Ice Cream Culture in Jalabad, Afghanistan

Cardamom ice cream, recipes below (photo from  

http://maclarty.blogspot.com/)

For the month of July I’ve been running a series on ice cream with all kinds of historical and cultural angles from different regions of the United States and the world. In the process of doing the research I’ve learned allot and look forward to sharing my findings as a lectured filled with the many great historical images I found. When you focus in on one topic and keep peeling away the layers you can really learn all of new information. Ice cream provides a lens into different cultures and societies. It also provides insights into class and gender differences as it relates to the space and place where and how ice cream is made, sold, and consumed.  For example, I came across a really interesting story done on NPR about ice cream in Jalabad, Afghanistan. Below I have provided a link to the story, related, recipes, and a link to my series on ice cream which also have lots of recipes and history.

Visiting an Ice Cream Shop in Jalabad: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=91015089

Cardamom ice cream recipes:

 http://skinnychef.com/recipes/cardamom-ice-cream/

http://maclarty.blogspot.com/2010/07/cardamom-ice-cream.html

Ice Cream Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=Ice+Cream+Series%3A

Feeding the Revolution in Albany, Georiga

Women selling ice cream and cake on the streets of Scotts Run, West Virginia, 1937 (Courtesy of the Library of Congress) recipes below 

The picture above reminds me of a civil rights jail scene from Georgia which I want to talk about today as part of my national ice cream month series and my ongoing series Feeding the Revolution. In 1961 several women in Albany Georgia contributed to the civil rights movement there by providing food to folks peacefully protesting against Jim Crow policies who Albany Police Chief Laurie Pritchett jailed. Pritchett held Ralph Abernathy, MLK, and other leaders of the movement in Albany in deplorable conditions including refusing to feed them. Local black women heard about the starving political prisoners and began feeding them some good down home food like fried chicken and biscuits with all the fixings and some “even churned a couple of quarts of homemade ice cream for us,” says Ralph Abernathy. Speaking of the movement and food in 1963 Birmingham, Albany, activist and comedian Dick Gregory writes, “That was some mighty horrible food [prison officials] were giving us [demonstrators] over there. First couple of days, it taste bad and look bad and after that it tasted like home cooking.  Matter of fact, it got so good the third day that I asked one of the guards for the recipe. The links below provide some related recipes.

Ice Cream Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=Ice+Cream+Series%3A

Dick Gregory Speech Birmingham, Alabama 1963:  http://americanradioworks.publicradio.org/features/sayitplain/dgregory.html

Feeding the Revolution Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=Feeding+the+Revolution&updated-max=2011-07-16T04%3A52%3A00-07%3A00&max-results=20

Immigrant Entrepreneurs and Ice Cream

New York City Ice Cream Venders, circa 1930 (courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Immigrant entrepreneurs played an important social role in urban cities like San Francisco, Chicago, and New York.  New immigrants commonly sought out street venders who sold a taste of home and  spoke their language. These entrepreneurs often set up their mobile eateries in the business districts that employed large number of people, near public transportation stops, and neighborhood meeting places like food markets. In these spaces  ice cream venders became a part of the urban landscape when the weather became hot. Historically many new immigrants in New York turned to selling food as street venders as one of their first forms of employment because it required little in the way of licenses, language barriers, or formal training.  If one was savvy, had a product in high demand like ice cream on a hot day, and either had or quickly learned business acumen they could advance. Location was and still is crucial in real-estate and selling street food. Having a catchy signature cry that advertised your product represented a key marketing strategy that separated the top entrepreneurs from the average ones. This proved particularly the case when selling a highly perishable product like ice cream on a hot summer day on the streets of New York. An enterprising ice cream vender could over time save enough money to open a brick and mortar eatery that sold ice cream and more and become a home owner.

