What is Granita?
• It is in essence a classic dessert in which flavoured, sweetened, frozen liquid takes on the crystalline look and feel of icy fragments of snow.
• So it is basically a type of water ice that is much looser and more ice crystally than sorbet in texture.
• So its great for crap sorbet makers - because with sorbet ice crystals are 'wrong' (you are aiming for a smooth texture). To get this smooth texture you add egg white and 'spoom' the mixture. But sorbet is quite hard to get smooth and we have all had rubbishy sorbet with ice crystals in it.
• With granita the texture is supposed to be icy. So the major anxiety is removed.
• The great advantage of granita over other forms of frozen dessert is that they are very easy to make and you don't need special equipment. All you need is a pan, a tray, a fork and a freezer.
• It is traditional to serve them in a glass so you can see the glittering ice - use anything from a martini glass to a champagne flute. Although its best to chill your glasses in the freezer before you serve it because granita melts super fast.

History
• Sicilian legend says that Arab traders learnt the trick of granita making from the Chinese and then took it with them to Sicily when they colonised the island in the 828 AD.
• They further claim that Sicilian "nevari" snow dealers hauled blocks of snow to the cities from the slopes of Mount Etna from which they made the first granitas. Sort of primeval snow cones.
• Jeffrey Steingarten in The Man Who Ate Everything says that there is no way this myth can be true - because the secret of artificial freezing was only discovered in the 16th century and the first written records of granita in Sicily are 17th century.

• Whether its true or not Sicilians make better and more granitas than any where else in the world.

The Other Granita Myth...
• No piece on granita history would be complete without at least a passing reference to the Granita restaurant in Islington, London where in late May 1994 a "deal" between the then shadow Home Secretary Tony Blair and the then shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown was done in which Brown agreed to let Tony Blair be Prime Minister first. And then Tony Blair wouldnt play fair and give Gordon a turn.
• It closed in 2003 and later became a Tex-mex restaurant called 'Desperados'. Which seems very appropriate.
How to Eat Granita like a Sicilian
• Classic Sicilian granitas are almond and coffee flavours which are served with a brioche like bun called a brioscia used to scoop up coffee flavoured ice cream and a glass of coffee granita. You dunk the bun into the granita. The proper technique for eating one filled with rapidly melting granita is a skilful sequencing of squeeze, lick and bite – this something that Sicilian children acquire very young. Foreigners tend to make a mess of it.