The great granite conspiracy

The city squares are crowded with gelatorias, but the good stuff here is the granite (grah-nee-tah), which is made without cream, like sherbet. There is some sort of conspiracy in that granite is never actually displayed or put on the menu but is all that anybody eats (they seem to serve gelato just so that the gelato police don’t take away their gelatoria signs).

The flavors we go for are limon, gelsi (a berry only available in Sicily) and mandorla (an almond sherbet which dates from Roman times). It's a bit hokey but I get a kick out of eating something that the legionaires were into 2000 years ago. The secret is to eat your granite with a brioche - again, the brioche are never on display, they seem to be whisked piping hot to your table out of some secret brioche factory operating under the gelatoria.