Paletas de Michoacán/Popsicles from Michoacán, Mexico

Paletas de Michoacán street vender

Paletas de Michoacán

In the early 1990s I spent several summers as a graduate student living in Guadalajara, Mexico (in central Mexico) learning Spanish and exploring the cuisine. Eating paletas de Michoacán (popsicles from Michoacán) represented one of my favorite Guadalajara memories.  Paletas are indigenous to the region of Michoacán, Mexico. These are water or cream based popsicles on steroids made with pieces of fresh tropical fruit. I purchased mine at corner store bodegas found on most street corners in the city. They come in flavors like coconut, lemon, guava, strawberry, mango, Kiwi, and pineapple.  Coconut still remains my favorite; it’s like eating chunks of coconut in coconut creamed milk frozen solid. After you remove it from the freezer in the bodega, take off the plastic rapper, and step out into the hot Guadalajara sun, the heat quickly softens the rock hard coconut treat on a stick enough so you can take bites out of it. Just thinking about it makes my mouth water.  About five years ago, I started seeing Mexican street venders like the one pictured above pushing small white freezer carts advertising paletas de Michoacán on the side in Harlem and the South Bronx. Their presence is a good indicator that the population of Mexican migrants has increased significantly in New York City and the variety of ice cream in the big apple has greatly improved.  

Mexican town runs on ice cream: http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2009-01-12-icecream_N.htm

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

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

Migrant Workers and Ice Cream

Laborers in an agricultural work camp in Bridgeton, New Jersey purchasing Ice cream from a truck that made daily visits, 1942.  (Courtesy of the Library of Congress) recipes below.

As part of my series on ice cream I want to talk about the photo above. The photo reminds me of the oral histories I have read about migrants from the U. S. South and Puerto Rico who arrived in small communities in metropolitan, New York as agricultural workers. For example, Puerto Rican Salvadore Cordero migrated from the Caribbean to New York in 1952 when he was thirty-years-old. In Puerto Rico he had done construction and worked in the sugar fields cutting cane. During World War II, he worked on a U. S. military base in Puerto Rico. When he first came to New York in 1952, he performed agricultural labor on farms in upstate New York, which was common among Puerto Rican immigrants in the 1950s. Puerto Ricans represented a large segment of the agricultural workers in the Hudson River Valley just north of the city. They earned about $5.90 a day and endured poor working and living conditions on farms. They fought for many years before they gained “the right of self-organization in unions of their own choosing, and improvements in their wage scale to allow for a decent standard of living” said Fay Bennett, executive secretary of the National Sharecroppers Fund in 1959.

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


Interview with the author of Tomatoland: http://www.npr.org/2011/06/28/137371975/how-industrial-farming-destroyed-the-tasty-tomato

The Ice Cream Strategy and Debt Ceiling Negotiations

FDR cabinet member Marvin Mcintyre receiving a huge ice cream cake from the International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers at the White House, 1937 (Courtesy of the Library of Congress) recipes below.

My wife is teaching a course on negotiations this month that made me think about the current log jam in the nation's capital. We are both faculty members at Babson College; she teaches and writes about business I teach and write about history, with a focus on food history. In doing research for my current series on Ice Cream, I came across several pictures in the Library of Congress collection that featured republicans and democratic from different branches of government eating ice cream. Democratic President Franklin Roosevelt presided over the worse economic recession in the history of the country and he often entered heated debates with members of the GOP over government spending on his New Deal policies. Similarly, President Obama and GOP lawmakers are locked in high steaks negotiation over budget cuts, raising taxes, and raising the country’s debt limit. My wife has been telling about or course on negotiation and it got me thinking. Perhaps if the president, the speaker of the house, or another party leader brought a huge ice cream cake like one pictured above to the todays negotiations session in Washington, they could put a freeze on the current hostile language flying across the political divide between the two parties and a sweet deal both sides could stomach would emerge. For example, perhaps when the history of the recent settlement between NFL players and team owners is written, ice cream will figure somewhere in the mix. Why do I say that, because just about everyone keeps the conversation going when ice cream is on the table instead of character attacks.

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

Homemade Ice Cream in Jail

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 With a Flavorful Twist From Columbus, Ohio

Recipes below

The following is a prerecorded radio interview from Earth Eats one of several food talk radio shows I enjoy.

