L'Italo-Americano

THURSDAY, JUNE 10, 2021 www.italoamericano.org 18 L'Italo-Americano O f course gelato is Italian, but one of its most popular vari- eties, the i ce cream cone – or cono gela- to – is the brainchild of an Italian, too, and that the US had part in its creation. T h e r e i s v e r y l i t t l e o u t there that speaks of summer a s m u c h a s a n i c e c r e a m cone, especially in Italy, but h a v e y o u e v e r w o n d e r e d where the ubiquitous wafer c o m e s f r o m ? W e l l , t h e answer is, a bit from Italy, a bit from the US, and its ori- gin is steeped in drama. A c c o r d i n g t o t h e N e w York Times, the ice cream cone was born out of necessi- t y d u r i n g t h e S t . L o u i s World Fair of 1904. The fair had been organized to celebrate the 100 th anniver- sary of the city's liberation f r o m t h e F r e n c h a n d i t s annexing by the US. That y e a r , S t L o u i s h a d t h e Olympics and the World Fair, a perfect showcase for recent inventions like the radio, the telephone and the airplane, b u t a l s o f o r g a r g a n t u a n quantities of food, presented in the most creative ways, including buildings and tow- e r s m a d e o f c e r e a l s a n d sculptures made of butter. It was in this over-the-top, f u n , c r e a t i v e a t m o s p h e r e that, according to some, the ice cream cone was invented, but Italy, in this version, had n o t h i n g t o d o w i t h i t . Apparently, Ernst Hamwi, a Syrian baker, had befriend- ed ice cream maker Charles Menches, who had a stand j u s t b e s i d e h i s . O n e d a y , Menches was so busy he ran out of cups so Hamwi rolled s o m e z a l a b i a , a M i d d l e Eastern treat, into cones, w h i c h w e r e t h e n u s e d t o serve ice cream. Voilà: an icon was born, you say! Not so fast. First of all, there aren't written sources attesting this version, except a letter writ- t e n b y H a m w i h i m s e l f i n 1928 to the Ice Cream Trade Journal. Menches, however, refuted Hamwi's version, saying he was the one who had the idea to roll the zal- abia into cones. Things, in fact, may be even more com- plicated than that: according to historian Anne Cooper F u n d e r b u r g , a u t h o r o f Chocolate, Strawberry and Vanilla, a History of American Ice Cream, the wafer ice cream cone became so popular and ubiquitous at the fair, it is virtually impos- sible to say who used it first. B e s i d e M e n c h e s a n d Hamwi, others claimed the invention for themselves, including Abe Doumar, who opened an ice cream parlor in Coney Island in 1905, a Turkish immigrant and two brothers from Ohio. While all the people at the fair in 1904 and other ice c r e a m m a k e r s b i c k e r e d , Italian Italo Marchioni, born in the Cadore area of Veneto but a resident of New York, had apparently already registered a patent for an ice cream cone-making machine i n 1 9 0 3 . B u t w h y w o u l d Marchioni have created a portable and edible ice cream container? It all comes down to handiness. Marchioni, who ran an ice cream parlor, was tired of using glass cups for his gelato: they could break easily and they needed to be washed. Disposable paper cups weren't much better, because they were expensive a n d p r o d u c e d t o n s o f garbage. And so, a whole year before the St Louis World Fair, Marchioni created his machine and had it regis- t e r e d ( p a t e n t n u m b e r 746971) in Washington DC. T h e m a c h i n e w a s a b l e t o shape wafer dough in curious shapes and prevented the delicate cones to crumble or being damaged during pro- duction. Now, you'd think there was enough drama around our wafer cones already but there was more to come. In a twist worthy of a modern s o a p o p e r a , I t a l o ' s f i r s t cousin, Frank Marchioni, became business partner of Antonio Valvona, another Italian-American who, in 1902 – a full two years before the World Fair and one year before Italo's patent – had also registered a machine to " b a k e i c e c r e a m w a f e r s " ( p a t e n t n u m b e r 7 0 1 7 7 6 ) . Frank accused his cousin of patent infringement, sued him and won: apparently, Italo didn't add anything new t o F r a n k a n d A n t o n i o ' s machine. I t a l o ' s p o p u l a r i t y a n d fame, however, remained strong, if it's true that when he died in 1954, his own obit- uary stated he "had prepared the first ice cream cone in 1896 and, according to his family, he patented the idea a few years later." I f you grew up in an I t a l i a n h o u s e h o l d , y o u h a v e c e r t a i n l y been on the receiving e n d o f m i l l i o n s o f zitto (zeet-toh) during your childhood. Literally, zitto means "silent," but it is most o f t e n u s e d w i t h t h e v e r b stare to create the locution stare zitto, or "shut up." Of its English counterpart, s t a r e z i t t o h a s a l l t h e peremptoriness: vuoi stare z i t t o ? M i d a i f a s t i d i o ! (Would you shut up? You're bothering me!). As an adjective, zitto is declined, so it has a feminine ( z i t t a ) a n d p l u r a l s ( z i t t i , zitte): this means Marco deve stare zitto ("Mark needs t o s h u t u p " ) , M a r i a d e v e stare zitta ("Mary needs to s h u t u p " ) , a n d M a r c o e M a r i a d e v o n o s t a r e z i t t i ("Mark and Mary need to shut up"). We use it a lot, often pre- ceded by the internationally recognizable shhh! and, more often than not, in the way we just showed you, with stare. However, the use of zitto as a pure adjective is also very common, as in Se ne sta zitto, seduto sul divano ("he is sit- ting on the couch, all silent"). Z i t t o i s a l s o p r e s e n t i n some popular expressions: zitti e mosca! can be trans- lated with "not a word to anyone," while zitti e buoni (very popular today after the homonymous song won the Eurovision Festival) can be translated with "keep quiet." The verb zittire means to induce someone to stop talk- ing and is also quite com- mon. La festa è una sorpresa, quindi zitti e mosca! The party is going to be a surprise so… not a word to anyone! Ragazzi! Insomma! State zitti! Guys, come on! Shut up now! Se ne sta zitto in un ango- lo, deve essersi offeso He is all quiet in the cor- ner: I think he got offended. LA VITA ITALIANA TRADITIONS HISTORY CULTURE Word of the day: zitto! We need silence! Italian curiosities: did you know the ice cream cone is an Italian invention? The ice cream cone: an Italian-American invention! (Photo: Photolucky/Dreamstime) © Mykola Kravchenko | Dreamstime.com

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