Del's Lemonade trucks ★ 4.5
Del's Lemonade has pushed frozen lemonade carts across Rhode Island from a Cranston HQ since 1948, when Angelo DeLucia adapted a Naples family recipe.
Try: Frozen lemonade
History
Angelo DeLucia of Cranston founded Del's Lemonade in 1948 using his grandfather Franco's frozen lemonade recipe, which Franco had brought from Naples at the turn of the century. The first cart was a pushcart in Cranston; modified Table Talk Pies trucks soon followed and still serve as the fleet today. Del's juices about 300,000 lemons in an average Rhode Island summer. The brand has grown into a national mail-order item, but the trucks remain the canonical way to drink it; they begin rotating in April and run through October.
Make it at home
Ingredients
- 750g granulated sugar
- 1 litre water
- Zest of 6 lemons
- 300ml fresh lemon juice (from 6 to 8 lemons)
- 1 kg crushed ice
Method
- Combine sugar, water and lemon zest in a saucepan. Bring to a simmer and cook 3 minutes until the sugar dissolves. Off the heat, steep 10 minutes.
- Strain out the zest. Stir in the fresh lemon juice. Chill the syrup at least 2 hours.
- Pour 240ml of the chilled syrup into a high-powered blender. Add 250g crushed ice. Blend on high until smooth and slushy, 30 seconds.
- Repeat for each serving. Serve immediately in a cold cup.
Tip from the editors. The texture is slushy, not chunky. If your blender struggles, freeze the syrup into ice cubes ahead and skip the crushed ice.
This is the TableJourney editorial recipe, modelled on the canonical bistro / counter version. The first place to try the dish in its city of origin is below.
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