On Second Thoughts: My Ice Cream Mania

Tuesday, June 28, 2011

My Ice Cream Mania

My yummy sugar caramel canape ice cream in Malaysia

'I scream, you scream

We all scream for Ice cream.'

As a kid, I considered that as the most perfect, ultimate rhyming poem. As a teenager, I reflected that Wordsworth, Shelly and Shakespeare's verses in all their glory, were not a patch on this Ice cream rhyme. The very word ‘Ice-cream’ sends a chilly tingling sensation through me! It was love at first taste for me, when the first dollop of ice cream hit my taste bud and did I experience a symphony of ecstasy? Most certainly yes and I was hopelessly hooked!

My ice cream bucket planter

I still remember vividly, standing impatiently in my mom’s kitchen as she churned ice cream in a manual wooden ice cream bucket .That wooden ice cream bucket, the source of a great deal of icy raptures and bliss, is still with me, but then, the wooden bucket coordinated perfectly with my living room decor , that the poor ice cream churner now serves as a container for my plant ! It really does look so very cute though!

Once, while sitting through a very boring sermon half asleep, I heard the word ‘ice cream’ My ears pricked up and I was all attention personified. The preacher was saying that our Maker is like an ice cream maker – he creates us in different flavors. Awesome! What a delightful thought! God, an Ice cream maker? Well, this concept impresses me. I think I would like to be the minty choc chip flavored ice cream, with maybe just a little hint of Kahlua liqueur for added flavor? Done, that’s decided.

A birthday sundae I had at Singapore

Back then, while growing up, Vanilla, Strawberry, Pista, Chocolate and Mango were the only flavors available here, while there were about a couple of exotic deserts like peach Melba and Banana split and a sundae containing two or three scoops of assorted ice creams with chocolate sauce and nuts topping. That’s it!That’s about all ! Surely the present generation will shake their heads in utter disbelief at this measly choice, but we were quite happy, after all, icecream is icecream. Then came along another slogan -‘Monday, Tuesday, we want Sundae.’ Sounds adorable! Now the market is flooded with unimaginable amazing flavors of ice creams and gelatos!

I don’t know if the following story is true or a myth. It seems, an ice cream vendor at a fair, did not have enough vessels to serve ice cream, so he took the help of a waffle maker and rolled up the ice cream in waffles and served . Thus, waffles and ice cream were invented. A real innovative genius, in the category of Edison and Newton!

Thro’ my life’s journey, I’ve learnt the following frosty icicles of wisdom-

“Ice-cream transcends all ages... Ice-cream never lets you outgrow it.’ How very true!

The internet is also cashing in on the icecream passion where e-cards sites call July 13^th as the Ice cream month! Ice cream cone day is supposed to be on July 23^rd , Soft Icecream Day on August 19^th, Banana Split day on Aug22nd , Icecream sundae Day on Aug 2^nd and so on and so forth. Well, well.. what can one say?

And finally, in conclusion I’d like to add, a teeny weeny twirl to the Bards famous words:

”Age cannot wither the fascination for ice creams nor custom stale its
infinite flavors”