So what’s on the dessert menu? Cheesecake, chocolate mousse cake. . . well, I can have those any time . . . Affogato? What’s that? It says “vanilla ice cream and espresso” . . . Hmmn, that’s a simple combination.  Sounds good, why don’t I try it? 

 Aberystwyth, a small city on the coast of Wales. Andy and I had gone there to attend his scientific conference.   As for the restaurant with its red-checked table cloths, well-worn atmosphere, and a menu featuring comfort food, “Little Italy” relaxed us that night. We agreed we’d like to bring it home. As for Affogato, it turned out to be dollops of ice cream in a coffee cup over which the waiter poured hot espresso. When we went back another evening, I ordered it again.  

Two weeks later, we were taken to Carlucci’s, an Italian bistro in London’s South Kensington. Affogato had gotten dressed up and gone to town! Our waiter delivered a tall narrow glass stacked with elegant scoops of vanilla gelato, a little pitcher of espresso, and an iced-tea spoon, all set out on an oblong tray. The deconstructed version. However, the stiffness of fresh gelato made for slow going, so I poked holes with the spoon and poured in coffee, feeling as though I were at the beach playing with a pail and shove. But just as I remembered from my first affogato in Wales, the flavors pooled and the same creamy sweetness developed.   

 From looking up affogato in a dictionary in a London bookstore, I’d learned that the term means ‘drowning;.’ ice cream is “drowned” in coffee. By the time you’ve finished dessert, though, ‘blended’ seems more accurate.  

Purring happily as I spooned it in, it occurred to me that affogato was the culinary equivalent of duets I used to play, my flute’s high sweet tone contrasting with my friend’s dark viola sound, or the times my college boyfriend and I played flute and clarinet duos. Privately I used to call us “chocolate and vanilla,” and coffee’s not far from chocolate. The elements contrast, yet they mellow with every spoonful. The melt at the bottom is the best part, though. You scoop up every last bit, unwilling to let the final note fade. 

 But sometimes you’re thankful when it does. I also remember a dessert I was served years ago, put together on rather the same theory as affogato. Supposedly a Julia Child recipe, something I find hard to believe (at least how it was served to me), this one also started with vanilla ice cream, a rectangular slice cut from a carton. Plopped down on a plate, it was then sprinkled with instant coffee crystals, with a dollop of Kahlua on top. The same elements were present, dark and light, strong and sweet, but the bitter shards of coffee zapped your tongue, the “slings and arrows” of dessert misfortune.    

Once back from my trip to the U.K., I got to thinking, how odd to have come upon Affogato in a place named Aberystwyth. I said the two words aloud.  

Affogato, . . .Aberystwyth. . . Aberystwyth . . . Affogato  

All those syllables!  Before I’d ever reached “Aber” (Ahh-bear), as the locals called their town, I’d struggled to get my tongue around the word. A broad “ah” sound starts it off, strongly accentuated. “Ah-bear-ist-with” is the proper pronunciation. By comparison, affogato came easily: “Af–fo-gah-toe,” starting with a hard short ‘a’ and then the accent on the expected third syllable. 

  Affogato . . .  Aberystwyth. . . Aberystwyth . . . Affogato.  

Repeating, I began to feel as though I’d coined a tongue twister, like a kid who’s learned to say “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream!” I’d cooked up my own verbal concoction.  

 And a geographic one at that. To reach Aberystwyth, I’d gone from San Diego, California, U.S.A . . .  to London, then Telford, England, . . . and finally to Aberystwyth, Wales, and affogato! I let the words simmer a moment, then repeated them like an incantation. Geographic and culinary name dropping—why not?   

All this because I’d liked a dessert so down-home that it barely registers in Italian cookbooks. Though new to me that night, affogato is an old cook’s trick like keeping ice cream and chocolate sauce on hand. In my house, the variation is thinly shaved unsweetened chocolate on vanilla ice cream, my husband’s favorite.  One night in a San Francisco restaurant I watched people virtuously decline the entire dessert menu, then succumb to a waiter’s seductive pitch: “Maybe just a little vanilla ice cream with chocolate sauce?”  

Every now and then, we need these tongue-pleasers to drown the wear-and-tear of life. No matter how exciting or attractive your destination, it’s wonderful when something reminds you of home —and just about always for me, that something is sweet.  Emotionally anyway, I’m not so very different from English explorer Apsley Cherry-Garrard on the Scott expedition to the Antarctic in 191l. In a howling gale, his tent blown away, Cherry-Garrard clung on in frigid dark fearing for his life. In his book The Worst Journey in the World, he later wrote, “I wanted peaches and syrup—badly.” 

That’s because in Aberystwyth, or at Starbuck’s, or in dire peril few people will ever face, a tender whisper comes with sweetness: “There, there, dear. Everything’s all right! You’ve made it——good for you!” 

Aberystwyth, affogato .  .  .Abracadabra!