Showing posts with label Ice Cream. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Ice Cream. Show all posts

9 February 2025

Procopio Cutò - chef and entrepreneur

Sicilian who popularised coffee and gelato in 17th century Paris

Procopio Cutò, born in Sicily, founded
the most successful 
café in Paris
The chef and café proprietor Procopio Cutò, who opened one of the earliest coffee houses in Paris and has been credited with introducing Italian ice cream to the French capital, was born in Sicily on this day in 1651.

Cutò, whose full name was Francesco Procopio Cutò and at times called himself Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli, or François Procope, was the owner and founder of the Café Procope, which thanks to its illustrious clientele can claim to have been the first literary coffee house in Paris.

The café opened for business in 1686 and traded continuously for around 200 years before closing in the late 19th century.  

The name was revived in the 1950s and the original premises in Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie - in the Saint-Germain-des-Prés quarter on the left bank of the Seine - is again called Café Procope, although it is now a restaurant rather than a coffee house.

It was thought for many years that Cutò was born in Aci Trezza, a town on Sicily’s eastern coast, a little over 10km (six miles) north of Catania, the island’s second largest city. However, the discovery of baptismal certificate in the archives of the Church of Sant'Ippolito in the Capo district of Palermo suggests he was born in the capital.

The surname Cutò, while common in Sicily at the time of his birth, is of Greek origin. The first name Procopio was inspired by the Greek historian Procopius.


Although there is evidence that flavours were added to snow and ice as a refreshment in ancient Rome and Greece, ice cream had yet to be produced commercially as Cutò was growing up.

Café Procope's elegant and luxurious decor  attracted an upmarket, intellectual clientele
Café Procope's elegant and luxurious decor
 attracted an upmarket, intellectual clientele
Sorbets had been introduced to Sicily by Arabs. Cutò’s grandfather had invented a machine that could produce sorbets, which were ‘frozen’ using a combination of natural snow or ice and salt, which kept the ice cooler for longer. When he died, he left the machine to his grandson, who made some modifications to it and believed he could use it to make sorbets on a larger scale. 

With dreams of making his fortune by producing and selling his ices, Cutò chose to try his luck in Paris because, with a population of half a million, the French capital was at the time the largest city in Europe.

Having travelled through mainland Italy, he is thought to have arrived there at some point between 1670 and 1674. He took jobs along the way, in one of which he acquired cooking skills, joined a guild of drinks-makers soon after reaching Paris and becoming apprenticed to an Armenian, called Pascal, who had a kiosk serving lemonade and coffee on Rue de Tournan. It was one of the first such establishments to call itself a café. When Pascal moved to London in 1675, he allowed Cutò to take over.

In the meantime, using the gelato-making methods he had learned from his grandfather, Cutò developed a range of flavoured ices and successfully applied for a licence to sell them from his kiosk. In search of a bigger market, he opened a second stall at the nearby Foire Saint-Germain, a large covered marketplace which staged annual fairs that could accommodate 300 merchants.

The writer Voltaire, who was a Procope regular
The writer Voltaire, who
was a Procope regular
In 1686, Cutò relocated his kiosk to the Café Procope’s present location, on a street which was then called Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain-des-Prés.  Although there were coffee houses in Paris already, they were mainly frequented by the lower classes and immigrants.

Cutò believed that if he changed the image of the coffee house, he could appeal to a wealthier, more sophisticated branch of Parisian society. With that aim, he bought up a redundant bath house, stripped out all its bathing facilities and repurposed it as a luxury meeting place, with crystal chandeliers, wall mirrors and marble tables. 

It soon became a place where stylish gentlemen would develop a taste for coffee and Cutò’s fruit sorbets, which were served in porcelain cups by elegant waiters. 

Cutò’s big break came in 1689, when the Comédie-Française opened its doors in a theatre across the street from his café. A new crowd of young intellectuals began to frequent the Café Procope, establishing the venue as one of the first literary cafes.

Over time, the likes of Voltaire, Maximilien Robespierre, Victor Hugo, Pierre Beaumarchais, Jean-Jacques Rousseau and Honoré de Balzac would become regulars. Oscar Wilde and Henry Wadsworth Longfellow are also known to have visited, along with American political luminaries such as Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson.  Even Napoleon Bonaparte took coffee there.

The Café Procope, in Rue de l'Ancienne Comédie,
  is still in business today as a thriving restaurant 
Franklin, one of America’s ‘founding fathers’, is said to have drafted the terms of the 1778 Treaty of Alliance with French king Louis XVI while sitting at one of Café Procope’s tables.