Ice Cream Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=Ice+Cream+Series%3A

Ice Cream and Early 20th Century Cuba

Ice cream vender, Havana, Cuba circa 1910 (Library of Congress)  

The picture of the ice cream vender above reminds me of the some 22,000 Jamaicans who migrated to Cuba between 1911 and 1921. Many went there to take jobs on sugar plantations. Large numbers of Haitians also traveled there during the same period, many of them on the United Fruit Company’s “Great White Fleet,” a line of steamships that carried bananas, sugar, cacao, and passengers between the principal ports of the United States, the West Indies, and Latin America. In addition to steamship passage, black workers could and did travel by rail and other means of transportation; indeed, improved access to transportation contributed to the mobility of black immigrants throughout the Caribbean basin. Wherever they went, these migrants took the Marcus Garvey’s United Negro Improvement Association (UNIA) with them. West Indian, American, and Canadian immigrants in Cuba established fifty-two UNIA branches near black immigrant communities in Santiago de Cuba, Guantanamo, Camaguey, Cepedes, and Oriente de Cuba. Only the state of Louisiana had more branches of the UNIA in one geographic region than did Cuba. The UNIA in Cuba and elsewhere served as the migrant’s civic association, social club, and much more.

Ice Cream Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=Ice+Cream+Series%3A

My related book: http://www.upf.com/book.asp?id=OPIEX001

Feeding the Revolution in Havana, Cuba Part 2

Lines at Coppelia Ice Cream, Havana, Cuba 2004 

This is part two of my history of Coppelia’s ice cream emporium in Havana, Cuba. Like professional baseball in Cuba, Coppelia does not serve as money making endeavor for the revolutionary government in Cuba. Instead I argue that it serves as an outlet from the stress and frustration associated with the low salaries, high taxes on entrepreneurs, limited food options, and the political repression suffered in socialist country in which economic crisis has led to increasing numbers of government job layoffs.  Related to these problems are the hardships that the U. S. embargo has caused since its inception in 1962, just two years, by the way, after the government run Coppelia opened. In Havana Coppelia helps ease the frustration of urban life in a very hot tropical city full of foreign tourist flush with money. Perhaps the most important element of Coppelia is it provides a shared experience and sense of belonging for Havana residents in a tourist driven parallel economy in Havana in which much better off foreigners have access to better food and more food options than Cuban nationals. After the waiting between 30 and 45 minutes on line, Cubans can purchase 4 scoops of, vanilla, chocolate, coconut, or mango ice-cream with chocolate sauce for just 20 cents at Coppelia. Foreigners pay about $5.50 for the same ice cream in the section of the park that caters to them. Thus the government run Coppelia feeds the people ice cream and perhaps make them forget the frustrations they experience under Cuban socialism and the U. S. embargo for a brief period.

Ice Cream Series: http://www.foodasalens.com/search?q=Ice+Cream+Series%3A

The Arundel Ice Cream Company and Black Power

Warren Pickard owner of Relics & Rarities Ice Cream Parlor and Car Gallery in Decatur, Georgia in metro Atlanta, is another example of a black entrepreneur making his mark in the ice cream business. See the link below.

The Black power movement inspired a vibrant black entrepreneurial spirit that encouraged a number of black owned restaurant chains in the late 1960s. In Baltimore one of the greatest examples of this is the purchase of The Arundel Ice Cream Company. In 1973, Business Opportunities For Progress, a group of African American investors, purchased the Arundel Ice Cream Company and its 16 ice cream stores which also sold bakery goods, sandwiches, and fried chicken. The company planned to sell its featured ice cream products in every neighborhood grocery store. “Young blacks will be able to say it is possible for us to make ice cream not just operate a liquor store,” said Samuel T. Daniels executive director of the Council for Equal Business Opportunity Inc at a press conference. So a little over thirteen years after protesters forced Arundel to completely integrate its ice cream parlors (see earlier post), African American investors bought it. No details exist on how it changed overtime but about twenty years later, the company was sold at auction.

Relics & Rarities Ice Cream Parlor and Car Gallery story: http://www.decaturmetro.com/tag/decatur-ice-cream/

Ice Cream Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=Ice+Cream+Series%3A

July 4th Traditions and Beverages

Southern pink lemonade, this and other beverage recipes below

Been looking at John James Audubon’s observation of a circa 1830 Kentucky Independence Day barbecue. Today we Americans tend to do our July 4th barbecuing with family and a few invited friends and the fireworks part of the celebration is community wide. Audubon’s travel account shows us that July 4th feast were community events in which everyone pitched in and ate well! Special occasions like July 4th were one of those few days in the year when enslaved African Americans and poor whites ate well and festivities and food lessened the distinction between blacks and whites and rich and poor ever so slightly. Below I have a link to some southern sweet tea and lemonade. My wife and I hosted a party last year and folks raved about the peachy lemonade and pink rhubarb punch. Several folks asked for the recipes so here they are:

