It Use To Be So Simple

by Chewy

Remember the days when your go to flavors of ice cream revolved around strawberry or chocolate ripple? Then Baskin Robbins came along with their 31 flavors and the villagers went insane over the idea. Not satisfied with the original 31, some were retired or replaced with ever surprising infusions of flavor. Even with all this diversity, flavors still followed a traditional trail. Sweet things go with sweet things, savory with savory and never the twain shall meet. Even Ben and Jerry usually followed this scenario.

That whole idea has been kicked to the curb and it’s no longer cool to use the mundane in your frozen treats. While bacon didn’t start it, it certainly has helped to perpetuate and inspire ever more challenging combination, although, even this ingredient is bordering on the blasé at this point. Yet, I’m positively piggish about pork still!

There’s no doubt that around the world there are some pretty scary traditional ice cream flavors that fall along cultural divides (this will be dealt with in a future blog), but today I will keep this relatively indigenous.

Ruth and Phils, lauding from Chicago, take advantage of fresh summer fruits and vegetables to concoct Summer Sweet Corn ice cream, Cantaloupe Avocado Jalapeno sorbet (you know how I feel about avocados!) and Cucumber Blueberry Lime sorbet. Presently only available in limited locales, it may soon be coming to your local Whole Foods store.

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New York is no new comer to food fads and il laboratorio del gelato is no exception. For the adventurous palate they provide Fresh Brown Turkey, Sweet Potato and Tarragon Pink Pepper.  They are proud to hand make all the flavors in small batches and I think I grasp the reasoning behind limited production. I don’t imagine a huge rush for Turkey, even seasonally. Sweet Potato is igniting my curiosity.

Another New York establishment, Max and Mina’s Ice Cream has heated things up with sweet and spicy combos. Sugar tempers the fire in their Spicy Peanut Butter which culminates in a warm glow due to the added red peppers and chilies. Following in the same genre are Black  Pepper and Corn Horseradish.  Traditional Italian flavors in an egg yolk base make up their Pizza ice cream and  what goes best with that? A cup of their Beer ice cream!

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams, Columbus, OH, follows the “It’s cold! It’s hot!” theme with Queen City Cheyenne and Bangkok Peanut (secret ingredient, Cheyenne pepper, of course). Apparently, pepper has become the new “salt” in savory/sweet pairings. While I have often seen people salt fruits to bring out the sweet, my roommate in college was the only person I knew who peppered hers. She was obviously decades ahead of her time!

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One last nod to the porcine premise goes to Humphry Slocombe of San Francisco and their Boccalone Prosciutto. And not sure which way to go, they covered all the bases by adding both salt and pepper.

The following flavors are honorable mentions, only because they come from Europe and can not be obtained locally. Cigar Smoked Caramel, combining two after dinner pastimes and perhaps an age limit and required ID, has increased sales by 60% for one establishment. Others have followed a theme with grass, strawberry and hay for Wimbledon. Another nod of creativity goes to parsnip and wasabi, and smoked olive oil and black pepper.

These examples have definitely had their effect on my creative senses and with my little  Cuisinart ice cream maker ever ready to serve, the sky’s  the limit on ingredients. If I ever come up with anything palatable, you can be assured you’ll read about it here first!