Ice Cream, You Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream

Ice cream! Memories of warm spring Sunday afternoons and hot summer days come flooding back. I recall the smell of the rock salt as it was layered between ice and the noise the hand cranked ice cream freezer made while we took turns seeing who could work the handle longest. I remember a peach ice cream made with fresh Ruston peaches that turned hard as rocks when the ice cream froze. (I later read somewhere, you should soak the peach slices in a sugar water solution so they don't freez as hard.)

I loved a great-aunt's banana ice cream. She cooked a mixture of milk, Pet milk, beaten eggs (or was that egg yolks only?) with sugar and vanilla to make a custard or pap as she called it. This was then placed along with banana slices into the cylindrical container that belonged to her electric freezer. I used to sit and listen to the sounds the machine made--secretly hoping that the sounds would change. This meant the rotating container had encountered an obstacle and my great-aunt would have to come and dislodge the ice chunk blessing it with a bit of choice Cajun reparte. Often after the ice cream was made, it was scooped out, put into a Tupperware container and put in the freezer compartment of the fridge. That made it so hard!

Now I love exotic ice cream flavors. I have had blackberry, apple pie, pumpkin, green tea, Thai tea, mango sorbet, and hope to try a new sherbet produced by Schwann that is called pina colata. I hope it is as good as there sherbet that combines tangerine with punch flavors. Now if only I could taste that ice cream I read about once in an up-market food zine: Bourbon flavored ice cream with candied Sichuan peppercorns. Or that ice cream produced by The Stinking Rose restaurant in San Fran--they use garlic in everything! Tres formidable.