Licorice ice cream

by: Tamara

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True licorice root is a forgotten thing in this country. I love it. The real thing leeks and smells beautiful and it is so pure—tasting — sweet yet net sweet — so different from the shiny black stuff you see in candy stores shaped into shoelaces and so on, which is made by cooking the root until it forms a black syrup, sweetening it with sugar and adding starch. We buy our licorice from the Amarelli family in Calabria, whose great plantations of licorice plants are about 6OO years old and are grown on big stones, so the roots hit them and turn upward and can be harvested easily. When I was little, I used to see the old men sitting outside in the afternoons, chatting and chewing on pieces of licorice root, and I read in an Italian newspaper that since Italy introduced a smoking ban in public places, people have been rushing to buy licorice sticks to put in their mouths as a substitute.