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National Ice Cream Month


laleo
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I do plan on eating ice cream.

everyday

every meal

with snacks in between

I was farely young still when Reagan's time was up, but I always knew he was good for somthin'. National Ice Cream Month, that is quite an accomplishment.

And ya know, it really does need a whole month. Just one day wouldn't suffice. And to have it in July, the month we celabrate our independence as a country for a day, man that took some balls.

Speaking of which, do you like little "jimmies" on your ice cream?

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I'm with lindyhopper - except I'm not so sure I'd "do" breakfast.

However, I can picture serving chocolate peanutbutter swirl served in a champagne flute piled very tall and served as a late evening snack ...and I would call it a "Shining City Set On A Hill" if it was drizzled with hot fudge sauce!

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Thirteen Fun Facts about Ice Cream

by Susan E. Davis

reviewed by Mary Silva, M.S., R.D.

It's summertime and the scoopin' is easy--but just how much do you know about one of America's oldest desserts? Check out these baker's dozen of fun facts about our favorite frozen treat.

Legend has it that the Roman emperor Nero used to send his slaves scurrying to the mountains to collect snow and ice to make flavored ices, the precursors to ice cream, in the first century.

The first written mention of ice cream in this country can be found in a letter from the 1700s, which admiringly describes the ice cream and strawberry dessert a Maryland governor served at a dinner party. Initially, just a treat for the elite (including George Washington, who is said to have consumed enormous quantities), the first ice cream parlor in this country opened in New York City in 1776. In 1845, the hand-cranked freezer was invented, allowing Americans to make ice cream more easily at home.

Americans consume the most ice cream in the world per capita, with Australians coming in second. In 1924, the average America ate eight pints a year. By 1997, the International Dairy Foods Association reported that the figure had jumped to 48 pints a year.

The most avid ice cream eaters in the U.S. don't live in Hawaii, the South, California, or any other hot clime. Instead, in 1999, it was reported that the good citizens of Omaha, Nebraska, ate more ice cream per person than any other Americans.

Vanilla is the most popular flavor in this country, snagging anywhere from 20 to 29 percent of sales. Chocolate comes in a distant second, with about 9 to 10 percent of the market.

Immigrants at Ellis Island were served vanilla ice cream as part of their Welcome to America meal.

One of the major ingredients in ice cream is air. Without it, the stuff would be as hard as a rock.

Among the most unusual flavors of ice cream ever manufactured are avocado, garlic, azuki bean, jalapeno, and pumpkin. Perhaps the weirdest of all: dill pickle ice cream , which was marketed to expectant mothers. Sales were disappointing.

One out of every five ice cream eaters share their treat with their dog or cat. (Can the day of liver- or tuna-flavored ice cream be far behind?)

In 1984, President Ronald Reagan declared July as National Ice Cream Month, citing the food's "nutritious and wholesome" qualities. He decreed that patriotic Americans should mark the month with "appropriate ceremonies and activities."

According to the Guinness Book of World Records, the biggest ice cream sundae in the world was made in Alberta, Canada, in 1988. It weighed nearly 55,000 pounds. The same year, a baking company and a sheet-metal firm in Dubuque, Iowa, teamed up to produce the world's largest ice cream sandwich, which tipped the scales at nearly 2,500 pounds. And, in 1999, Baskin-Robbins created an ice cream cake at a beach hotel in the United Arab Emirates that weighed just under 9,000 pounds.

Ice cream novelties such as ice cream on sticks and ice cream bars were introduced in the 1920s. Seems like kid stuff, but today, adults consume nearly one-half of all such treats.

While popular lore claims that the ice cream cone was invented at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, a New York City ice cream vendor actually seems to have created the cone in 1896 to stop customers from stealing his serving glasses. He patented the idea in 1903 and it took off in popularity at the World's Fair the next year.

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I don't think I know what a "little jimmy" is, Lindy. But I can imagine. Good, huh?

Krys: I like that chocolate peanut butter combination, too, but my real weakness is Edy's French Silk. I know better than to buy it, although I occasionally break down, like I'll have to do this month in deference to Reagan and patriotism and all.

Cowgirl: I wonder what it is about Omaha that brings out the ice cream in all of us. I visited there, once, but don't remember a proliferation of ice cream parlors. Had I known, I would have kept an eye out.

Cindy: I'm not sure where the nearest Baskin Robbins is, but I'll be with you in spirit. Around here, there's still tons of tiny, family-owned ice-cream parlors. I've tried all of them.

Belle and reikilady: If you ever make it to Vermont, the Ben & Jerry's factory is worth a visit. Lots of hype, but lots of samples, too.

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quote:
Originally posted by pawtucket:

I like to take a pint of my favorite ice cream and put it in the microwave for for 54 seconds.

I've never heard of that before. Why? What does it do for ice cream? This, of course, is my great spiritual question of the day. icon_confused.gif:confused:-->

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I hate ice cream. I seldom eat more than a gallon a week, or 1 1/2 gallons tops. If I have to force myself to eat it, I usually let it sit out for a while, which probably accomplishes about the same thing and Pawtucket's microwaving it.

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Jen & Berry's, I mean, Ben & Jerry's is terribly overrated and overpriced.

In these parts we have "Shain's of Maine" which is the best ice cream! It's super creamy, natural, and they do fun flavors like "Almond Joy" and "Wild Blueberry".

Every summer we take at least one trip to Brown's Ice Cream in York, Maine. They serve Shain's ice cream but they make a flavor that you can't get anywhere else called Danish Cream. It's the purest vanilla in the world - nothing like it. Then we go here (click link) to eat it:

http://www.lighthouse.cc/capeneddick/

You just can't beat that!

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Just had some cookies and cream a little bit ago. Yum

I think my favorite is Eddie's Apple Pie. It is one of those special ice creams they only offer from just before thanksgiving to just after New Years. It is so good. It is almost like they just dump some apple pie in the vanilla mix. I don't know how they do it but the apples are nice and chewy, not frozen as you might think they would be after sitting in a freezer with ice cream.

Eddie's old fashion is good too.

We used to go to a place in Bmore that made thier own. It was called Beach Bums. They supposedly went to the same school of ice cream making as Ben and Jerry. Yes there is a school for it.

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I changed my mind. I'm not going to celebrate.

A couple of summers ago, I had an encounter (well, many encounters) with rice pudding that I still haven't recovered from. It started out harmless enough. They were giving out samples at the local deli, and, because I didn't want to be rude, I tried some. Then I bought some. Then I bought some more. And more. And more. Then it became a ritual. I was posting a lot at GreaseSpot that summer, and somehow I couldn't log on in the evening without slurping up a bowl of rice pudding in the process of collecting my scattered thoughts so I could post. After a couple of months, I stepped on the scale, and . . . well, you know the rest. Haven't touched rice pudding since. I blame GreaseSpot for the damage.

Since then, the only kind of ice cream anyone in the house has been allowed to have is anything that involves mint, or pecans, or anything fruity. I won't touch the stuff, and it's better that way. A few days ago, I bought one of those half-gallons of some sort of chocolate, peanut, marshmallow combination, and it was good, very good, and I would have kept going, but I was haunted by the memories of my rice pudding summer. The kids can finish it off.

So what flavor ice cream do you hate?

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Mmmm. rice pudding.

If there is not already a rice pudding month that I am unaware of, then Bush needs make it so. Lets see what month would he use. Maybe February? Nah, he wouldn't do that. Or would he? December? Nah, don't want to over shadow Christmas with rice pudding. Maybe August. If he doesn't I vote that we celebrate it anyway. icon_razz.gif:P--> I loves me some rice pudding.

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