The Café Procope thus became the most famous and successful café in Paris and is credited with turning France into a coffee-drinking society.

Cutò, who married three times and fathered at least 14 children, became wealthy as a result. Having adopted the surname Dei Coltelli soon after arriving in Paris when his name was misspelled as Couteaux - the French word for knives (coltelli in Italian) - in 1702 he changed it to François Procope not long after becoming a French citizen.

In 1716, he handed the running of Café Procope to his second son, Alexandre. Cutò continued to run his kiosk at the Foire Saint-Germain before passing away in 1727 at the age of 76. 

The dramatic rock formation off the coast at Aci Trezza is known as the Islands of the Cyclops
The dramatic rock formation off the coast at Aci
Trezza is known as the Islands of the Cyclops
Travel tip:

Aci Trezza, which for many years was thought to have been the birthplace of Procopio Cutò, is a small fishing town within easy reach of the Sicilian city of Catania that has become a popular resort. It has rocky volcanic beaches which look out over some dramatic rock formations in the sea known as the Islands of the Cyclops, sometimes called the Faraglioni of Trezza. The main part of the town is clustered around the harbour and the Chiesa Madre di San Giovanni Battista, Aci Trezza’s parish church. Many houses have been painted in pastel colours. The town is particularly lively in the evening thanks to its reputation for having outstanding fish restaurants. The town hosts a fish festival every July. Its connection with Cutò may have arisen because Aci Trezza is one of many towns that sit in the shadow of Mount Etna, where snow from the upper slopes used to be collected for turning into sorbets. It is possible that Cutò may have visited the area while perfecting his recipe for gelato.

The daily Mercato di Capo runs the whole length of the Via Sant'Agostino in the centre of Palermo
The daily Mercato di Capo runs the whole length
of the Via Sant'Agostino in the centre of Palermo
Travel tip:

Capo, the neighbourhood of Palermo where Procopio Cutò is likely to have been born, is one of the original four quarters of Palermo established during the Spanish rule of the city, which lasted from early 15th century until Italy became a unified country in the 19th century. Also known as Seralcadi, derived from the Arabic name Sari al Cadì, the area nestles between Palermo’s duomo - the Cattedrale della Santa Vergine Maria Assunta - the Teatro Massimo, and Via Maqueda, one of the city’s main thoroughfares. The largest opera house in Italy, able to accommodate an audience of 1,350 people, the Renaissance-style Teatro Massimo opened in 1897, with an initial capacity of 3,000. It closed in 1974 for supposedly minor repairs but a lack of funding prevented its re-opening for 23 years. A major attraction for visitors to Capo is the huge, historic outdoor street market, which occupies virtually the length of Via Sant’Agostino, selling everything from fresh fish, fruit and vegetables to clothes, household items and local handicrafts. Street food can be found in abundance, in particular the Sicilian specialities - arancini, cannoli and panelle.

Also on this day:

1621: The election of Pope Gregory XV

1770: The birth of classical guitarist and composer Ferdinando Carulli

1891: The birth of left-wing politician Pietro Nenni

1953: The birth of boxer Vito Antuofermo

1953: The birth of missionary Ezechiele Ramin


21 December 2023

Italo Marchioni - ice cream maker

Italian-American inventor of the waffle cone


Italo Marchioni hailed from mountainous northern Veneto
Italo Marchioni hailed from
mountainous northern Veneto
Italo Marchioni, the ice cream manufacturer credited by many as the inventor of the ice cream cone, was born in the tiny mountain hamlet of Peaio in northern Veneto on this day in 1868.

Marchioni learned his skills in Italy, where gelato was well established as a popular treat, but in common with so many Italians during what were tough economic times in the late 19th century he took the bold step of emigrating to the United States in 1890.

Records suggest his first American home was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and that it was there that he married Elvira De Lorenzo in 1893.

Marchioni - by then known by his Americanised name of Marchiony - later settled in Hoboken, a city in New Jersey with a strong pull for Italian immigrants that retains an Italian flavour to this day, with almost a quarter of the area’s population thought to have Italian roots. 

As he had done at home, Marchiony made and sold ice cream, starting out by selling lemon ice from a single cart, crossing the Hudson River every day to wheel his cart around the Wall Street financial district, where the traders were good customers.

His invention of what we now know as the ice cream cone came about after he found that his profits were being impacted by the frequent loss of the small glass dishes or glasses that he used to serve his ice creams.

The designs that accompanied Marchioni's patent application
The designs that accompanied
Marchioni's patent application
He would ask his customers to return the dish when they had finished and while many did, others forgot. Combined with the inevitable breakages, this meant that Marchiony had to spend a sizeable proportion of his takings on restocking with dishes.

