Catherine, along with her jewels and her literature, brought along her technique for making sorbetto. Nowadays, paupers and princes enjoy that frozen dessert known as sorbet. It's made on street corners and scooped into paper cups and made in elegant kitchens and served on Limoge. And sorbet contains nutritious ingredients, namely fruit and fruit juices. Because sorbet ingredients are lightly processed before freezing, much of the nutritive value of the fruit is preserved.
Legitimate sorbets consist only of pureed fruit, a sweetener, and water.
However, since there are no food police, we'll take culinary license. But there is life beyond fruit for sorbet. Sorbets can be gussied up with liqueurs and brandies, with fresh mint and lavender, with shaved coconut and chocolate, and with dried fruit and nuts. Sorbets have traditionally been sweet, but you can make a spicy or savory sorbet by adding chopped herbs or ground spices, such as rosemary, thyme, black pepper, or ginger to a lemon or orange sorbet. Some fruits supply both the flavor and the container for sorbet.