A Stroll Down Ice Cream Lane

Anyone remember the Mr. Softee truck? Or was that just a Connecticut thing that only I remember? Surely you remember soft ice cream like the kind they sell at Dairy Queen or on the musical Mr. Softee truck. Ribbons of the stuff slowly swirl from a magical machine forming a mound of beautiful iced super-sweetness perched upon an Eat-It-All cone. In high school I worked in one of these ice-cream-from-a-machine stands. Dan-Dee Dairy Bar. Pure heaven. I loved that job. I used to dream of dipping my cones into that waxy chocolate coating that hardened without the ice cream falling off when I turned it upsidedown. There was real skill involved in dipping. I was a great dipper after I mastered the technique.

My dad would never let us have soft ice cream as children. He said it wasn't "real" ice cream, and therefore, not worthy of our consumption. (Mind you this was the same man who preferred instant coffee to brewed coffee, but we won't get into that now.) Only Friendly's ice cream for the Zuccardy kids. That was as real as it got when we went out. At home, it was a special treat to have a half gallon of Hood ice cream because you could often get it on sale or greatly reduced with a coupon. Patchwork was my favorite. I still remember the commercial with the Hood milkman.

Of course, my mother did what every good mom does when her little kids eat ice cream in the summer. As we clutched our cones in innocent bliss and streams of stickiness ran down our grimy little wrists, she'd say, "Here, let me clean that up for you," as she'd proceed to lick away half of my treat. As a mother, I now realize that is simply a ploy to not have to feel guilty about pigging out on a whole cone of your own! Just mooch from the toddler - she'll never know. I vowed I'd never do this to my own kid, but I have - every summer for as long as I could get away with it.

Starting with my Dan-Dee Dairy Bar days in the mid-1970s, I became obsessed with soft ice cream around the country. I ate it because my father hated it. In those days, we simply called it soft-serve. I've also heard it called custard and here in Vermont, a creemee. We have a summertime creemee stand at our general store that serves maple creemees. Only in Vermont! My father would be horrified that I enjoy a maple creemee several times a week in the summer. I'll skip the Friendly's and the Ben and Jerry's trendy flavors in favor of a creemee, thank you. (Not that there's anything wrong with hard ice cream - don't get me wrong...I adore the plethora of flavors available today).

It's summertime (if it ever stops raining in the northeast...). Time to think about ice cream trucks and trips to local scoop shop for a treat on a hot day. What did you call soft serve ice cream? What flavors have you always adored? What are your favorite ice cream memories?