Interview:  Jeni Britton Bauer of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream, the Columbus, Ohio based company that makes ice cream with a flavorful twist., 

and Sarah Kaiser makes watermelon sorbet.

Listen [20:00]: http://indianapublicmedia.org/eartheats/ice-cream-sorbet-dessert/

Jeni’s Splendid Ice Cream short film: http://www.jenisicecreams.com/

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

Audible Edibles: Radio food shows online: http://open.salon.com/blog/gigabiting/2011/07/14/audible_edibles_radio_food_shows_online

Ice Cream Foodways in Turkey

Ice cream merchant, Constantinople, Turkey, 1898 (Courtesy of the Library of Congress)

Dondurma/Turkish Ice Cream, recipes below

Dondurma is the name for Ice Cream in Turkey and it’s very different then what we here in North America are accustomed to. The Turkish have been making for some 300 years. It is made from milk, sugar, and thickening agent called salep which is flour made from the root of the Early Purple Orchid which blossoms in the spring. Salep his native to Asia Minor but can be found in India and Germany. The recipe also includes mastic which gives the ice cream a unique chewy and delightful texture. Turkish ice cream takes hours to make and it contains the medicinal quality of improving gastro-intestinal problems. It has a much slower melting point than North American style ice cream and it’s traditionally eaten with a knife and fork; although cones are popular too.  It's sold in store fronts, on street carts, and by street vendors like the one in the image above. As advertisement street venders cry out phrases such as “ICE CREAM Ice cream, ice cream that sends you to the Heaven! Ice cream, the herald of spring has come! As the YouTube link below illustrates, ice cream venders in Turkey play a game of catch it if you can as they mix and scoop the ice cream with a special long utensil. This is a surprise to most tourists and something you have to see for yourself!

Video of Turkish ice cream vender: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YlFZxqj5DJU&feature=player_embedded#at=17

Dondurma recipe: http://www.cookingissues.com/2010/03/20/fake-fryable-brulee-able-salep-dondurma-ice-cream-a-legal-recipe/

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

The Ice Cream Truck

Good Humor ice cream truck, Washington, D.C., 1942

A reader from my hometown inspired me to post this anonymous poem titled simply “Ice Cream Truck.”

Ice Cream Truck

I was at the park as happy as can be,

When I heard that truck, the truck that makes me scream,

"Ice Cream! Ice Cream! Oh boy, ICE CREAM!"

I grab my money and run after the ice cream,

I chase and chase and chase,

till' I hardly had any breath,

I screamed

"ICE CREAM!"

and stopped right at the spot

Then slowly and steadly walk slowly back to the park,

Huffing, puffing, with the music in my head,

I sadly dream of ice cream

the creamy taste and coldness,

No ice cream for today,

but tomarrow is the day,

where I get ice cream.

Poem source: http://creativityunleashed.wikia.com/wiki/User_blog:Lunaspuffle/Ice_Cream_Truck

Related post: http://strategymakers-forum.blogspot.com/2011/07/chasing-ice-cream-truck-summertime.html

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

Bicycles, Baseball, and Ice Cream

This past Sunday our two children who are five and eight did their first cross town bike ride without training wheels etc with my wife and I. It was truly a momentous movement in which both children seem to clearly understand my love bike riding and the freedom it bike provides. For me, riding a bike is the closes thing to flying.  In about sixth grade I had both a bike and permission from my folks to ride into the village of Croton in the Hudson Valley to go to little league baseball practice and games at John F. Kennedy Baseball Field (JFK for us locals). When I road into town to play ball, which I did religiously before I started playing lacrosse the summer after completing eighth grade, I brought what money I could scrounge up to buy ice cream at the mom and pop store a stone’s throw JFK. In front of the cash register the store had Good Humor “free-standing freezer-cabinet.” This had to be around the 1970s because the company that distributed the product depended on those white Good Humour Trucks to sell it from the 1930s to the 1970s. Thereafter stores like the one in Croton sold the ice cream out of freezer cabinets. I recall for about a quarter one could buy a Good Humor Strawberry Shortcake, Chocolate Éclair, or Toasted Almond ice cream bar on a wooden stick. Those bad boys were sensational! Thus in part, the thought of my next bike ride to play baseball kept me hustling to make money doing chores around the house and mowing neighbors’ lawns to earn enough chump chains for a toasted almond ice cream.

