[HN Gopher] How Ice Cream Became the Ultimate American Comfort Food
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How Ice Cream Became the Ultimate American Comfort Food
Author : rntn
Score : 25 points
Date : 2022-06-18 14:51 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eater.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eater.com)
| klodolph wrote:
| Given the prevalence of lactose intolerance I think it's hard to
| classify ice cream as "the ultimate" comfort food.
|
| When I hear people talking about "comfort food" it's usually
| talking about simple (easy to prepare), high-carbohydrate foods
| with balanced proteins like mac & cheese, spaghetti & meatballs,
| pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, etc. The stuff you'd feed to
| children with unsophisticated palettes and an unending desire for
| calories and protein.
| willcipriano wrote:
| > The stuff you'd feed to children
|
| Perhaps that's why it's comforting? Reminds you of a simpler
| time, dad taking you out for ice cream on a summer day.
| gunfighthacksaw wrote:
| Also hearty food traditional to the culture(s) you exist in.
|
| When I'm in the UK, bangers and mash. In Central Europe some
| cutlet and sauerkraut.
|
| This is also because I ate it with my grandparents and they
| probably enjoyed it from the war when meat was scarce and it
| was hard to get food from other lands. Like you say, a
| simpler time.
| kortilla wrote:
| > lactose intolerance
|
| > mac & cheese
|
| > pizza
|
| > grilled cheese sandwiches
|
| I think I have some bad news for you about where cheese comes
| from...
| lr4444lr wrote:
| Sugar is both serotonergic and dopaminergic, IIRC. Not as fast
| and intensely as alcohol, but it's pretty good.
| jmyeet wrote:
| So ice cream isn't the ultimate comfort food because of lactose
| intolerance but that's a factor in 3 of the 4 other foods you
| mentioned.
|
| You also say an "unednding desire for calories and _protein_ ".
| *Protein?" Where? Even with metaballs you're not really eating
| that much meat (aka protein). Did you mean fat?
|
| It's kind of a weird take overall. Ice cream clearly has huge
| cultural significance in the US as a comfort food.
| klipt wrote:
| > "Protein?" Where?
|
| Cheese is very high in protein. It's basically concentrated
| milk. Obviously not lactose free though.
| sokoloff wrote:
| Hard cheeses tend to be low in lactose, often enough to not
| bother people who are moderately lactose intolerant.
| jayd16 wrote:
| Cheese is low lactose compared to cream.
| micromacrofoot wrote:
| Plenty of good tasting plant based ice creams... I don't even
| bother eating the real thing unless i'm out somewhere
| adeelk93 wrote:
| There are so many dairy free options nowadays, I hardly feel
| the inconvenience of lactose intolerance. Including on ice
| cream.
| elitee_hacjerz wrote:
| paulpauper wrote:
| It tastes good and is cheap , i guess
| r3trohack3r wrote:
| It's pretty amazing that it's cheap. A lot to be taken for
| granted in that statement.
|
| https://www.humanprogress.org/from-palace-to-parlour-the-sto...
| LegitShady wrote:
| I think this article fails to support the claim that ice cream is
| the ultimate American comfort food.
| wrycoder wrote:
| Here in New England, we judge a town by how easy it is to get
| good ice cream (not from the market). We eat it year-round, even
| when it's snowing. In NH, we pour maple syrup on snow and eat
| that, also.
|
| Most ice cream is too sweet - vanilla and pistachio are good
| choices.
| hprotagonist wrote:
| grape nut ice cream, kid.
|
| or go north (or in your case, west) and get you a maple creemee
| s0rce wrote:
| Maple syrup on snow is amazing, I had that as a kid in Canada
| (Ontario and Quebec).
| irrational wrote:
| I truly don't understand pistachio ice cream. Is it an acquired
| taste? Do you have to eat it as a small child to grow up liking
| it?
| jmyeet wrote:
| The problem with pistachio is that there are a lot of bad
| pistachio ice creams and gelatos (IMHO). There's really an
| art to getting it to where it both isn't bitter and isn't too
| sweet. Ben & Jerry's for example is typically way, way too
| sweet (in any flavour). There are a couple of exceptions but
| I can't eat B&J's Pistachio. YMMV.
|
| My particular poison is pistachio of hazelnut gelato. In both
| cases with correct balance you get something with a nutty,
| creamy flavour.
|
| It's not something I had until I was an adult so it's not a
| childhood thing either.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Do you have favorite pistachio brands? I've never really
| liked it, aside from one of the decent mass market brands,
| Breyer's, perhaps.
| mc32 wrote:
| Like rum-raisin. It depends how they make it.
|
| I've heard laboratorio del gelato in NYC is good. Never
| been to it --one day I may go pay a visit.
| normac2 wrote:
| This might be a case where people genetically taste things
| differently, because pistachio ice cream wasn't an acquired
| taste for me at all. Just seems delicious, though maybe a
| hair off the map of the kind of taste you usually get in ice
| cream.
| linsomniac wrote:
| My wife really wanted ice cream this summer, last summer we
| largely went without because we were eating low fat+low sugar. We
| got one of those Ninja Creami things and it's been pretty
| fantastic. Much better than the low cal ice cream options at the
| store. We can make a pint with between 120 and 300 calories,
| depending on what we do.
