Ice cream is about as close to the divine as a grocery store ever gets. Its consistency, chill, and creaminess are near to perfect, whatever one’s favorite type or brand. Even at it’s worst, ice cream is pretty good. When I encounter those special attributes that cater to my tongue, memory and desire it steps up to fabulous.
Many of us have grown picky and I can confess to a certain ice cream snobbery—I’ve been a huge fan of gelato since I personally discovered Italy in 1985–no Gianni-come-lately. Yes I’m happy gelato has come to America, even though I’m a little disdainful of the foody-fication and merchtumble process. Give me your gelato, sorbetto, fresh made waffles yearning to breathe free… bella.
Traditional American ice cream is creamier than gelato. I was raised to value creaminess and butterfat. My father was from the American heartland born of Hungarian stock; butterfat was next to godliness.
My mother was the special target of a prosperous German Jewish family who would offer her trips across the Dutch border for ice cream while secreting their valuables on her small, child-person, preparing for their eventual flight to Holland. In hindsight, she resented that they preyed upon her sweet tooth and put her in grave danger by using her to smuggle their gold out of NAZI Germany. But she never regretted a smack of the ice cream.
My ice cream adventures were much more safe and savory. Childhood family summer nights were graced by a square dip from a local Evanston shop– I’ve forgotten the name. Today I cannot imagine how I could begin to manage a square of ice cream. Those corners would adversely affect the experience for me. Luckily I wasn’t as fussy as a kid. Non-ice cream frozen treats were frowned upon in my household, thereby exoticized. Wow! What would a rocket pop be like? These treats could be redeemed by chocolate; my weakness for fudgesicles was tolerated.
A double-dip cone of maple nut ice cream from Bridgeman’s took me to my summer graveyard factory job each night in Minneapolis. Occasionally I did venture to other flavors, but I always came back to maple nut. This was one of my few devotions to a dessert that wasn’t chocolate. Bridgeman’s chocolate just wasn’t chocolate-y enough.
In my child-raising days, ice cream was the third level of emergency treatment for childhood injuries. Step one was “kiss the owie.” Step 2 required a band-aid on it. When my daughter grabbed the searing beam of a metal jungle gym I initiated step three; “let’s go get ice cream.” Step 4 would have been a trip to the emergency room. Fortunately I never got to step four.
I gave my daughter expert coaching in ice-cream cone management. I knew iced cream would be an important part of this relationship, so I approached this as a valuable skill I would hand down. You circle the cone working the meeting of cone and ice cream, simultaneously picking up and preventing drips. Not too hard, or you can undermine the stability of the scoop on the cone. The tongue is a strong muscle. Practice makes perfect and how sweet it is.
Ice cream works quite well on those injuries that transcend age and maturity, such as wounded pride, disappointment, fatigue … just about anything short of a broken bone. I’m pretty sure an ice cream cone would make even a temporarily broken person feel a whole lot better. I hope to remain ignorant.
Ice cream: it’s easy; it’s elegant; it’s simple. I think even when iced cream becomes merchtumbled and yes, even foody-fied, it still transports the eater directly to the magic of a very cold thing on a hot day; a sweet treat in the middle of it all; summer’s punctuation mark.
