Pistachio Gelato

I’m convinced that in a past life I was an Italian woman with strong arms and solid legs, my nylons rolled down around my swollen peasant ankles. Because like signoras of years gone by, when it comes to pistachios, I refuse to take shortcuts. I will happily sit at the kitchen table and shell pounds and pounds of pistachios by hand. I’ll shell so many nuts that by the end my thumbs are stinging because the salt has made its way into the slits on my fingertips inflicted by the sharp edges of the shells. Hell, I’d sit there in the dark as I shell to heighten the sense of martyrdom if I could get away with it. But I never begrudge the work or the mighty pistachio itself. Some activities are meant to be done slowly and with great suffering. They’re good for the soul. (They’re also hefty deposits in the relationship bank account so that I can guilt The One into doing my bidding simply by giving him two very sore thumbs up.)

That’s how it is with this gelato. I know I can buy shelled pistachios. I know I can refinance our apartment to buy Sicilian pistachio paste. I know I can hire neighborhood children and scream at them to shell faster as they huddle together, crying, as they ping those lovely green nuts into a communal bowl. It’s just that I get an enormous sense of satisfaction from doing it myself. If I could grow the damn things, I would.

The payoff of all this drama queen-worthy sturm und drang is supremely creamy, abundantly studded sin in a spoon. And accept no less than khaki-colored gelato. Yes, khaki-colored. Those pints of nuclear-green ice cream whispering your name each summer are imposters. They’re artificially colored and too often laced with almond extract, kind of like inexpensive performance-enhancing drugs for the dairy set. (The One and I were in Aix-en-Provence recently, and I was floored to find my pistachio gelato contained nary an eponymous nut; it was meagerly flecked with—are you ready?—crushed peanuts.) People will go to great lengths to not spend the time or money to make a memorable gelato.

Speaking of money, many an excellent commercial gelato maker will use those outrageously expensive pistachio pastes ($320 for a 4.6-pound can) to achieve a pistachio flavor so intense you positively vibrate while lapping it up. But where’s the pain in that, I ask you? My signoras would never approve. Originally published August 10, 2003.–David Leite