The Italian ice-cream flavor created in Bergamo in 1961 with chocolate pieces is stracciatella.
Enrico Panattoni, who ran the La Marianna restaurant in Bergamo, developed the flavor after being inspired by stracciatella soup, an Italian egg-drop soup. Instead of adding a smooth chocolate syrup, he drizzled melted chocolate into a freezing cream mixture. The chocolate hardened on contact and broke into irregular shards during mixing.
Stracciatella is therefore closer to a chocolate-chip style than to chocolate ice cream. Its base is traditionally milk or cream flavored with vanilla, while the chocolate provides the contrasting flecks and crisp texture. The name comes from the Italian verb stracciare, meaning “to tear” or “to shred.”
It is often confused with simple chocolate-chip ice cream, but the Italian preparation traditionally forms the chocolate pieces during the freezing process rather than mixing in ready-made chips.