Wednesday, July 28, 2010
In honor of National Ice Cream month, readers share memories of the ultimate sweet treat
KYLE GREEN The Roanoke Times
Clover Creamery had its headquarters in Roanoke for many years. A restored advertisement painted on the side of a building at West Lee and South Pollard streets in Vinton has become public art.
Food writer Lindsey Nair
- lindsey.nair@roanoke.com | (540) 981-3343
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My grandparents owned a country store in Goshen, and when I was about 5 years old, we drove from Colorado to stay with them for the first time in my life.
That little store was packed with all kinds of sundries, but I remember two things most vividly: the clinking of Coca-Cola bottles in their cooler and the ice cream freezer beside the cash register.
For the rest of his years, Papa occasionally told of how my eyes "got as big as saucers when she saw all that ice cream." He treated me to an orange Push-Up when I was good, and I'd try to slurp it all down before it dripped on the seat of his rusty blue Jeep.
Every July, I receive press releases about National Ice Cream month. This year, it put me in the mood to reminisce.
When I asked my blog readers about their favorite ice cream memories, many involved grandparents. Quite a few others involved fathers who chose to bond with their kids -- sometimes without Mom's knowledge -- over a cone or milkshake.
I guess there's no better way to spoil a child than with the ultimate sweet treat.
Reader memories were also sprinkled with the names of local ice cream parlors long gone and, in some cases, long forgotten.
Cranking out fun
Nobody knows who invented ice cream, but wouldn't we love to shake the hand of the person who did?
According to my food bible, "Food Lover's Companion," the dessert is believed to have originated in China, "with snow probably used as the base."
In the 1840s, a New England woman named Nancy Johnson patented the first hand-cranked ice cream maker, paving the way for ice cream socials and backyard dessert concoctions galore.
Even after store-bought ice cream became a weekly grocery list item and electric ice cream makers were available to regular folks, those manual ice cream makers were making happy people.
"I remember the whole extended family making ice cream from Granny's peaches out in the yard under her huge poplar tree after a cookout," wrote blog reader Tami Harmon.
Another blog reader, Amy Thisdell, wrote: "My dad still has an old hand crank White Mountain ice cream maker. Whenever the whole family gets together, we make vanilla ice cream. The kids all take turns sitting on it to keep it from hopping around as we crank. Always makes for an amusing picture!"
Grandfathers and fathers, it seems, were often the instigators of ice cream outings.
"Dad would take us every Sunday to get ice cream and would have a 'clean face and hands' contest between the two of us," wrote Celia Brown. "We always tried our best to stay clean, but one Sunday we had fudge pops and decided to paint our faces with them, literally. He pretended to be mad, but he was laughing in the kitchen while we got our faces scrubbed by our mom in the bathroom."
Julie Puuri wrote about her father taking them on Sunday drives in Stockbridge, Mass. The drives always ended with an ice cream cone at Friendly's.
"It took until I was mostly grown up to figure out how carefully my dad must have planned the routes so as not to let on until we pulled into the parking lot," she wrote.
Fridge Magnet reader Holly Gatton recalls covert ice cream missions with her father, who took her to a barbecue and ice cream shack in Maryland called B&J's.
"He was supposed to watch what he ate, but we'd always indulge when mom wasn't around. As we ate our ice cream, he would remind me, 'This is our little secret.' I miss having ice cream with him."
Sugar High's
For people of a certain age who grew up in Virginia, talk of ice cream conjures up images of a big, green sign.
Over the years, High's Ice Cream shops were located all over the state. A 1980 article from The Roanoke Times archives notes that there were several locations in the Roanoke Valley, with additional shops in Christiansburg, Lynchburg, Lexington and Covington.
When Towers Shopping Center opened in 1961, High's Ice Cream was one of the original stores. Amanda DeHaven remembers "the green, round seats that swiveled. [I] always got plain old chocolate on a regular cone."
Another reader, Karen St. Clair, said she has fond memories of "going to the local High's Ice Cream shop at Crossroads Mall and ordering the double top cone with a scoop of orange in one and a scoop of lime in the other.
"We would then drive over to Airport Road and watch the planes take off and land."
For some, those same, simple childhood memories involve the chocolate ice cream at Clover Creamery, which was headquartered in Roanoke for many years. Although the creamery is long gone, a restored advertisement painted on the side of a building at West Lee and South Pollard streets in Vinton has become public art. The ad dates to 1957.
The sound of a spoon scraping chocolate ice cream from the bottom of a frosty metal cup is what some folks, including my husband, remember about Howard Johnson's. For others, the epitome of childhood happiness was Baskin Robbins, Dairy Queen or some ice cream parlor they remember from a hometown in another state.
Flavor evolution
Ice cream sure has evolved since that ancient genius made the first batch of snow cream.
I asked folks to tell me their favorite flavors and was surprised to hear about creations I'd never heard of before -- banana fudge, coconut-macadamia nut, ginger and even avocado.
One reader, Rebecca Shannon, said she and her husband have been working their way through the recipes on an Irish ice cream website, and two of their favorites are goat cheese with macerated black cherries and teaberry with dark chocolate fudge sauce.
Despite all that fanciness, one flavor scored more votes than any other. It was -- you probably guessed it -- chocolate.
Ice cream also has a whole bunch of cousins from around the globe, including frozen custard, Italian ice, sherbet, sorbet, frozen yogurt and gelato. Some of those options are much less fattening than ice cream, which is a boon for the health-conscious.
With electric ice cream makers retailing for as little as $40 and Americans gravitating toward all-natural homemade foods, I suspect more people will begin to create their own ice creams at home.
Fold in summer fruit, chunks of leftover cake, chopped up candy bars, fresh herbs or a plethora of other options for a truly unique dessert experience.
I'd try just about any flavor, but none can take me back in time like an orange Push-Up from my grandfather's freezer.
Lemonade recipe fix
My July 7 Front Burner column included a recipe for the Little Dipper's lemonade smoothie. I have since learned there was an error in the recipe as it was provided to me.
Instead of 8 ounces of lemon juice, it should have called for 8 ounces of prepared lemonade.
