By Susannah Edelbaum 12th August 2023 This light and airy dessert made in Germany could appear to be an omelet of spaghetti and tomato sauce; however, it’s made from vanilla ice cream, whipped topping,, and fresh strawberry sauce.
In in Mannheim the year 1890, he purchased a spaetzle press with Easter funds from his mother, after which he was able to create a delicious noodle after figuring out that the press and the dessert plate must be ice-cold. The first Spaghettieis was made using pistachios, lemon, and strawberry gelato to symbolize the colors that are the colors of Italy. Italian flag. “I proudly showed it to my father, who simply commented, ‘I have never seen colourful spaghetti,'” he remembered.
Fontanella switched to vanilla and attempted to recreate the look of a ragout of cut raspberries. “It didn’t look pretty, though,” she said – and made the strawberry puree, which was reminiscent of tomato sauce. The only thing that was missing was Parmigiano.
To make the “noodles,” the ice cream is pushed through a spätzle press (Credit: Eis Fontanella Eismanufaktur Mannheim)
“For Easter, I was given a white chocolate Easter egg, and a piece of it grated with a cheese grater completed this new creation. It was an image for the gods,” the inventor claimed. Spaghettieis appeared on Eis Fontanella’s menu. It initially confused kids, whose parents bought it for their first time in a snatched surprise. “They wanted to eat ice cream and not noodles, so some got teary-eyed,” stated Fontanella.
Soon enough, children began to get it and embrace the imaginative dessert. Once, it was an enormous popular at Eis Fontanella, and the trompe l’oeil dessert was gradually copied across Germany. “This new specialty must have first become known by word-of-mouth,” explained Fontanella. “At that time, there was no social media; it just got around among colleagues [in the ice cream world],” he said.
Tanja Rylewicz, the owner of My Kleine Eiszeit, the Ice cream truck in Berlin’s Alt-Stralau neighborhood, reminisces about an unending love for the sweet treat. “I’ve loved Spaghettieis since I was three or four. We ate it with the whole family every weekend at the ice cream shop where I was born, in Oldenburg,” she said.
Many Germans younger than 60 aresing a rapturous singing ode whenever they are asked about Spaghettieis. But this doesn’t mean the delicious dessert isn’t always accessible. “It was trendy when I was a young child. But then, it was completely gone for 10 or 15 years,” stated Rylewicz. Eis Fontanella continued serving its famous creation. Still, in the rest of the nation, smaller city establishments focused on fashionable flavors such as salted caramel and basil. For a time, at most, Spaghettieis was a food you’d likely find in a long-established Ice cream shop near the town or the cities, in a large cafe that served commercially made gelato or ice cream.
However, Spaghettieis is resurfacing. It’s available at famous establishments like Sarcletti, the city’s oldest ice cream shop, as well as hip Berlin places like Rylewicz’s cart, which is the only equipment for making sundaes, other than a Spaghettieis professional press, which is attached to the counter of the vehicle. Of course, there’s always the original Eis Fontanella located in Mannheim.
Meine Kleine Eiszeit, an ice cream cart in Berlin, serves Spaghettieis (Credit: Susannah Edelbaum)
Rylewicz believes that over the last five years, the number of menu items featuring Spaghettieis is slowly increasing, and, at her cart, it’s just as popular as it ever was – at the very least with Germans. “The Americans are perplexed because they don’t know Spaghettieis at all,” she stated, while in the case of other Europeans, the Italians are the only ones who know about the dish.
According to Fontanella, several portions of sundaes are sold annually at gelaterias and ice cream shops nationwide. German supermarket chains such as Rewe and Lidl sell discounted Spaghetti Eis, and Fontanella offers his pre-packaged product for supermarkets with his Eis Fontanella label.
However, even the freezer aisle Spaghettieis by the man who invented it cannot replicate the dessert’s most adored and elusive ingredient – freshly whipped cream that, unlike a typical dessert, is placed underneath the ice cream and not over it, creating tiny frozen nuggets, which give the dessert an unusually crisp and airy texture.
If your favorite Ice cream shop has yet to put in enough time or effort to make Spaghettieis to order, You can create the delicious treat at your home.