The ice cream queen is in Canada this week doing research for her ice cream projects, and she has come to the following conclusion: ice cream in Toronto is awful.
First, it comes in litre-size vats that can't possibly be finished quickly, so they languish in the freezer and crystalize until they become inedible. (Photo 1, ice cream in the freezer. Photo 2, my dad serving himself some freezer frost)
Secondly, they have a ton of unnecessary preservatives and chemicals. My folks have a tub of President's Choice s'mores ice cream. (For the uninitiated, a s'more is a traditional campfire food: burnt marshmallows and melted chocolate, served between two graham crackers.) In addition to the requisite cream, milk and stabilizer, President's Choice s'mores ice cream also has modified corn starch, sunflower and coconut oil, baking soda, artificial flavour, carob bean gum, cellulose gum and guar gum. A half-cup portion also has 0.4 grams of trans fat. Sacreligious! Ice cream should be natural. There's no reason it should have more than cream, milk, eggs, vanilla flavouring, chocolate pieces, cinnamon, stabilizer. Unless, of course, you want to mass-produce it, sell it cheaply, and forget about it for months in a freezer. Ugh. If this is the competition then we're going to be rich. Me voy a llenar de plata!!!! (Photo 3)
The best ice cream I've tasted here so far was the little scoops of mandarin, mango and raspberry ice cream that I had at Frances and Andrew's wedding last weekend. The flavours and colours were strong and the presentation was lovely -- served with mint leaves in a martini glass. (Photo 4, Jen eating dessert)
Last night we ate at a Chinese restaurant. I'm not a big fan of Chinese food but the ice cream for dessert was quite tasty. Most Chinese restaurants offer three flavours: green tea, mango and vanilla. I sampled the mango and vanilla. I wonder if they make their own or order it from a Chinese-restaurant ice cream wholesaler. Mango and vanilla are pretty normal flavours, but I'd imagine that green tea would be a specialty flavour. (Photo 5, Jaeli eating ice cream)
In other news, my wrist hurts. I think I have carpal tunnel syndrome. We joke that it's from scooping too much ice cream. Into my mouth. I'm amazed my pants still fit.
