Karen: Last week my illustrious collaborator put up the image of an ice cream truck. That got me thinking. Summer was always a great time for ice cream. And there were so many great pre-packaged ice cream or frozen treats. I used to love the little sundaes in a cup with a ribbon of fudge swirled through them. A bonus -they came with their own funky wooden spoon! 50/50 bars, Push-Ups, Drumsticks, Eskimo pies, ice cream sandwiches - let's talk about what your favorite ice-cold treat was!
Heck, if you want to also tell us your current fave, that's fine too. When I mo
12 comments:
Jeez, I could eat ice cream 'drumsticks' all day... I typically love plain/simple ice cream sandwiches.
I enjoy the exotic flavors and Butterfinger 'blasts' these days, but you're right, those classic ice cream treats can't be beat.
Like(d) those sundaes in a cup with the spoon, ice cream sandwiches, Eskimo pies... but I have to say my absolute favorite were popsicles. Plain old fruit-flavored popsicles, any color. I could eat a dozen of those on a hot summer day, although all things considered, that's about the equivalent of drinking 3-4 glasses of Kool-aid.
I always went for Push-ups, Bombpops and the ones shaped like Mickey Mouse.
We had Mister Softee but we also had another ice cream truck. All I can remember is the guy's name was Roy. He was kind of a throw back in that he had an old fashion freezer type truck if that makes any sense. He also had a metal dispenser on his belt to make change. At some point we got a Carvel just up the block.
I would either get a vanilla shake or ice cream sandwich. From Carvel I would get a shake or a dish of vanilla ice cream covered in rainbow sprinkles. One of the ice cream trucks also sold baseball cards.
My parents almost always had ice cream in the house. In the summer, we typically had pushups as well; I also recall some do-it-yourself freezer pops we often created.
The two big outside-of-the-house treats for me were:
In the mid-'70s, in southeastern Pennsylvania, the Tasty Freeze (right?) guy drove around the neighborhoods and also showed up at the nearby state park. I would get the goopy, elastic Italian ice (though is that what they called it?) that you scraped at with the wooden spoon like someone trying to get ice off a windshield.
The other treat was in Baltimore, where I was born and where my mother's parents lived. Around 1970, down the street from the shabby row house in Brooklyn Park, where my grandmother lived, some woman kept a snow cone maker in her basement. All the kids from the neighborhood went there (seemingly all at once; perhaps there was some kind of signal sent). In the brutal Baltimore summer heat, a cherry snow cone hit the spot!
Growing up, I loved Kool Pops! I recall early commercials with Bugs Bunny hawking them. Those colorful icy sticks got me through many hot summer days.
In later years, I got hooked on Oreo ice cream sandwiches. Discovered them in college; absolutely delicious oreo cookie with cookies'n'cream ice cream inside. Sounds pretty good right now, actually...
Anybody remember Otter Pops??
"Our town was sooooo small. . . "
. . . that we didn't have an ice cream man. The "little store" at our lake's marina (sort of a pre-7/11) was the place we'd usually get individual ice cream treats. Fudgcicles were quite popular because they were REALLY tasty, and they were always cheaper than everything else. Regular ice cream sandwiches were similar in that regard. Probably the favorite, though, was a larger cup of frozen "Milk Shake" (which was literally the product's name), that was always frozen stiff as a block of leather. It, too, was one of those comes-with-a-flat-wooden-spoon confections that was murder to scrape away at for the first 5 minutes or so. And here's the funny sense-memory thing. . . the taste of the WOODEN SPOON with that ice cream is part of what I can recall as being so good! The sort of piney/smokey flavor with the cheapo/sweet/light chocolate comes immediately to mind. And those blamed things were NEVER as good if used a metal spoon-!
HB
When it comes to ice cream I am notoriously dull as my family will attest. I like vanilla, just plain old vanilla. I like a good ice sandwich now and again, but lots of funky flavors don't do it for me.
As a kid I will admit that Maple nut ice cream was a treat too. Now that I think of it, I might need to go get some.
Rip Off
Rip, don't feel bad about preferring vanilla, and I certainly don't think you're dull as a result. Vanilla is my favorite flavor for ice cream and many other treats - unlike chocolate, vanilla can be enjoyed on its own or combined with virtually any other flavor, and it always enhances them.
When I was a kid, my favorite was the turtle, at least I think that's what is was called. It was vanilla ice cream in a cone, topped by a hard chunck of chocolate ane peanuts.
Nowadays, the only ice cream I eat is Cold Stone Creamery. I've become spoiled.
. . . what the heck is an otter pop, now that you mention it?
Sounds familiar, but. . .
HB
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