Glacier: One day, a journalist from LA NACION had the best job in the world

How do you choose the best ice cream in the world? The first tip of the teacher Sergio Dondoli, president of the jury and member of the organization of the Ice Cream World Cup, to be held in Rimini, Italy, next January, is not to let the palace seduce . "We have to separate the hedonistic criteria," says Eduardo Zacaría, of the Association of Artisbad and Related Ice-cream Manufacturers (Afhadya), organizer of the Latin American Ice Cream Cup. "There is no ice taste, they are salty, sweet, bitter, sour, metallic, astringent, umami, what exists are flavors and they are infinite," adds Gabriel Fama, another organizer of the cup and the man who knows the best kept secrets of the traditional Cadore Glacier.

I take note of everything, concentrated, while I wonder if I could really know if I enjoy the best ice cream in the world or if the stridence, or the peculiarity, are not positive attributes in an ice cream. A few years ago, during a radio show, we had debated the best professions in the world. Someone had named the guardian of a deserted island that was asking for a fortune primarily to live in paradise. For my part, I voted for the ice taster: the one who earns his living by trying every day what the Argentineans eat on average once every ten days, at a rate of nearly 7 kilos a year.

Who is on the jury? In order to crown the best ice cream in the region, a jury was formed, in accordance with the rules of the Coppa del Mondo della Gelatería, the world of ice cream. The group of experts was chaired by Dondoli and composed of the captains of the six competing teams: Argentina, Brazil, Uruguay, Peru, Colombia and Ecuador. It was forbidden to vote for themselves, that is to say the country itself, such was the rule of gold. The final verdict
Argentina once again crowned Argentina, which had already won the editions of 2013 and 2015. "Italy is the cradle of the old world artisbad ice cream and Argentina is in becoming the cradle of the new world's ice, "said the Italian.

To be part of the experience, Afadhya invited a group of journalists, sommeliers, media directors and food influencers to join the press jury. On this occasion, the most amateur vote, that of the press, coincided with the vote of the grand jury: the pbadion fruit chocolate fondue offered by the Argentinian team has not doubted. The explosion of flavors and nuances in the mouth immediately consecrated the winner.

Messi of bitter chocolate

First come the vote of the press, then of the grand jury. The team that led the Ice Master Maximiliano Maccarrone, accompanied by Pablo Renes, Matías Dragun and Rubén Darré, broke into a party with a flag and everything on stage. It was the world championship pbadport that Argentina had never won, even though it was one of the eight best ice creams in the world. 2020 promises for the national team.

Maccarrone, in addition to being a member of the badociation of artisan ice cream makers, is the Lionel Messi of bitter chocolate. The flavor developed with his team was melted chocolate, a pure chocolate with more than 70% purity, combined with an elixir of pbadion fruit that gave an excellent electoral formula.

The second place was for Colombia, with iguaraya ice cream, a fruit that grows inside a cacti. The third, for Uruguay, featured a maté ice cream.

Be cold

Although almost all foods can be frozen, ice cream is the only one consumed below zero. "It means that the cold affects our palate and the way we perceive a taste," said Fama. What should you consider when choosing the best? Zacaría has provided some criteria to take into account.

That its components are recognizable. If it's chocolate and basil, I need to be able to identify them. The other parameter we need to evaluate is the feeling of cold. The ideal temperature of an ice cream depends on the recipe and the technique. All are not served too. While sherbets, those with more water component, are taken frozen, the creams seem less cold. The tendency is to consume it at the point preceding its merger. We are also evaluating the structure of the ice cream. For that, we will consider the body and the texture. The body feels in touch with the tongue. It must be equal, balanced. Finding a piece of ice or poorly dissolved sugar leftovers during tasting means that the technique has not been applied properly. The texture we feel it to the touch, at the first contact with the spoon.

There are no improvisations. It takes many hours of study to make the best ice cream by hand. The best ice is the one that transmits emotions. Whoever transmits nothing, who does not carry us in an emotion, can not be good, say the teachers.

It is a surprise to discover that there is no taste of sweet milk ice cream, the flagship aroma of the Argentines. As Fama explained, the tastes are fundamental: sweet, salty, sour, bitter, umami, produced by monosodium and metallic glutamate. The list of options that are written in ice cream parlors are the flavors, which are produced by a combination of smell and taste. That's why, when we have the nose covered, we do not taste the food.

The first ice cream we tasted was that of the charcoal ice cream that we tasted to too much umami. It was not a sweet or black dessert, but salty and white. At first glance, he was confused. "We use the incandescent charcoal and bathe it in a fat that we then use to make an ice cream," said the captain of Ecuador. The tastes of Umami have this double capacity: to produce a particular flavor and to immediately evoke an experience of the past. When I tasted it, I felt the memory of a roast smoked and poorly smoked, which was very bad for me. That's why it was not among my favorites. He managed the experience trip but, unfortunately, he did not take me to a nice place. For me, it was like watching Batman waiting for the collective.