Ian’s Take: The Creamiest, the Dreamiest
The other day for lunch I snuck away, if only for half an hour. It’s a triple pleasure when I get to do this in the summer. First, I actually get to go outside during the day; second, it’s 80 degrees and sunny out there; and third, I usually skip lunch and go right to the ice cream. On this occasion, it was one scoop of “malt” flavor from a high-end ice cream stand. I don’t get to do this often, so when I do, there’s a lot on the line. And when my ice cream is icy instead of creamy, like it was that day, all could be lost. “This has melted and been refrozen,” I grumbled. But it’s June in New York, and Gotham’s full of superheroes. This crusader doesn’t operate a Batmobile or leap tall buildings in a single bound--he drives an ice cream truck and his nom de guerre is Mister Softee.
In this country, the average annual ice cream consumption per person is almost 6 gallons. I far, far exceed that. I’ve been better recently, cutting my pint-a-day habit back by about half. I’ve eaten the good, the great, and the bad. I’ve eaten the smooth, the icy, and the melted. And my verdict is this: Mister Softee, whatever it’s made out of, works.
I finished my mediocre malt cone and went in search of one of Mr. Softee’s telltale big white trucks. At 39th and Broadway, he came through. Walking back to the office, I basked in smooth, creamy fakeness. The formula seems to work because Mr. Softee has apparently figured out a way to remove all water from the recipe (so it never fully freezes and never gets icy), and replaced it with big-time industrial stabilizers (so it’s ever-so-smooth-and-creamy). Mr. Softee doesn’t make the greatest ice cream I’ve ever had, but like any superhero should be, he’s always there, and he’s always good.
Alan’s Take: Au Naturale
On a sweltering summer day, with sweat dripping down your forehead, and warm, stagnant air clinging to your sticky body, what could be more refreshing than a nice big waffle cone full of the mono- and diglycerides that give Ian’s beloved Mr. Softee (and the ice cream served at places like McDonald’s and Dairy Queen) its familiar smoothness? Being industrial-strength fatty acids, you can think of them as short cylinders that attach one end of themselves to water, and the other end to fat. The result is a nearly unbreakable bond between the two that gives many things (including such delicacies as margarine and nondairy creamer) a texture so smooth it hardly seems natural. Obviously, there’s a good reason for that.
I’m definitely not somebody who steadfastly avoids processed food (what can I say? I love Doritos), but the chemical creaminess of industrial soft-serve is just terribly off-putting, no matter how good the mouthfeel may be. Maybe it’s because I know when I’m eating it that I’m really only one step away from eating Dippin’ Dots, and a cup of those is just about the worst thing in the world.
Being the half-a-pint-a-day addict that he is, Ian clearly doesn’t have the capacity to be discerning. As he so ably demonstrated to me, standing in Bryant Park with a huge waffle cone in one hand, craning his neck in search of an ice cream truck, he wants any ice cream (Ian’s comment on the aforementioned Dippin’ Dots: “Dude, those are so good!” [Alan’s retort: They suck]). And if you’re as ice cream-crazed as Ian is, well, there are worse things in the world than industrial soft-serve, and maybe you should just throw yourself at any creamy concoction that comes your way. But if you have any sort of self-restraint where frozen desserts are concerned, maybe it’s worth saving yourself for the good stuff.
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