Liquid Magic: Ice Cream

It is not the aromas wafting through the ice cream parlour that get us going. 

But ten to one, your mouth waters every time the offer of an ice cream is mentioned. The slurpy drooler gets the mouth ready for that ice cream.

Vanilla seems to be American’s favorite. While our diets have changed, ice cream consumption hasn’t.  We love Vanilla best. The USDA says each American ate an average of 12.7 pounds last year; which is way down from 1990 when it was 18.5 pounds. 

It takes about 50 licks to finish off the liquid magic of a single-scoop cone. That single cone is approximately 240 calories. Would you believe an average dairy cow can produce enough milk in her lifetime to make a little over 9,000 gallons of ice cream? Most dairy cows can produce milk for about 300 days after calving. Then, about 2 months after they dry up; they give birth again and the lactation cycle starts all over. The typical length of time that dairy cows remain milkers is 3-4 seasons before they are culled for various health reasons.

The Midwest takes ice-cream seriously.  The Top-10 ice cream-producing states are California, Indiana, Texas, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Minnesota, New York, Florida, Ohio and Missouri.

California produces the most ice cream in the U.S.  The U.S.A. produces the most ice cream in the world.  July is national Ice Cream month.  Even though I could live perfectly happy without so much as a lick of the liquid gold, I’m going to eat a cone this July in honor of Ice Cream month.  I shall plump it under my tongue. Ah, the tongue; one of the strongest groups of muscles in the human body -- an acrobat with 16 separate muscles. I’ll allow myself to talk about the ice cream all excitedly as children do, splatter and splash the melting cold lava all over the table for someone else to clean.  Those kids can sure slurp ice cream around the mouth and talk a mile a minute.  You can tell at least 75 receptors on each taste bud are hoppin’.    Looks messy, but fun!  There are from 50 to 150 receptors on each taste bud.

MN ice cream sales peak in the summer months. With the availability of all types of frozen desserts, there is less and less variation in sales of ice cream between the summer and winter months.

I’ve read too, that unlike the retail industry which has suffered from reduced spending, ice cream sales remained attractive because people regard ice cream as a comfort food.  Therefore, a bad economy is good for ice cream sales?!

This is the technical name for Brain Freeze or Ice Cream headache.  The excruciating 30 to 60 second headache strike.  About one in three people experience the dreaded brain freeze.  Simply put; the nerves on the roof of your mouth overreact to the freezing food and assume the brain needs heating.  So the brain’s blood vessels swell, causing pain.  How to prevent it?  Eat slowly so your mouth has time to warm up between bites, or keep the cold ice cream away from the roof of your mouth.

Ice cream became available to the general population in France in 1660.

Ice cream was introduced to America in the 1700's, but mostly enjoyed by those of status and wealth. Americans celebrated the victory of WWII with ice cream.

There are so many terms today for frozen dessert mixtures. There are experts out there with their own definitions and terms for frozen dessert.

Ice Cream, most agree is a frozen mixture of cream, flavoring, and possibly egg and milk.  But then; so is frozen mousse.  The difference is that a mousse is frozen without turning; it achieves its volume from beaten cream, whereas ice cream increases in volume from being beaten while freezing.

Sorbets, sherbets, ices, granites, spooms, frozen yogurts, and ice milks are all terms that appear with increasing frequency as consumers became more health conscious.  Ices are made of fruit juices or other flavored liquids like chocolate, coffee, or champagne, mixed with sugar and water and frozen like ice cream.

Granites are similar mixtures frozen without turning, resulting in a frozen dessert full of ice crystals, with a coarse texture.  Spooms are sherbets with the addition of partially beaten eggs whites.  So then what are sherbets?  The term is used for many frozen concoctions.  Always frozen in an ice cream freezer, they are made of fruit juices [or flavoring], sugar, water and sometimes milk.  They are very smooth and have more substance than ices.

Ice milk is made with less than 10% milk-fat but all the same sweetener as regular ice-cream. That leaves sorbet. What is sorbet?  Isn't the word sorbet a great name... sorbets were formerly called ice and sherbet.  It has no milk, it is served usually after the main meal to cleanse/refresh the palate. 

I think I may need to cleanse my own brain.  Ice cream is messy, and numb-skulls like me don’t usually like or respect The Frozen Dessert family.  BUT, 90% of families in the United States DO eat the addictive treat; and I suppose there is nothing better than rewarding a hard day’s work with a modest bowl of ice-cream while hunkering down for Perry Mason on ME TV at 10:30pm. 

Indeed; that gallon pail seems infinite when it first comes home; as does life when you are 11. Yet, over the course of a hot spell and busy week; right about when you find the empty, washed out remains in the plastic recycling bin -- that’s when our daughter [and every family has someone that plays this role] begins her own Mason cross examination of who took what, at what time[s], how much…  and your alibi better be mighty!

“Isn’t it true Dada; that you came back for seconds this evening?!?”

And, like Mr. Dussel, from Diary of Anne Frank, Dada comes clean, admits it was him… for a moment struggles with the guilt; while penciling it in on the Sunday shopping wish-list once again. N-E-O-P-O-L-I-T-A-N.

What type of liquid gold are you enjoying this summer?