revolution a flavor
More and more people could enjoy ice cream around the turn of the century, but flavors
were limited — chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, maybe coffee — until 1929, when
Edy’s Grand combined chocolate ice cream with walnuts and miniature marshmallows, a
concoction named Rocky Road.
About the same time, Howard Johnson took over a soda fountain in Wollaston,
Massachusetts, which sold just vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry. Johnson wanted to offer
more flavors, but only after he improved the quality of the ice cream. He discovered that
doubling the butterfat content and using only natural ingredients produced a superior
product.
Johnson added food to the menu and became the first to franchise his restaurant. By
1954, there were 400 of the ubiquitous orange-roofed eateries in 32 states. Ice cream —
now available in 28 flavors — remained the foundation.
In 1953, brothers-in-law Burton Baskin and Irvine Robbins merged their two ice cream
chains and topped HoJos by offering 31 flavors.
While it was possible to find quality ice cream in many flavors at ice cream parlors, the
news wasn’t as good at the local supermarket. “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice
cream.” But not all ice cream is created equal, even if it’s a simple combination of milk,
sugar and eggs. These once-noble treats that were hand-cranked and made from fresh
all-natural and seasonal ingredients lost their way, like all mass-produced products, and
became sticky, overly sweet and artificially flavored goop.
Quality ice cream began to find its way to the local grocery store when gourmet
brands like Häagen-Dazs and Ben & Jerry’s moved from the scoop shop to
the supermarket freezer section.
Häagen-Dazs was created by Reuben Mattus in 1958. His premium
product used all-natural ingredients and 12 percent butterfat
instead of the standard 10. He gave his fancy ice cream a
fancy made-up name that sounded Danish.
Ben and Jerry, two guys from Vermont, ended up making
ice cream in 1978 because bagel manufacturing equipment
cost too much. They became the darlings of ice cream
connoisseurs everywhere by rejecting common practices like
the addition of milk powder, vegetable oil and artificial flavorings.
They also rejected high overrun, a practice in which air is
whipped into the ice cream to make it soft so that less can be sold
as more.
Today’s artisan ice cream makers are opting for hormone-free milk and
fresh, seasonal, local ingredients. Rather than using cheaper ingredients to stabilize and
thicken ice cream, they use the more expensive choices of heavy cream and egg yolks.
Vanilla and chocolate are still America’s favorite flavors, but palate-broadening flavors
are pushing boundaries. Think goat cheese and wild honey, basil and jammy local figs,
whiskey and saffron, or orange blossom and strawberry-rose petal ice cream.
On any given day, Boombalatti’s Homemade Ice Cream in Wilmington serves up
a selection of creative, handcrafted flavors – Cinnamon Caramel Oatmeal Cookie,
Vietnamese Coffee, or how about Key Lime and Coconut?
“Coming up with seasonal flavors is one of our favorite things to do because it lets us
continue to be creative,” says owner Wes Bechtel. “One of my favorites is blueberry ice
cream during the hot days of summer using super ripe berries from Burgaw.”
1904 or 1907 Latrobe,
Pennsylvania, and
Wilmington, Ohio, both claim credit
for the banana split. Latrobe says
David Strickler created it at the Tassell
Pharmacy in 1904. Wilmington hosts an
annual Banana Split Festival in honor
of E.R. Hazard who, the town says,
made culinary history in 1907 by flanking
three scoops of ice cream with
a banana cut lengthwise in hopes of
attracting more students from nearby
Wilmington College.
1919 Archie C. Kohr
adds eggs to an ice
cream recipe to create a light and fluffy
product that “tasted just like a custard.”
1920 Harry Burt of
Youngstown, Ohio,
develops frozen ice cream on a stick
and calls it the Good Humor bar. Burt
sells the treat out of trucks driven by
men in white uniforms. The drivers ring
bells to get people’s attention, and the
ice cream truck is born.
1934 A flat tire on an
ice cream
truck leads to soft ice cream
when Tom Carvellus sells
his melting and creamier
product as something
new. Carvellus built
his first soft-serve ice
cream machine in
1939, one year before
Dairy Queen opened its
first soft-serve store in
Joliet, Illinois.
1940The rationing
of ingredients like
sugar and cream during World War II
leads to the creation of milk ice, or ice
milk, a low-fat alternative to the ice
creams of the day, which were traditionally
made with 14 percent fat.
1981TCBY brings frozen
yogurt to the
American consumer.
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WBM july 2018