Link to Good Humor Company History:
http://www.icecreamusa.com/good_humor/history/

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

The Case of King Cole Ice Cream

King Cole Ice Cream sign, Syracuse, New York (courtesy of the Library of Congress)

 Pistachio ice cream cone, recipes below (image from http://www.browneyedbaker.com/)

I enjoy the PBS show history detectives. Someone presents a member of the cast with an object, letter, or photo and the detective sets off to find the story behind the evidence. I also enjoy Law and Order for the detective work that goes into solving a crime because for me historians are detectives. I came across the above image of an ice cream sign in Syracuse. I attended Syracuse University for both my undergraduate and graduate studies so naturally the sign made wonder about the history of King Cole Ice Cream. The available sources tell us that the King Cole Ice Cream and Candy Company prospered during the WWII era. All indications point that the company had ice cream stands and a truck delivery service in the central New York region with its headquarters in most likely in Utica. There is evidence that singer Nat King Cole invested in a similar Ice Cream Company with his name on hit on the west coast during the same period. One person recalled her father stopping “at King Cole's Ice Cream Parlor in Noe Valley, California for [delicious] orange sherbet.” However, most of what I found comes from Central New York accounts of the company. Those who grew up in the region recalled the high quality of its “soft ice cream called custard,” hot fudge sundaes, shakes, and free soft serve cones on Halloween. A person who grew up in 1940s Utica recalled that King Cole ice cream parlor there had the best pistachio ice cream she’s ever had and she eagerly sought a recipe. 

Pistachio ice cream recipe: http://www.browneyedbaker.com/2009/08/12/pistachio-nut-ice-cream/

Vegan pistachio ice cream recipe: http://catesworldkitchen.com/2010/06/vegan-pistachio-ice-cream/

Raw food pistachio ice cream recipe: http://rawon10.blogspot.com/2010/04/april-25-2010.html

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

Feeding the revolution series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/search?q=feeding+the+revolution

My books:

http://cup.columbia.edu/book/978-0-231-14638-8/hog-and-hominy/tableOfContents

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

Feeding the Revolution: Coppelia Ice Cream Parlor in Havana, Cuba Part 1

Eating ice cream at Coppelia Ice Cream Parlor in Havana

In January of 2004 I took a group of U. S. students to Cuba as part of winter session course abroad on Cuban History. My wife came along as student as well. We spent most of our 19 days in and around Havana. Our hotel was just blocks from the famed Coppelia Ice Cream Parlor which is located in a park like setting that takes up an entire city block. There is nothing like this in the United States. The Cuban revolution began in 1959 and the construction of Coppelia happened in 1960. This post is part of my series on ice cream and my larger on Feeding the Revolution which looks at the role of in political and social movements. You can purchase ice cream in the national currency in contrast to the hard currency which doesn’t often happen in Cuba making it inexpensive. For example at Coppelia one can purchase an Ensalada—four scoops of some of the best ice cream I have ever had covered with chocolate syrup for 5 pesos around 20 cents! The government similarly prices tickets to professional baseball games for about 50 cents!  In other places one would have to buy an entire pint of ice cream for 1.25 CUC which is around $1.55 and most Cubans cannot afford such a luxury. Part 2 tomorrow.

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

Traditional vanilla ice cream recipe: http://scrumptiousandsumptuous.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/ice-cream-sunday-french-vanilla/

Vegan vanilla ice cream recipe: http://www.elanaspantry.com/vegan-vanilla-ice-cream/

No Better Dessert Combination: Vanilla Ice Cream and Pecan pie

Pecan Pie Alamode, recipes below

I cannot think of a better dessert combination then vanilla ice cream and pecan pie. Perhaps it’s the reason I liked Ben and Jerry’s old Rain Forrest Crunch ice cream flavor. I only realize now that it was essentially my favorite combination prepackaged (see the related link below). Pecan pie makes me think of my southern heritage. In most southern families, older female relatives with a family recipe for pecan pie pass it down from one generation to another as oral history during most often special occasions like Christmas or thanksgiving.  Pecan pie also makes me think of the influence of Amerindians on American foodways. Amerindians gave the pecan its name; they knew and enjoyed them and introduced them to European settlers and the first Africans in North America. Pecans and pecan pies did not become popular in the south until the mid-20^th century when farmers began cultivating a domesticated and improved pecan plant. Below is a family pecan pie recipe one of my former students shared with me. Here is my suggestion: try both the pie and ice cream recipes below. A good recipe is a family heirloom that should be both treasured and documented for the next generation.

