World

There’s no meltdown here

The recession hit head to University of Gelato to ‘cream up’ their education

Posted On Tuesday, February 02, 2010 at 10:11:53 PM

Recession hit people in Europe have found a new haven. At a time when recession has hit various sectors,across the world hard, one Italian ‘University’ figures high on the wish list of ‘students’.

The Gelato University in Bologna, Italy has seen a 90 per cent rise in enrolments as executives laid off in the recession are lining up,to learn the art of making gelato and forge new careers.

According to a report in The Telegraph, More than 6,000 people have attended the £600-a-week courses offered by the Gelato university but enrolments nearly doubled last year.

Students come from all over the world, with budding gelato maestros from Australia, China, Sudan, Lebanon and Britain attending the University. The university is an off-shoot of Carpigiani, an Italian company that manufactures about 70 per cent of the world's gelato-making machines.

“We've had a 89 per cent increase in enrolments. We're getting more and more people who have been hit by the economic crisis and want to create a new future for themselves,” said Mr Hopkins.

“A lot of them are senior business people who have lost their jobs. Outside Italy it's not as though there's a gelateria on every corner. People taste Italian gelato and think to themselves ‘why don't we have this at home’?”

The university runs six courses, from beginner to advanced, in which students are taught that making gelato is much a science as an art.

As well as learning how to concoct familiar flavours such as chocolate and vanilla, students experiment with more outlandish tastes, including gelato made from red wine, olive oil, Parmesan cheese and basil.

“In China they have experimented with fish-flavoured gelato,” said Patrick Hopkins, the American director of the university, which was established in 2003.”

“Gelato is a platform for flavours — you can adapt it to whatever culture you're in. Pear with Parmesan and lemon with basil are some of the more unusual ones our students have come up with.”

One of the students recently on the course was Seb Cole, 30, from London, who until recently worked in printing but hopes to open his own gelateria in Brighton this summer.

“I wanted my own business and I'd been looking for an opportunity for the last five years,” he said. “Gelato is low in fat and there's a lot more scope with flavours. I want to give it a bit of a British twist — we're going to try gelato flavoured with beer.”

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