What Do You Call It: Italian Ice? Granita? Water Ice?
Where I live, a New Jersey suburb of Philadelphia, we call it “water ice,” and most often pair it with a fresh soft pretzel. In this area we can choose between a few bigger names for franchises in the water ice game, but the locally-owned spots have fierce fan bases and inspire hometown rivalries. (My partner and I ate cherry bordeaux water ice from Diane’s Italian Water Ices in Voorhees, NJ after we signed our marriage license, and this will be part of our story forever!)
Or, you may call it “Italian ice,” “sorbet,” or “sorbetto.” If you’re in South Jersey, Philadelphia, or Delaware County, PA, you likely pronounce it like “wudder ice.”
Around the U.S., it seems “Italian ice” is the most widely used term for this dessert that isn’t quite a milkshake (because it contains no dairy), or a smoothie (the fruit is included before the dish is frozen), or an ice pop (too firm). It’s not a slushie, either, but that’s close. Apparently, advertising “water ice” in Maryland, a state which shares a border with Pennsylvania, causes confusion.
So What Is It?
On its face, this dessert is frozen water with fruit as puree, juice, or from concentrate. You eat it with a spoon, not a straw. If you layer water ice between layers of soft-serve ice cream, you have a gelati. (Even though Wikipedia insists “gelati” only means the plural of the Italian word gelato, I can assure you that this is also the word for this local delicacy!)
Perhaps the most famous franchise in the U.S. is Rita’s Italian Ice, which at the time of this writing boasts 575 locations across the continental U.S. (with a strong presence along the Eastern Seaboard) and a presence in the Philippines.
Like so many entries in the weird and wondrous world of Americana, this goodie has origins from different parts of the world.
Granita, the World Over
This dessert is a classic – hailing from the Islamic World of the Medieval period – and it gets around. Today, Sicily is a region of Italy; it spent centuries as a nation-state that was constantly being conquered and claimed by other peoples and nations. For a time, Sicily was under Arab rule, and that’s when the concept of sorbet was introduced to the region. Legend has it that the Muslim conquest of Sicily (827 C.E. to 902 C.E.) inspired Sicilians to infuse wine or juice with the snow of Mount Etna. Thus, granita (also transliterated as “granite” was born.)
In many regions of the U.S., Italian immigrants began arriving in America in the 1880s. For Philadelphia, the ethnic neighborhood for this population is the Italian Market. It really is a large brick building for outdoor vendor stalls, but the neighborhood extends beyond this building as well. Granita was present here, and evolved into the water ice / Italian ice we know today.
Flavors that remain popular in Italy’s gelaterias, like lemon, almond, and pistachio, totally work as water ice in America today. Rita’s reports that its most popular Italian ice flavor in the U.S. is mango, but this totally bombed at its Philippines locations because a different type of mango is more popular there. For those Philippines stores, ube won out for customer’s choice.
Are you familiar with Italian ice? What do you call it, where do you get it, and what’s your favorite flavor?