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

Traditional vanilla ice cream recipe: http://scrumptiousandsumptuous.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/ice-cream-sunday-french-vanilla/

Vegan vanilla ice cream recipe: http://www.elanaspantry.com/vegan-vanilla-ice-cream/

Rainforest crunch: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2011/07/ice-cream-series-part-9-favorite.html

Aunt Nancy’s Pecan Pie Recipe (with my suggested substitutes):

3 eggs slightly beaten (or egg substitute)

1 cup sugar

1 cup Karo (light) syrup

2 tbsp melted butter (substitute a vegan margarine, there are some great ones out there)

1 tsp vanilla

1 & ¼ cup pecan halves

Stir list ingredients together, and then mix in pecans. Pour into 9 inch pie crust and bake at 350 for 50-55 minutes. Let cool to room temperature then refrigerate before serving.

Guadalajara mini pecan pies: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2010/10/hispanic-history-month-and-foodways_03.html

"Ice Milk"

Vanilla ice cream, recipes below (photo from http://www.elanaspantry.com/)

As I mentioned yesterday, I associate pie and ice cream with my Grandma Opie who lived a short drive from me in North Tarrytown a suburb of New York City in the Hudson Valley. My Grandmother Lucy Opie was one of many women who migrated from Cloverdale, Virginia to North Tarrytown in the late 1920s or the early 1930s. In North Tarrytown, the majority of the southern-born migrant women came from Virginia, followed by North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, and Maryland, in descending amounts. I remember the time she sent me to the Grand Union grocery store (now a Walgreens) to buy “ice milk.” I was in middle school at the time and as a northerner, I had no clue what she meant by ice milk and felt too embarrassed to ask her. I soon found that the other northerners who worked in the North Tarrytown Grand Union knew no more what ice milk was than I did. I had clerks in the store going around asking other employees what ice milk meant; in reflection, this might have made a good skit on in Living Color. We finally found an older southern migrant in the store who could interpret Grandma's request: she wanted vanilla ice cream!  After what seemed like a long time I returned and she asked, "what took you so long?" Over time I learned to translate her down south idioms like ice milk and retrieve the right items from the store allot faster. Here are links to ice cream recipes and to a grandma Opie mince meat pie story and recipe.

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

Traditional vanilla ice cream recipe: http://scrumptiousandsumptuous.wordpress.com/2011/05/22/ice-cream-sunday-french-vanilla/

Macapuno/Coconut Ice Cream: http://burntlumpia.typepad.com/burnt_lumpia/2007/05/macapuno_ice_cr.html

Vegan vanilla ice cream recipe: http://www.elanaspantry.com/vegan-vanilla-ice-cream/

Mince-meat pie: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2009/12/historical-look-at-mince-meat-pie-for.html

Poetry, Rhubarb Pie, and Ice Cream

Strawberry Rhubarb pie with vanilla ice cream, recipes below (photo from http://www.thatsnotwhattherecipesays.com/)

I associate rhubarb pie with ice cream with my paternal Grandmother Lucy Opie, a southerner from Fork Union, Virginia. The rhubarb pie represented a classic Virginia pie she baked in the early spring when the plant grows best after a cold winter and the pie taste awesome with vanilla ice cream on top. Rhubarb, which some call Pie Plant because people most often used it for pie filling, is indigenous to China where herbalist used it for its purgative qualities. Venetian traders introduced it to Southern Europe where rhubarb first appeared in an Italian garden in 1608. From there it spread to the rest of Europe. Rhubarb’s first reference as food, as tart and pie filling, dates back to 1778. It crosses the Atlantic with British colonist and becomes popular in New England gardens around the 1790s. Thereafter rhubarb cultivation moved south with northern migrants to the upper south where one found favorable growing conditions during the winter and spring moths. When I walked into my grandmother’s front door back in the 1960s and 1970s, the delicious smell of baking pies just slapped you in the face. Grandma Opie did not consider it overindulgent for her grandson to have two slices of rhubarb pie with ice cream. Here is a poem and some recipes in memory of my grandmother who passed a little more than a decade ago.