|
| It's almost like a shaved ice machine on steroids, it has an
| impeller that starts at the top and moves down through the frozen
| mixture and then back up. It's a knock off of some $5,000
| commercial machine. Instead of folding air and fat into the
| mixture while freezing, you freeze the container and then it
| completely destroys the ice crystals.
|
| I tend to do a mix of a third cup of 0% yogurt, a tbsp of
| allulose (fairly expensive sugar substitute so most store
| products don't use it), a pinch of xantham gum, and then the
| remainder fruit (cherries, blueberries, mango, peaches, pears).
| I've also done a can of low sugar canned fruit, xantham gum,
| allulose, comes out kind of like a sorbet.
|
| My wife does a base using low fat evaporated milk, and she gets a
| lot fancier (making low sugar mix ins, exotic flavors like coffee
| bourbon), and those come out much richer. Those are more like 260
| calories/pint. It also allows you to taylor the flavor, for
| example I'm happy with mine much less sweet than grocery store
| ice creams.
|
| It seemed fairly gimicky, and we avoided it for quite a while
| because of that, but she found it on sale for $150. Full price is
| $200, woot had them refurb for $100 last week. Fairly expensive,
| and noisy as hell, but we use it pretty much daily.
| amelius wrote:
| Do Americans eat more ice cream than, say, Italians?
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I don't know, but the cost of a scoop of ice cream in the
| states is like $4... maybe more. In Amsterdam, you get it
| everywhere for EUR1.50 to EUR2. So, when it is summertime, an
| ice cream a day is pretty typical consumption. Meaning, it has
| become more luxury to have ice cream in the states. (Maybe I'm
| wrong, this is a sense I have, open to correction).
| jmyeet wrote:
| $4? Maybe if you're buying artisanal gelato from SF, West LA
| or Manhattan. Think Salt and Straw.
| aidenn0 wrote:
| I live in the US and I don't think I've ever paid $4 for a
| scoop of ice cream in the US, but I haven't bought a scoop in
| the last two months, so perhaps the recent supply
| chain/inflation issues have happened.
|
| There is one place I know that charges $4 for what they call
| a single scoop, but it is about 3x bigger than any scoop
| elsewhere, and it's a pricey place in general ($8.50 for a
| malt).
| chrisseaton wrote:
| You can buy ice cream by the _gallon_ (4.5 litres!!) in the
| US. It can't be that expensive! In the UK half a litre (a
| pint) is considered a lot of ice cream.
| grzm wrote:
| 5 quarts (4.7 liters) is common size. Yes, it's cheap. But
| not usually very good quality, though.
| irrational wrote:
| Are we talking about eating it all yourself or sharing with
| the entire family?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| That's the size it's available in, so either.
| kortilla wrote:
| > I don't know, but the cost of a scoop of ice cream in the
| states is like $4...
|
| Only in hip ice cream places. $4 is about the going rate for
| those 1.5 quart (1.4 liter) cartons at the grocery store.
| [deleted]
| sjf wrote:
| The grocery store is always going to be cheaper. $4 is the
| _low_ end of a single scoop in the bay area. And not for
| some hipster, plant-based organic ice cream either, this is
| at a regular parlor like Fenton 's.
| wyager wrote:
| Hip places charge like $15 for a cup of ice cream and do
| weird (but tasty) gastronomy gimmicks like liquid nitrogen
| freezing or maltodextrin usage. You pay more than $4 at
| normie chains like coldstone.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Coldstone serves 5-12oz plus toppings made and mixed on-
| premise. Something like a food truck cup or cone is
| closer to $2. Baskin Robbins is perhaps $3 for a one
| scoop cone. But like the other user said, many Americans
| would rather buy a half gallon or gallon from a grocery
| store or c-store for $5 and eat too much of it. :)
| kortilla wrote:
| Yes, at least if you follow the weird requirements to qualify
| as "ice cream" in the US. The gelatos that Italians usually
| enjoy do not have enough butterfat to be considered "ice cream"
| by the USDA. So strictly speaking, people in Italy eat very
| little "ice cream" because their traditional recipes don't use
| enough fat.
|
| Incidentally, this is why places that serve Italian-style ice
| cream have to explicitly market it as "gelato" and not "ice
| cream".
|
| Total derailment from your actual question, but a
| Avshalom wrote:
| Yeah some quick searches suggest we eat ~3x as much as Italy
| but it's hard to tell what all is being included in
| worldatlas.com or whatever
|
| Notably there's also sherbets, frozen custards, soft-serve,
| frozen yogurt and a shit ton of cheap frozen-dairy-dessert.
| Not counting the various non-dairy frozen stuff like granita,
| sorbet, "Italian ice"
|
| VS whatever else they're eating over in Italy
| cableshaft wrote:
| J.J. McCullough made an informative and entertaining video about
| the history of American ice cream as well. He makes a lot of
| videos diving into the history of American (as well as Canadian,
| as he's Canadian) culture:
|
| https://youtu.be/gvT3FHLy484
| monkeybutton wrote:
| Is the ice-cream barge a recent revelation or am I just attuned
| to seeing references to it? I only learned about it recently and
| since then it's popped up multiple times.
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