By then, Marchiony was spending the evenings in the kitchen at the family home making waffles to accompany his ice cream. He found that if he folded a freshly made waffle before it had fully cooled, he could shape it into a cup.

Now he had a container for his ice cream that was edible. They quickly became known as “toots” according to some accounts, perhaps because Marchiony told his customers they could eat all of it, the container as well as the ice cream - “tutti”.

Ice cream vendors themselves were often called “hokey-pokey men”, thought to have derived from Marchiony’s habit of offering a taste of his ice cream with the words “ecco un poco” - “here’s a little”.

Marchiony’s cones became hugely popular. He soon took on his first employee, followed by many more, in time operating a “fleet” of 45 or 50  ice cream carts on the streets of Manhattan.

Keeping up with demand by making his waffle cups by hand became impossible, so the ever-enterprising Marchiony adapted the design of a waffle iron to build a device which could mass produce ice cream cups. He filed for a patent on the device in 1902, which was awarded the following year, rented a garage and set the machine up there.

In 1904, he acquired a factory in Grand Street, Hoboken, to manufacture cones as well as rectangular wafers that were either flat or moulded into shapes that resembled clams or bananas. Horse-drawn wagons carrying the Marchiony name supplies retailers all over the New York area. At its peak, the factory reputedly could turn out 150,000 cones in 24 hours.

An ice cream cart similar to that operated by Marchioni in late 19th century New York
An ice cream cart similar to that operated
by Marchioni in late 19th century New York
Although Marchiony’s descendants - records show he was married twice and had seven children - hail him as the inventor of the ice cream cone, the story has at times been disputed.

One popular alternative story is that the ice cream cone was invented at the 1904 World’s Fair in St Louis, Missouri.  Ernest Hamwi, an immigrant from Syria, had a stall making zalabia, a wafer dessert, next to one selling ice cream. The two stallholders chatted and Hamwi suggested that the two things might be sold in combination. Hamwi eventually opened the Missouri Cone Company.

In 1913, Marchiony was accused of patent infringement by his cousin, Frank, another immigrant from Italy who also had a cart selling ice creams in New York City. By the time the accusation was made, Frank was in business with Antonio Valvona, an Italian migrant who had originally settled in Manchester, England, where he was one of dozens of Italian ice cream makers. He had patented a machine to produce edible cup-shaped biscuits in 1901.

Italo admitted his association with Frank and the judge found in the latter’s favour, ruling that the device Italo patented was too similar not to have been a copy of Valvona’s. Despite the judgement, Italo continued in business as before.

He retired just before the outbreak of World War Two at the age of 70, selling the business to the Schrafft Candy Company, and he died in 1954 at the age of 86.

Peaio is a hamlet in the beautiful Cadore Valley in the north of Italy's Veneto region
Peaio is a hamlet in the beautiful Cadore Valley
in the north of Italy's Veneto region
Travel tip:

Italo Marchioni’s home village of Peaio today has a population of just 138 residents. Situated on the SS51 highway in the Cadore Valley in the northern part of the Veneto region, it is about 50km (31 miles) north of Belluno, the provincial capital, and approximately 140km (87 miles) from Venice.  Once an undeveloped and poor district, the Cadore Valley now has a thriving economy, which is based largely on tourism, the area being popular for trekking in the summer months and skiing in the winter, with the ski resort of Cortina d’Ampezzo situated in the upper part of the valley, near the border with Austria.  The painter Titian was born in the town of Pieve di Cadore, just 12km (7.5 miles) from Peaio.

Picturesque Piazza del Duomo is one of the many charms of the town of Belluno in the Dolomites
Picturesque Piazza del Duomo is one of the many
charms of the town of Belluno in the Dolomites
Travel tip:

Belluno, the capital of the province of which Peaio is part, is a beautiful town in the Dolomites, situated just over 100km (62 miles) north of Venice. It occupies an elevated position above the Piave river surrounded by rocky slopes and dense woods that make for an outstanding scenic background. The architecture of the historic centre has echoes of the town's Roman and mediaeval past. Notable Renaissance-era buildings including the 16th century Cattedrale di San Martino in the picturesque Piazza del Duomo and the nearby 15th century Palazzo dei Rettori, which is the former town hall. The Piazza dei Martiri, the scene of an execution of partisans during the Second World War, is now a popular meeting place. Local cuisine includes some unusual cheeses, including Schiz, a semi-soft cheese often served fried in butter.

Also on this day: