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| This Spadoni--err, spumoni--ice cream from the Buon Gusto Restaurant in South San Francisco looks way better than the normal fare. |
Finally
our family has received the recognition it deserves for inventing one
of the best types of ice cream ever. The young man who waited on our
family recently at Spiro’s Restaurant in Gig Harbor, when asking if
we wanted dessert, told us he could serve us Spadoni ice cream. We
all broke out laughing at the poor guy, who probably wondered what
was so hilarious.
I
told him that we were all named Spadoni, and that our ancestors
invented this ice cream, but the packaging people accidentally
misspelled the name and called it Spumoni. I congratulated him and
told him he was the first one to ever get the name right!
Of
course that’s hogwash, but it’s what I’ve been telling friends
for years to get a smile. And besides, most people with the surname
Spadoni have probably been called Spumoni at some time by
wise-cracking friends—so it’s only fair that we should claim some
credit. In defense of the waiter, it was his first day on the job,
and he had gone to school in the Harbor with Amanda Spadoni, one of
our cousins, so he was more familiar with the name Spadoni than
Spumoni.
Anyway,
about spumoni ice cream, typically, it is of three flavors, sometimes
with a fruit/nut layer between them. The ice cream layers are also
occasionally mixed with whipped cream. Cherry, pistachio and either
chocolate or vanilla are the typical flavors of the ice cream layers.
The fruit/nut layer often contains cherry bits—causing the
traditional red/pink, green and brown color combination. It has
become more of an Italian-American thing than Italian. In fact, I’ve
never actually seen it in my Italian travels, but I’ve read that it
exists in Southern Italy and is rarely found north of Napoli.
Speaking of Napoli, Neapolitan ice cream, with three flavors, is said
to be a descendant of spumoni.
The
website WiseGeek says: ‟Spumoni is a special Italian dessert made
of layers of ice cream, whipped cream, candied fruit, and nuts. In
Italy, it’s spelled spumone, but pronounced exactly as it is
pronounced in English, with an accent on the last vowel. Each layer
of the dessert contains different flavors and ingredients.”
The
name is derived from spuma, which means foam. Spumoni is
popular in places with large Italian immigrant populations such as
the United States, Canada and Argentina. The Spaghetti Factory serves
it free with its dinners, which has done a lot to make it well known.
August 21 is National Spumoni Day in the United States. November 13
is National Spumoni Day in Canada. I’m still not sure when they are
going to name a National Spadoni Day, but it is long overdue!