Southern sweet tea and lemonade recipes: http://www.soulfoodandsoutherncooking.com/southern-beverage.html

Rhubarb Punch recipe: http://www.tasteofhome.com/Recipes/Pink-Rhubarb-Punch

Peachy Lemonade recipe: http://www.tasteofhome.com/recipes/Peachy-Lemonade

Ice Cream Series: Part 7 Raspberries

Coconut ice cream with raspberry, this and other recipes below

I started the tradition of picking wild berries in July with my two children about three years ago. I grew up doing that has a child in Croton-on-Hudson, New York. My son and daughter are now five and eight years old now and they instinctively start watching the raspberry bushes in July eager to start picking and eating berries. Overtime my wife has joined in now that she completed her graduate studies. Foraging for food has a long cross cultural tradition that commoners have practiced around the globe. People have foraged for berries and other wild fruits for centuries. At a very young age, commoners learned how to live off the land. I encourage parents to take some time and learn from specialist in your area and or from books about what you can forage in your area. Then start a healthy family tradition like picking fresh berries and serving them over ice cream. After all July is national ice cream month. Here is a raspberry ice cream recipe that goes well with this post and other related links:

Coconut ice cream with raspberries: http://tofufortwo.net/2008/08/13/coconut-ice-cream-with-raspberry/

Ice Cream Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=Ice+Cream+Series%3A

 

Ice Cream Series: Part 6 Piraguas

Piraguas Vendor's Cart above and a lime flavored piragua here

President Ronald Reagan gets the credit for naming July national ice cream month! We North Americans consume more ice cream than anybody else on the globe. I did a couple of post featuring Carvel ice cream and my childhood memories growing up in Croton-on-Hudson in  Westchester County a suburb of New York City. A friend of mine about the same age explained that he had much different childhood experience with “ice cream” in New York City. Mario, a Honduran American, explained, “Carvel Ice Cream, that was a suburban thing man! Growing up in the South Bronx [in the 1970s] we never had luxuries like Carvel or Mc Donald’s. Those companies never considered opening franchises in the Bronx, they were too scared. When we thought of Carvel growing up, we thought of about the suburbs, you know Long Island, Westchester, and places like that.” He went on to say, “We had piraguas,” Latin American snow cones that came in flavors like coconut, lemon, strawberry, passion fruit, mango, and pineapple.  They made them literally from scratch on the spot as they shaved ice from a large block and then flavored it to your personal taste. Cubans called them granizados and Dominicans frio frio. In short, even ice cream is an indicator of class and ethnicity. Until Mario's comment, I naively assumed that children all over metropolitan New York experienced Carvel ice cream like me. Now it’s clear that Carvel sold franchises to white people in vanilla suburbs like Croton and Hartsdale. When you see a Carvel or piragua vendor you can pretty much tell the class and ethnicity of the area.

 

Tom Carvel: http://www.carvel.com/about_us/history.htm

Carvel Stand photos:http://www.agilitynut.com/eateries/carvel.html

Ice Cream Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=Ice+Cream+Series%3A

Ice Cream Series: Part 5 Tuesday is Sunday!

Carvel Ice Cream Sunday, links to related stories with recipes below

Our food options increased as we Croton youth advanced from biking to driving. In our junior or senior year at Croton Harmon High School in scenic New York's Hudson Valley, Tom Carvel, the Greek founder of the Westchester based franchise I talked about yesterday, introduced the “buy one get one free,” gimmick. The Carvel franchise claims that it invented that marketing idea. We high school kids in Croton literary ate that ice cream sales gimmick up. In the early 1980s, Tuesday became Sunday (ice cream Sundays) at Carvel for me and my classmates. We piled into old beat up Chevys, Fords, and Dodges and caravanned to the Carvel located around the corner from the A &P north west of the village of Croton-on-Hudson. Imagine this, just an hour before lacrosse practice and games, teammates and I would down two ice cream Sundays! I would order a Sunday made from scratch with vanilla soft-serve ice cream, strawberries in syrup, and chopped nuts. As a a lacrosse player at Syracuse University we would eat 3 to four hours before a game to be sure our food had been digested. Boy that was good but foolish!

Tom Carvel: http://www.carvel.com/about_us/history.htm

Carvel Stand photos: http://www.agilitynut.com/eateries/carvel.html

Ice Cream Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=Ice+Cream+Series%3A