Italian Ice
 

Anyone have any good recipes for making Italian Ice they want to share with me? I live in Canada where they don't sell it and I've had a craving for it for a while. I use to eat Luigi's Italian Ice / Lemon. It was sooo good. Now that it's summer I've been missing it.

I just had some Luigi's Italian Ice earlier this evening. That stuff is plain tasty - saved our lives when we visited DC several years ago, it was in the 90s every day, but there were Italian Ice vendors making their first millions because they were marketing the right product for the hot day.

I think that Italian Ice is far more refreshing than ice cream, personally. It stays solid far longer, and lasts many times longer than ice cream does, with lots of flavor in every spoonful. Ice cream in a container that size would be gone by about the time that only a quarter or so of the Italian Ice.

Oh, and I have no recipies. I just enjoy the stuff.

Exactly..
 

ha ha, yeah that's the brand I ate. It was so damn good, but now I can't get it anymore. I even ask if they could get it at a local grocery store, but no luck.

It's so hot out lately, it would be absolutely perfect!! I guess I'll just have to go back to the US. lol

I've looked up Italian Ice... what's the difference? It looks like ice cream. Is the texture different?

Big differents.

I'll try to explain this best I can. It's kind of like taking snow turned very hard and mixing it with old fashion lemonade. If that will help any, but the best suggestion would be just to go out and try it. If you have Luigi’s Real Italian Ice in your supermarket. Go for that.

I'd say buy an ice shaving machine, grind some ice, mix it with lemonade and put it in the freezer for an hour or two to get solified but not so much it becomes a block of ice.

But I've never heard of making Italian Ice at home, I always imagined these huge elaborate machines used to churn it out.

Philly, my home, is the origin of water ice which is basically italian ice. However, it's different from the stuff you put in the supermarket freezers. We have stands all over that sell fresh water ice. It's not frozen hard like the supermarket stuff. It's nice and soft and smooth.

We have all different kinds of places that sell it. Rita's is the most popular, which is now all over the east coast, after being only in PA for a while. Esposito's, and Roses are great as well. Also small mom and pop stores, and a lot of deli's in Philly sell water ice as well. They either get it from the Philly Water Ice Factory or make it themselves. Esposito's is my personal favorite, but it doesn't exist outside of Philly.

A lot of people don't really know what water ice is, because it's doesn't exist everywhere, but everyone that I know that came in from out of town and never heard of it, completely became obsessed with the stuff. It's so good, and quenches your thirst too.

http://ritasice.com/ That's the site to Rita's if no one's heard of it before.

Also most water ice places make gelati's(which is italian plural for ice cream) which is water ice and custard layered in a cup. It's damn good. If anyone ever visits Philly, I suggest checking out an Esposito's stand or a Rita's and getting some water ice and a gelati. You can buy it in all different sizes, and most places sell quarts so you can take it home and put it in the freezer to microwave it.