Proud students show off their creation.Proud students show off their creation.

“We’re coneheads!” a couple of young women giggled, delighted by my bemusement.

“I’m studying ice cream at the Carpigiani University, here in Bologna,” one with a British accent explained.

“I’m a gelato undergraduate. Yesterday we made fennel ice cream – it was scrummy!”

Her American friend went on: “We’re over in Italy on ice cream internships. Great for the resumé, not that great for the figure.”

The Italian region is famous for Lamborghini cars, tortellini pasta, mortadella sausage and Ducati motorbikes, as well as its pasta sauce.

Now it boasts a gelato college and the world’s first ice cream museum.

Such things you learn by sitting in a cafe, giving your most saccharine smile and asking patrons on the next table where you could find an ice cream.

As opening gambits go, I wasn’t in the mood for asking these women: “Where do you ladies suggest I go for a traditional hand-crafted, cured meat sausage? Or some spag bog?”

Instead, I was enthusiastically advised to check out the Cremeria Scirocco on Via Barelli (www.cremeriascirocco.it).

“You’ve got to try his Brazilian fruit pulp and anise icicles. You haven’t lived until you’ve licked on one of his white mint lollies,” one student enthused.

“And his savouries – tuna and onion, pumpkin and black pepper, Gorgonzola and walnuts… and peas! Someone told me you can get a curry ice cream but I haven’t found it yet,” her friend chipped in.

You haven’t lived until you’ve licked on one of his white mint lollies

Eager to convert me to the lactose-free lifestyle and convince me to renounce hydrogenated fats, the pair kindly escorted me to the nearby La Sorbetteria Castiglione (www.lasorbetteria.it/en).

I looked through the window at the chocolate hearts and chestnut cremes. I didn’t know where to start.

“Fancy a kiss?” laughed the Briton as we salivated.

Her American friend quickly translated. “A bacio. It means a kiss. Hazelnut and cocoa. Yummy.”

She smiled, probably looking to see if I had a dental plate. Guessing I didn’t have a nut allergy, they ordered me a three-scoop combination of Sicilian cassata, pistaccio and stracciatella (chocolate shavings).

“Smell it first, warm the palate and enjoy!”

They were late for a lecture but invited me to tag along.

Students on the €2,000, two-week bronze package course learn artisanal crafts going back to the courts of the Renaissance princes (www.gelatouniversity.com).

They learn that gelato is softer and has less air than ice cream because it is churned more slowly and not served frozen.

It is relatively healthier – in moderation – although it must contain butterfat. As well as specialised production techniques (students spend two days just mastering how to scoop) and modern ice cream management methods, the aspiring entrepreneurs learn a bit of history.

For example, one of the first ice cream shops outside Italy opened in Paris in the 17th century.

Likewise, Carpigiani University has no intention of keeping its secrets within Bologna, as it is in the middle of a Gelato World Tour, which next heads to Berlin before its grand final in Rimini, Italy, from September 5 to 7 (www.gelatoworldtour.com).

Working the ice cream machines.Working the ice cream machines.

To visit the ice cream museum, you have to travel seven miles out of Bologna to Anzola dell’Emilia, at a factory that has been making ice cream machinery since 1946.

The girls said ciao – the ice cream school is above the museum – and I paid my €3 entry fee.

One of the first things I saw was a recipe for an 11th-century Arabic date sorbet, swiftly followed by a pomegranate version.

Luciana Polliotti, the museum’s curator and passionate ice cream historian, told me gelato was probably invented by Cosimo Ruggieri, an alchemist and astrologer, to Italian noblewoman and later Queen of France Catherine de’ Medici in the 16th century.

I learned an Italian architect invented the fridge and the first gelato cart appeared in Varese in north Italy.

Then, in that epiphanic moment all museums deliver, it was revealed that the ice cream cone was only patented in 1903, and that ice lollies, or ghiaccioli, were invented by an 11-year-old San Franciscan Frank Epperton, who in 1905 left out some soda, water and a stick and found it frozen in the morning.

Unsurprisingly, the museum has an impressive collection of ice cream-related machinery and lots of photographs.

Being a Brit, I shed a nostalgic tear at one showing children queuing in front of a Mr Whippy van.

While I gained my composure, I felt a tap on my shoulder. It was the students asking me how I was getting on.

They didn’t look at me as if I was an irresistible treat – they just wanted to make sure I knew the way back into town.

“Remember Bologna for its gelato and for two girls telling you that a real man has three scoops.”

Words to live by!

Sign up to our free newsletters

Get the best updates straight to your inbox:
Please select at least one mailing list.

You can unsubscribe at any time by clicking the link in the footer of our emails. We use Mailchimp as our marketing platform. By subscribing, you acknowledge that your information will be transferred to Mailchimp for processing.