cream me

peter's-ice-cream
Originally uploaded by lyrical.

I have tried them all as they came down the pike: dairy-free, fat-free, sugar-free; with tofu, yogurt, rice, whatever.

They always make me sad.

Teacher Linda Calhoun talking about foreign substances pretending to be ice cream.

I’m a fan of butterfat going way back. I swore off margarine early on because I just didn’t trust it. (And it turns out my instincts were spot on.)

It probably had something to do with growing up with an Irish grandfather who buttered the bread of every sandwich he ever ate and poured half and half over his breakfast cereal; a Norwegian grandmother whose own grandmother nursed her when she was ill with draughts of heavy cream (For the nutrients! Only she said that in Norwegian.); and a stepmother from Queens who got the whole food religion in the 70s, and tossed the latkes and matzoh brie of her childhood out the window in favor of tofu and sprouts and homemade granola. (Not entirely true: she still made the occasional potato pancake and cooked up a periodic mess of matzoh brie – and thank god she did, because the granola wasn’t so good.)

I became convinced that I had chosen well when I traveled in Norway and feasted on everything and anything swathed in butterfat -- fish chowders in heavy cream with dots of butter floating on the top, fresh salmon served in a rich cream sauce, the best melkesjokolade I’ve ever had in my life – and looked around me to see a nation full of fit, beautiful, skinny people.

It’s not the food, folks: it’s the portions.

And it’s the fat ass lifestyle that’ll make you or break you. (She says, having moved to Chicago and learned a thing or two about fat ass living her own fine self. Oy vey. Toto: we're not in Boulder anymore.)

So no more trash talk like this please:

The other new method for making super creamy ice cream was caught up last month in the global debate over genetically modified foods.

In June, Unilever, the Anglo-Dutch conglomerate, applied to Britain’s Food Standards Agency for permission to use a new ingredient in its frozen desserts – a protein cloned form the blood of an eel-like Arctic Ocean fish, the ocean pout.

From Creamy, Healthier Ice Cream? What’s the Catch? in today's New York Times

I’m sure it’s fine, I’m sure it’s not fishy, and I’m sure it’s all brilliantly scientific.

But, like Ms. Calhoun, it makes me sad.