Globalisation may have subjected Carpigiani to stiffer competition, but it is also helping to propagate a taste for genuine Italian ice-cream among China's swelling middle class.

ECONOMIST: Italian champions (2)

The firm generates about one-third of its income there, with its 85% share of the American market for machines that make posh Italian ice-cream and 30% for machines that make soft ice-cream.

ECONOMIST: Italian champions (2)

The project will also examine the arrival of ice cream and pork with Italian and German immigrants and the effect of the first Indian and Chinese restaurants.

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The ice cream was beautifully presented in that Italian way that makes the gelati look soft, smooth and perplexingly weightless.

CNN: $84 gelati! Greatest travel rip off?

Here, the chef serves up modern Italian cuisine, such as raw squid ribbons with chickpea cream flavoured with sage.

BBC: Florence for foodies

Ice cream in Argentina owes its existence to Italian immigrants who came to the country in two waves, first in the late 1800s with the general migration of Europeans to the New World, and again in the 1940s after World War II.

BBC: The summertime scoop on Buenos Aires ice cream

Nor is it as granulated or icy as granite, the Italian, semi-frozen flavored ice that can be made without an ice cream machine.

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