We All Scream!

Savor - 1905

Notre Dame Blvd. Ste 100, Chico

New wild and delicious flavor combinations can be found in constant rotation here. Think Salt & Straw. IYKYK in Arabic. They made chilled drinks flavored with cherry or pomegranate, and the popularity of these beverages quickly spread to Europe. Eventually, sorbetto, a combination of juice and sugar was born.

Walking into Shubert’s Ice Cream & Candy is a trip back in time for many of us. My first visit occurred as a passenger in my mom’s womb way back when (we will revisit that timeframe later). One aspect remains the same every time you step inside: the smell. It’s a cosmic blend of peppermint, chocolate, soft spice, and happiness. Too bad no one can make a freshener out of that magical scent.

Everyone has a favorite ice cream flavor at a certain age. Mine started out with lemon custard, segued into pistachio, made a visit to coffee, dipped into mint chip, and came back around to lemon custard over the last 10 years. Let’s face it, any flavor in that building is worth the time and taste. And I’ve never met anyone who doesn’t like ice cream. You may be lactose intolerant, but you still want it. Fortunately, there is sherbet, and a nice watermelon sherbet is in season.

In the late 1600s, Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli introduced gelato in his café in Paris; it is said Benjamin Franklin, Victor Hugo, and even Napoleon were patrons. Around this time, French confectioner Nicolas Audiger described several ice recipes in his book, La Maison Réglée The ingredients included cream, sugar, and fruit flavoring. Audinger suggested stirring the ice during the freezing process to introduce air and make a fluffier texture. This brings me to the timeline mentioned above.

Unicone - 1382 Myers St., Oroville

Fun, vibrant, and fresh, Unicone brings the razzle dazzle to the streets of Oroville. Stop in for something unique, like their ice cream nachos!

Some sort of frozen concoction has been around to brighten up people’s days for far longer than you might realize. Biblical passages refer to King Solomon enjoying iced drinks during the harvest season, and Alexander the Great indulged in icy drinks sweetened with honey. The emperor Nero reigned from 68 to 54 BCE, and had ice houses where ice was buried underground and covered with straw.

The first consumers of a frozen, milk-like creation were the emperors of the Tang Dynasty, 618-907 AD. Sadly, the only flavor was orange (I just had to!). Cow or goat milk was mixed with flavors, placed in tubes, and lowered into ice pools to freeze. Thanks go to the people of the Arabian Peninsula for sherbet—or sharabt

When I was a young child, it was a special endeavor among my relatives to make homemade ice cream. This process involved a small ice cream maker which made about a gallon of ice cream using cream, sugar, your choice of fruit, rock salt, and ice packed around the metal canister in the wooden container. The youngsters' contribution was to crank the handle that made the canister rotate in the ice mix. That wasn’t what you’d call fun. When I was nine, we got an electric ice cream maker.

The first flavor we made turned out to be fresh peach ice cream; I still recall the luxuriant, creamy taste today. Though it may not seem like an ingredient itself, ice cream is used as an ingredient in numerous summer recipes, with proof of such on the next spread. Check it out and see why ice cream truly is one of my favorite ingredients of the summer.