Rhubarb Pie

If rhubarb pie
You've never eaten
Give it a try
It can't be beaten
I know what you're thinking
Oh how can this be
Rhubarb's reminiscent
Of red celery
How can something
This stringy
Become a great pie
There's a sweet little secret
Of that I won't lie
It takes lots of sugar
A half plus a cup
And a third cup of flour
To thicken things up
An eighth teaspoon of salt
And the Rhubarb you add
Four cups peeled and chopped
Won't turn out too bad
Mix it all up
And pour in a pie pan
Lined with a crust
You mixed up by hand
Dot it with butter
Or margarine is ok
Two tablespoons should do
At least that's what they say
Put on a top crust
Flute the edges up high
And cut in some vents
So the top doesn't fly
Sprinkle with sugar
And put in to bake
At 425 Three-fourths hour
Should take
When it is done
Place on rack for to cool
Don't eat it too soon
Or you'll get burned you fool
When it's just warm
Then open the fridge
With vanilla ice cream
You'll want more than a smidge
With milk in a glass
Or coffee in cup
You might soon discover
That you've eaten it up
Then go tell your friends
That you've found a new gem
And maybe next time
You'll save some for them!

Anonymous poem by

http://www2.ljworld.com/users/Jay_lo/

Strawberry rhubarb pie recipe: http://www.thatsnotwhattherecipesays.com/2010/03/strawbery-rhubarb-pie.html

Rhubarb pie recipe: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.com/2009/08/strawberry-rhubarb-pie-on-my-mind-and.html

Vegan Strawberry Rhubarb Cobbler Recipe:http://dairyfreecooking.about.com/od/piesandcobblers/r/strawrhubcobbler.htm

Related foodie links on rhubarb:

http://www.rhubarbinfo.com/

http://poetryoffood.com/rhubarb-fool

Soda, Ice Cream, and Courting Rituals During Prohibition

Ice cream soda, recipes galore below

Doing a series on ice cream post July is national ice cream month. I found a 1928 image of the African American owned and operated Fennell's Greater Pharmacy at Druid Hill Avenue and Biddle Street in Baltimore. Prohibition period pharmacies commonly sold medicines along with candies and light refreshments including non-alcoholic drinks like carbonated ice cream sodas. Fennell’s, which one 1920s source called “Baltimore’s biggest and best colored drug store,” had a soda fountain where one could purchase an ice cream soda a sandwich and perhaps a slice of apple pie. The growth and popularity of the drugstore soda fountain can be traced to the development of carbon dioxide in tanks which made carbonated drinks available in the early 1900s and to the start of prohibition in 1919. Thereafter taking a date out to a pharmacy for an ice cream soda and sandwich became a courting ritual. During segregation Fennell’s dispensed medications with dignity to customers of all ethnicity and it’s soda fountain provided a safe space for young African Americans courting on a hot August evening to get to know each other over a light refreshment. Here are some soda fountain recipes from the 1920s and 30s

Prohibition Era Soda Fountain Recipes: http://www.masterstech-home.com/The_Kitchen/recipes/Reminiscent_Recipes/SodaFountainRecipes.html

Interview with author Daniel Okrent on Prohibition:

http://www.npr.org/2011/06/10/137077599/prohibition-speakeasies-loopholes-and-politics

Ice Cream Series: http://frederickdouglassopie.blogspot.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

The Sit In Movement and Baltimore’s Arundel Ice Cream Company

Chocolate double dipped ice cream cone, recipe below

In 1954 Arundel Ice Cream Company announced the opening of “Modern Kitchens” featuring “Jewish style” foot long hot dogs, submarine sandwiches, and regular sandwiches, with a Friday and Saturday special “including a jumbo double dip ice cream” and ice cream sodas. The company regularly advertised in the pages of the Baltimore, Afro American, and a paper that catered to black readers. The placement of the add leads me to conclude that Arundel Ice Cream operated stores in Black Baltimore and segregated ones in white sections of metropolitan Baltimore before 1959. In 1959, 156 members of The Civic Interest Group, made of students from Morgan State and Coppin State (two historical black colleges) and Goucher College and Johns Hopkins University (two historical white colleges), along with some local black high school students organized a sit in at an Arundel Ice store in the Northwood Shopping Center not far from Morgan State. Police arrested some protesters but in a short time the student protesters prevailed and the company integrated the facility in March of 1959. Below is another great link with the ends and outs of double dipped cones and how to make them:

Chocolate double dipped cone recipe: http://www.foodchannel.com/recipes/570-chocolate-dipped-cones

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