By Steve Flairty
NKyTribune columnist
I can’t remember a day in my childhood when I didn’t eat ice cream, probably even a time or two for breakfast. We even served it to Skeeter, our border collie. (One dip in a bowl was an adventure for her to chase around for the lick, but I digress.)
Dad was a wholesale distributor of ice cream to stores, and a perk of his job was free product that he’d bring home to his family. Early on, I’d choose chocolate if given a choice. Dad liked butter pecan, and today that’s my favorite, too. And ironically, with all that tasty dairy product going into my young mouth, I was an embarrassingly skinny kid. A few pounds later, perhaps I should go on a diet of ice cream in my senior life, tsk, tsk.
Of course, Kentuckians all around like this treat, and so I asked a few of them their favorite flavor. Several picked my choice, but I received a variety of answers, including some exotic ones I didn’t recognize.
Some mentioned spumoni, a new one for me. Bill Luxon, a former member of the rock and later country band, Exile, described it as a “Neapolitan-style with three flavors. Typically, chocolate, pistachio, and cherry ice creams.” Bill likes the Prairie Farms brand best when available and noted that Exile’s favorite during his time with them was mint chocolate chip. David Johnston recalled his father bringing home spumoni at Christmas time, but he prefers “a big bowl of peach or mint chocolate chip.”
Frankfort resident Susan Moore remembers a “moo-ving” childhood experience at her father’s soft serve custard stand outside of Columbus, Ohio. “I would stand directly under the ‘cow’ and Dad would laugh and pull the lever that produced a wonderful swirl of soft vanilla ice cream smack dab in my mouth. I’m sure I thought I was in heaven, and in a way, I was.”
Making one’s own ice cream can help bond relationships, according to Alan Abrams, of Claryville. “The actual ice cream took second place to the conversations shared between me and my dad while cranking the ice cream maker,” he said. When the family shopped for the store-bought kind, he noted their choices were butter pecan or black walnut.
Former Lexington resident Susan Gall recalled ice cream was made at her grandparents’ home in Ohio. “The rule was, ‘if you don’t help crank, you don’t get to eat any,’” she explained. “The kids would all take their turns early and after what seemed like an eternity, we’d hear grandpa holler, ‘OVERFLOW.’ That meant it was almost ready and we’d all come running. Everyone would grab a spoon and quickly start scooping up a sample from the overflowing barrel.”
Susan also noted that her first job was at Dairy Queen while her sister, she said, “worked at the competition. Baskin Robbins.”
Jennifer Butler’s raising in the Bluegrass also often brought homemade joyful times. “Snow cream!” she said. “My mom was born in 1936 on a farm in Minnesota. Even though snow was infrequent and scant in quantity in Lexington, Cannonsburg, and lastly Winchester, Kentucky, for me growing up, Mom managed to make those snow days more magical with that creamy, sweet treat!”
Butter pecan came up several times, but Berea resident Gin Petty added a qualifier for the choice. “I like butter pecan, too, but I’m partial to butter hickory nut. It’s similar, but there’s more nut flavor. I gather the hickory nuts in the fall, then crack them and pick out the goodies while I’m watching the World Series.”
Nicholasville insurance salesman Randall Wright likes the Crank and Boom ice cream brand because it has no high fructose. “Just the real ingredients,” he noted, “(and) the Bourbon Honey is ‘epic’.”
Louisvillian Sheila Hardcastle makes sure she buys the Tillamook or Breyers brands from the grocery. At Baskin and Robbins, it’s Pralines and Cream and at Ben and Jerry’s, she chooses Chunky Monkey.
When she can find it locally, Julie Sloan, of Morehead, grabs Ben and Jerry’s Super Fudge Chunk. Normally, their vanilla bean flavor will have to do. She likes vanilla a lot. “If I get a milkshake, ninety-nine per cent of the time I’ll order vanilla. She also is partial to coffee, pistachio, and Moosetracks.”
Another vanilla lover is Elizabeth Clark, who also is around sweets at the bakery where she works in Frankfort. She generally enjoys Breyer’s Natural Vanilla, “mostly without toppings, but I’ll sometimes make a Coke float or drizzle a little honey on top,” she noted.
“If I had a picture of my favorite, I’d probably eat it,” said Gayle Deaton, with a grin. “But I love Baskin-Robbin’s Praline’s ‘N Cream and Blue Bell’s or Breyer’s butter pecan. No fixin’s needed.”
And speaking of “sweetness,” I must share what my cousin Linda Bray shared about coming to the Flairty home as a child. “I loved looking into their freezer and trying to decide what to pick,” she said. “Now, I smile when I watch our great-nieces stand at our freezer door discussing which ice cream bar to pick! I hope they will have the same great memory of us!”
A few years ago, while Eric Fruge lived in San Francisco, he discovered, and enjoyed, Tillamook’s Oregon Strawberry Ice Cream. After first returning to Kentucky, he couldn’t find the treat but is delighted that it recently appeared at his Lexington area stores. And how does he like it served? “I love it plain, but a little port (rich wine) in a coffee mug bathed with Oregon Strawberry Ice Cream, topped with chocolate syrup… oh my!”
Over in the western part of the state, in Webster County, Stephanie Brown praised Sebree Dairy Bar for its “excellent shakes and sundaes” and believes that “the best way to eat ice cream is to share.”
In her acclaimed book of essays, Small Acreages, Georgia Green Stamper muses fondly about her youthful days in Owen County, where, along with “fifty or more of us schoolkids,” visited tiny Nick’s Grocery for lunch, then enjoyed dessert with an overflowing sized ice cream cone dipped with great care by Mr. Nick. Georgia’s favorite delight was the butterscotch ripple “back when the butterscotch was a roaring river and not a simpering ripple.”
Along with butter pecan being named the most to the people I asked, here are some others:
• United Dairy Farmers’ Chocolate Cherry Cordial
• Ben and Jerry’s Cherry Garcia
• peanut butter and chip
• black walnut
• Kroger’s Private Selection Cherry Cordial (with Diet Mountain Dew poured over it)
Whether we buy it or make it, Kentuckians are likely quite united in their love of ice cream! What’s YOUR favorite?