July is “National Ice Cream Month”

by Kelsey

There are so many good things about summer, but I’ll argue that one of the best is two frozen, sweet words: ice cream.

No matter how much Southern California encourages you to eat your fill of healthy non-fat frozen yogurt covered in fresh fruit, ice cream will always win my heart.

It reminds me of hot childhood summers in the Central Valley, when my dad would take my sister and me to Thrifty’s to eat big cones of chocolate malted crunch (which are still sold today at Rite-Aids with Thrifty’s ice cream counters). Those crunchy little malt balls and thick, luscious ice cream made our 6- and 7-year-old hearts sing with joy. We didn’t care about counting calories then, and Thrifty’s happily indulged our sweet tooths.

In honor of this ice-cream-lauding month, here is a history of ice cream, the newest food-on-wheels (ice cream trucks), a new ice cream to add to your shopping list, and fun recipes to make your own icy treat.

Related:

What is superman ice cream?
Healthy ice cream
Baskin Robbins’ 88-cent soft-serve cones
Review of Westwood’s famous Diddy Riese cookie ice cream sandwiches

Ice cream photo used with permission from Flickr user JessicaFM (recipe from Garrett Kern).

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2 comments

SinoSoul July 10, 2009 - 4:32 pm

I'm still not understanding the difference between "Philly" style vs. "American" style ice cream. Is it just the use of eggs? Gelato, by definition also has no eggs…

People complain about scoopability of "Philly" style Ice cream, but the last batch of custard-based ice cream I churned literally bent my metal spoon…

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Kelsey July 10, 2009 - 4:59 pm

SinoSoul, that's a great question. I had to look up the difference myself, but it seems that the main distinction is that gelato machinery whips almost no air into the gelati, which is different from American ice cream, which is whipped with lots of air so it's more fluffy.

http://www.thenibble.com/REVIEWS/MAIN/desserts/ice-cream-definitions.asp

And thanks for your observation about the spoon-bending quality – I'll have to try Philly-style ice cream with a tougher spoon. 🙂

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