No, Toscanini’s is not some exclusive gelato haven in a heavily trafficked tourist trap in Italy.

Nor is it in Wharton County.

But as a part of my visit to Massachusetts, my brother and I decided last Saturday night to visit Toscanini’s ice cream shop in Cambridge on Sunday.  Owned by a good friend of my brother’s going back to college days, Gus Rancatore, we looked forward to the visit.

Little did we know it would be featured on the front page of the Boston Globe on Sunday morning!

The article, “The Scoop on Rising Food Costs: Global economic factors driving prices of things we need – and love” hits home on factors affecting rising costs not just in Massachusetts, but in Texas, too.

Toscanini’s has a dedicated clientele for good reasons.  Opened in 1981, the store is acclaimed for “ingenious flavors.”

The New York Times calls it “the best ice cream in the world,” and in 2009 it was the winner of Boston Magazine’s “Best of Boston” Award for Best Ice Cream.

Though Gus has no formal academic degree, located “down the street” from Harvard and M.I.T,. his store hosts academicians and others from around the world from whom Gus has both learned and shared of his expertise.

He is an occasional guest speaker at Boston University on “Food and Anthropology” and has a scope (not scoop) of expertise that even reaches into Texas education and politics.

But back to economics, rising costs affect even the gourmet ice cream market.   The Globe points out that at Toscanini’s, a single scoop of mango ice cream has risen 40 cents in less than three months!

To understand the change, one needs to look beyond Cambridge, beyond the greater Boston area, beyond Massachusetts, beyond New England and even beyond the borders of the United States.

Globe writer Megan Woolhouse points out, “Ice cream may be a deliciously simple combination of milk, butter and sugar, but the true cost of an ice cream cone is no simple business calculation. Toscanini’s price tag is part of complex and increasingly interconnected world economy, one that links a dairy farm in the tiny western Massachusetts town of Colrain to the sprawling neighborhoods of Beijing.”

She continues, “The story of this scoop of ice cream, as it moves from raw materials to finished product, captures the myriad forces that are pushing food prices higher and putting pressure on beleaguered U.S. consumers and a tentative economic recovery. Like other commodities, milk, sugar, and gasoline prices have soared because of rising demand, catastrophic weather and political unrest.”

The foundation for Gus’s ingenious flavors is an “ice cream ‘mix’ – the powdered and skim milk, butter and sugar combination sold to ice cream makers at shops.”

Gus buys from a Massachusetts- and New Hampshire-based processing plant.

The price the processing plant pays for its ingredients of cheese, milk powder and butter is determined by the Chicago commodities market, which Woolhouse explains, “have risen because of a surge in international demand for U.S. milk, particularly in Asia” including the Chinese market.

Sugar prices have gone up because of global demand as well as adverse weather conditions — including a cyclone in Australia and a drought in the Ukraine and Russia — affecting sugar beets.

Subsequently, between two main ingredients for ice cream, prices rose 44 percent for skim milk, and 12 percent for sugar.  On top of that, Massachusetts increased its food tax 2 cents on the dollar, or a 40 percent increase.

While a single scoop of one of Gus’s ingenious flavors of ice cream now costs $4.25, thankfully for him, there are customers who continue to seek out his establishment.

As mentioned in the Globe article, “Darcy Hutchinson savored her single scoop of mango ice cream on a recent afternoon at Toscanini’s” in spite of the increased cost.

As a “27-year-old Tufts veterinary school student … she has grown accustomed to high prices” and attempts to put it in perspective.  “When I graduate, I’m going to be $200,000 in the hole,’’ Hutchinson said. “What’s another $4?’’

While I wouldn’t look at it exactly as Ms. Hutchinson does, I do attest to the quality of Toscanini’s ice cream and camaraderie found there. If you head to anywhere in Massachusetts or New England, I recommend a visit to Toscanini’s.

From Boston, you may only be a few minutes away, and much of New England probably no more than a couple of hours, sort of like a trip to the grocery store or the midpoint of one’s ranch for a Texan.

If you can’t get to Massachusetts, you might try Amy’s Ice Cream in Houston, Austin or San Antonio.  As far back as 1978, Gus and Amy, then a pre-med student at Tufts, scooped ice cream together at Steve’s Ice Cream in nearby Somerville, Mass., and after successfully pioneering Toscanini’s, Gus assisted Amy in her Texas venture.  He remains on its board to this day.

Peter Johnston, an East Bernard resident, earned a history degree from Cornell University and is a former high school history teacher.