousin Luisa had taken me on the back of her motorcycle to an early-morning market; the day grew miserably hot and muggy as we wandered around, and the granita street vendor was a welcome sight. He had one flavor, limone, served in little white cups, and it was dolce, but also intensely lemon and icy, seriously icy, cold. It was blended, but not to the point of processed ices or sorbet; its texture was coarse and uneven. Granular, you might say.
Cynthia Carbone Ward
Later, in the house of another of my Italian relatives, I was offered a fragola version, icy chunks of strawberry essence in a little glass dish. Somehow the flavor of the fruit in granita is concentrated within the crystals of ice and releases onto the tongue in a rush of cool, and this effect was sublime in strawberry. Sensing that I was becoming an avid granita fan, Luisa presented her own interpretation of the lemon, lighter and thinner, served in a wine glass and eaten with a spoon, and I fell in love with the classic all over again. There is something about the tartness and hint of bitter that makes the limone the most refreshing and sophisticated of all granita flavors, although I am willing to be convinced otherwise.
Meanwhile, back at the ranch, it turns out my good friend Jeanne has been experimenting with granita this summer, and now and then I walk up the canyon to her house on a Sunday evening to sample her creative variations. (It’s a tough duty, but I try to be neighborly.) I was intrigued by the mango chipotle, a fiesta for the tongue, where rich, sweet mango is given a snappy pepper bite. It’s hot. It’s cold. It’s even picturesque. And there are the berry variations that begin in the garden, reborn as scoops of magenta, garnet-rich. My husband likes the coffee, which is barely sweet, and lately we have been pondering peach with ginger, or fig with a whisper of anise.
In an essay called “Mint Snowball,” poet Naomi Shihab Nye writes about a treat her great-grandfather created in his Illinois drugstore long ago. He stirred fresh mint leaves with sugar and secret ingredients in a small pot on the stove, infused tiny particles of shaved ice with the mint mixture, and served it mounded in a glass dish alongside a scoop of vanilla ice cream. She sighs remembering the “little chips of ice on the tongue, their cool slide down.” The recipe has long been lost, and no one has ever been able to reconstruct it precisely, but I am certain of one thing: It was granita.
As far as I can tell, most granita recipes begin by simmering sugar and water to make a syrup, but true granita requires the addition of fresh fruit and authentic flavors. It also requires a commitment of time and the leisurely rhythm of summer because it needs to be revisited frequently during the course of its freezing. After the basic sugar syrup has cooled slightly, you add a purée of fruit to it, along with other ingredients of your choosing, transfer the mixture to a pan, and place it in the freezer. When ice crystals begin to form around the edges, you crash into it with a fork and stir it up. Don’t stray too far from the kitchen; you’ll need to do this every 30 minutes or so for three to five hours to get the texture right. When I called around town in search of granita (fruitlessly, as it were), Michele at Santa Barbara’s Via Maestra, where the stuff is beloved but not served, pointed out that this labor-intensive process is what makes it an impractical menu offering. Making granita requires one to linger—it is a ritual, a meditation, the bestowal of attention to a promise of pleasure and a pleasure in itself.
Nye reflects: “Perhaps the clue to my entire personality connects to the lost mint snowball. Although I know how to do everything one needs to know—change airplanes, find my exit off the interstate, charge gas, send a fax—there is something missing. Perhaps the stoop of my great-grandfather over the pan, the slow, patient swish of his spoon. The spin of my mother on the high stool with her whole life in front of her, something fine and fragrant still to happen …”
That’s granita: Something fine and fragrant still to happen. Better yet, something happening right now. What could be more satisfying than to sit with a friend on a balmy night, enjoying a dish of crystallized, concentrated summer?
Previous Month
Comments
Discussion Guidelines
Post a comment