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Lemon sorbet
Sorbetto al limone
Lemon sorbet.
Contains
At the end of the seventeenth century Antonio Latini wrote: “Here in Naples it seems that everyone is born with the genius and the instinct for making Sorbets”.
The story of Lemon sorbet
Lemon sorbet is made of water, sugar and lemon juice, with no milk or cream. In Naples it has a long history.
In 1634 the French traveller Jean-Jacques Bouchard describes the sorbets of Naples as “certain waters of lemons and other fruits and flowers”: they were still drinks. At the end of the seventeenth century Antonio Latini, steward to the Spanish viceroy, wrote down their recipes in “Lo scalco alla moderna” and noted: “Here in Naples it seems that everyone is born with the genius and the instinct for making Sorbets”.
Without freezers, you needed snow. The nevaioli, the snow gatherers, collected it on Monte Faito and Vesuvius, stored it in pits and carried it into the city on donkeys; mixed with salt, it chilled the sorbet container. In 1775 the physician Filippo Baldini published in Naples the first treatise devoted to sorbet.
The story goes that Giacomo Leopardi, in Naples in the last years of his life, asked on the day of his death for a “double iced lemonade”.
Was sorbet invented in Naples?
Its Mediterranean roots go back further, but Naples was among the first cities to codify it: Antonio Latini wrote down its recipes at the end of the seventeenth century, and Filippo Baldini published the first treatise devoted to it there in 1775.
What is the difference between sorbet and gelato?
Sorbet is based on water, sugar and fruit, with no milk or cream; gelato contains milk or cream.
How was sorbet made without a freezer?
With snow gathered on Monte Faito and Vesuvius, stored in pits and mixed with salt around the container to chill the mixture.