Thursday, April 13, 2006

Nostalgia

(Note: I'm using spam-like spelling in an attempt to prevent google-finding.)
Why do companies have to ruin a good thing?
I'm not a gourmand by any stretch of the imagination. I rarely can tell the difference between "fine" foods and cheaper foods. If the store brand is made with enough similarity to the name brand, I won't notice.
This is not true for ice cream.
Now, I am an equal-opportunity ice-cream fan. It doesn't have to be Ha@gen Daas. (Actually, I think HD is over-hyped, like God!va chocolates.) I love soft ice-cream cones in the summer. But I hate the store brands. They use the seaweed & the chemicals & the what-not in an attempt to reproduce the creamy feel of real milk. Ick. Gummy, grainy -- and the taste isn't very good either.
High-end branding doesn't guarentee good ice cream. I've already mentioned the HD. Or the high-end version of 3dy's, Dre@mery -- the one they put in the pint containers and charge more than twice as much for. It's not worth it. It's not as grainy or gummy as store-brands sold in half-gallons, but the liberal Vermont ice-cream makers BJ's, and even HD, taste and feel much better.
But, as I mentioned, it doesn't have to be "gourmet," or whatever the branding word is now. My favorite, for a very long time, was 8reyers. I lovelovelove the Twirl: a perfect combination of vanilla and chocolate, with a lovely, creamy mouth-feel. Not high-end-creamy, but real-milk-creamy. My second-favorite was the mint chocolate chip. Minty, white, and nice big chocolate chips.
No more.
The company has re-formulated its recipe. They now use stabilizers -- some sort of gum -- and the chocolate is now flakes, thin bits of flabby stuff that feel like unmixed stabilizers instead of chips.
Next they'll be making it green.
Ick.

1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

Have you considered making your own ice cream? Basic ice ceam makers aren't too expensive (I've seen the Cuisinart for around $50), and the ice cream can be divine--especially if you go the slightly more labor-intensive route and make a custard base.

11:52 PM EDT  

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