Praline Pecan?
by Garrett Daugherty
November 19, 2009
As
many of us know, ice cream is one of the most loved treats around
the world. Who doesn’t like that wonderful creamy and cold
sensation you get every time you take a bite? Now who knows
where ice cream originated? Italy? No. Spain?
Nope. How about the United States of America?
Wrong again. In fact, it was first made in Mesopotamia.
They have served this delicious treat for thousands of years
after inventing four thousand years ago. So which one of these
delicious treats do you choose? You could randomly select one
of the thousands of flavors, but that would be a long game of
eeny-meeny-miny-mo.
In a recent poll, the top fifteen flavors
of ice cream were named. As you might guess, vanilla was
first with 29% of the voting, and chocolate was second with 8.9%.
Butter pecan was third with 5.3%, followed by strawberry,
Neapolitan, chocolate chip, French vanilla, cookies and cream,
vanilla fudge ripple, praline pecan, cherry, chocolate almond,
coffee, rocky road and finally chocolate marshmallow. I don’t
know about you, but all of those sound very tasty to me.
Now in selecting many of the thousands of
flavors of ice cream, you have to judge many characteristics:
the appearance, the color, recent tastes, the name (I mean
who doesn’t want to try an ice cream that sounds like vanilla fudge
ripple), and finally what is in it. Other than just the
characteristics of the ice cream, you have to think ahead about
what would taste good with that cone with chocolate all over it, or
even that bowl with the chocolate and sprinkles. Then the
toppings come to mind. Ooh, the caramel, or the Snickers,
Reese’s, or the Twix.
Ice cream is a worldwide phenomena due in
part to its majestic taste. Once you have found that one
flavor that you can savor for all of your life you can finally call
it yours. In fact Americans consume the most ice cream in the
world per person, with Australians coming in second. In 1924,
the average America ate eight pints a year. By 1997, the
International Dairy Foods Association reported that the figure had
jumped to 48 pints a year. Also, the most avid ice cream
eaters in the U.S. don't live in Hawaii, the South, California, or
any other hot climate. Instead, in 1999, it was reported that
the good citizens of Omaha, Nebraska, ate more ice cream per person
than any other Americans. So they know how to choose this
magnificent treat.
Another way of choosing that one
magnificent flavor of ice cream is just by asking to sample a
flavor, or nine just depends on how lucky you are. Then the
old swipe of your friend’s delicious treat when he or she is not
looking always comes to mind too. You may also go with the
kind way of doing it by just asking, but who likes to do that.
Then the fact that you don’t have to eat
your ice cream just from a bowl or cone comes to mind. Since
there has been the creation of the shake and malt you can have your
ice cream and just chug it down. That might result in a brain
freeze, but who doesn’t like the good old taste of a chocolate milk
shake? You also may decide to get an ice cream on a stick, in
a sandwich form, or one of the birthday favorites--an ice cream
cake.
So next time you’re up to make your
decision and the server asks you “Well what would you like to
have?” you can easily reply with the tasteful flavor of maybe just
mint-chocolate chip.
