Till We Eat Again

Bill Dabney Photography

Jay Reed, a graduate of Ole Miss, lives in Starkville where he is a pharmacist by day and a freelance food writer by day off. He is a member of the Southern Foodways Alliance, co-hosts two podcasts and blogs at www.eatsoneate.com.

Fall-ing in Love with Homemade Ice Cream

BY JAY REED

How do you know when it’s fall in Mississippi?

One: Like the rest of the country, the pumpkin spice department has taken over an entire wing of the grocery store. There may already be PS items in the clearance aisle since they’ve been on the shelves since late July.

Two: Reese’s pumpkins have sprouted in all their glory and iterations, and like the pumpkin spice deodorant, they’re already “buy two get one free.”

Three: It’s still hot.

Sure, there may be a cool breeze once in a while. You may even wear a sweatshirt a time or two under the Friday night lights. But you still run the AC most days, and you still sweat when you mow the grass…because you’re still mowing the grass. We’ve all seen the meme circulating the interwebs that names fall in the South “Summer 2.0.” And it’s true. Even Christmas Day can bring shorts weather on alternate years, and some of my worst sunburns have resulted from afternoon college football games. And what’s the best dessert to cool you down on a hot fall day? Ice cream, of course.

Heck, even if it’s cold outside, ice cream is still a good choice. It’s always delicious, and if you’re making it homemade, like my family does on Christmas Day, maybe it’ll even freeze faster.

I recently had an epiphany about ice cream, and ironically, it came through a cookie. Proof Bakery in Starkville came up with a Neapolitan sandwich cookie, and it brought back all the chocolate-vanilla-strawberry feels of my childhood. In that moment, I realized that Neapolitan ice cream, in the rectangular half-gallon block, was my gateway ice cream. Confession: I am addicted to chunks and swirls. Granted, there are neither in Neapolitan. But the concept of having three flavors in the bowl at once—you had to work that scoop to make sure all were represented—set me on a path. Along that path were Chocolate Ripple (so fancy), Cookies and Cream and eventually Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough. Today it’s full-on Tonight Dough, with its two flavors of ice cream, cookie swirl and dual cookie dough chunks. Even Chubby Hubby can’t compete.

Keep in mind that Ben and Jerry didn’t start making ice cream for the public till I was 11 years old. We had a Baskin Robbins, but that was a special treat. I’m talking about ice cream for the home, and Neapolitan started it all. Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate the purity of a single scoop of Sweet Magnolia’s Fior di Latte. But in my heart of hearts, I want a Blizzard. A Concrete. A Blast. (Even a McFlurry, if the ice cream machine is Mcworking.) At some point, my go-to combination at the home place was vanilla ice cream with chocolate syrup and/or Magic Shell with salty roasted peanuts. When I went to college, I learned to make homemade Butterfinger ice cream, which is decadent enough, but now I crumble peanut butter-filled pretzel bites on top of that. Chunks. And swirls.

Let’s go back to fall, though. Love it or hate it, pumpkin spice is here to stay. So, let’s make the best of it. Inspired by news in late August of the arrival of the pumpkin pie Blizzard at Dairy Queen with chunks of pumpkin pie, I began to dream of what the ultimate pumpkin pie ice cream might include. It would start with a good vanilla base with pumpkin puree mixed in. Next would be chunks of pie crust, buttered and baked with brown sugar and pumpkin pie spice. Then I found pumpkin spice Golden Oreos at my local dollar store—some of those need to be crumbled and included for sure. And as I perused recipes for ratios, someone suggested crumbled Biscoff cookies (which have a touch of spice as well), and I already had a pack of those in the pantry. Which one did I choose, you ask? Well, all of them, Silly!

As a result of some pandemic-inspired bulk buying last Thanksgiving, I also had a couple of cans of jellied cranberry sauce next to the pumpkin in the pantry. Wouldn’t that make a delicious fall ice cream as well? Yes; yes, it did. Another vanilla base swirled with cranberry ice cream (base blended with sauce), a cranberry jelly ribbon, and some dark chocolate chunks for good measure. I’ll never look at sauce the same again.

But if that’s too much for you—you don’t dig pumpkin pie, and jellied cranberry ice cream isn’t your jam—make some chocolate and stir in some chopped pumpkins. Reese’s pumpkins. I won’t tell.