Sladoled manifesto
The time was long overdue to change the header photo*. Originally I thought I would do so every month, but guess what? However, the snowy peaks of April/May’s photo were becoming increasingly antithetical to reality here. I played with many different ideas for an early-summer theme, but ultimately ice cream seemed like a good idea for June. Slovene sladoled = sweet + ice.
When I was very young my father used to take us out on summer afternoons for ice cream. This was as much to give our grandparents a break from the havoc of five small grandchildren as it was to give us a treat. We would walk along the rocky Maine coast to Perkin’s Cove, where each of us would consume one peppermint stick ice cream cone. Until my older sister learned to read and revealed that the world contained flavors other than peppermint stick.
The ice cream on the isogloss is fantastic. Soft-serve stuff in small stainless-steel bins, like Italian gelato. A little goes a long way, and the best stuff has flavors that are intense and delivered in an unctuous, creamy base. Our favorite place is a tiny booth on the main square called La Pinjola (pinenut). They claim to make all their own ice cream, and it is excellent. One of the many joys of going there is that you never know what flavors will be available, as they rotate on some sort of random basis.
I categorize ice cream into three classes: fruit flavors (my favorites); the chocolate spectrum (which to me includes coffee & nut flavors, as well as other more exotic ones that combine well with the chocolate palette); and flavors no one in their right mind would eat. These include such things as Red Bull®, Telebajski (Teletubbies), viski, Smarties®, and so on.
I consider ice cream’s most important attribute to be a quenching quality, and for this the fruit flavors enjoy a clear advantage. I can usually be perfectly happy with a standby like lemon, though I can also be swayed into ordering something like mango, papaya, limetta, raspberry, blood orange (oh, yes) etc. Also worth considering is the key combination: two scoops can deliver through synergy a joy that would be missing from either one in isolation (pear and pineapple, e.g.).
We have our favorites, but there is also an ever-growing list of flavors we want to try, either because they are enticing (After Eight® calls to Magda, zuppa inglese to me), mysterious (beli cvet, white flowers, intrigues me), or vile-sounding enough that they just need to be sampled purely for research’s sake (Red Bull®, čokoko).
La Pinjola is close enough to home that even on the hottest days we can take advantage of their banjice, little styrofoam tubs shaped like oversize gold ingots, into which the scoopgirls can pack a surprising amount of ice cream in whatever flavor combinations you can dream up. Sladoled na dom! Even in our freezer it maintains its soft creamy texture.
Magda is out with Adam now in the almost-June sunshine, and dammit I just know she’s eating ice cream as I type this. Maybe I can catch them…
*The reference to the header photo is now dated. To see the ice cream picture, go the header photo archive.
Would you lump green tea ice cream with the chocolate strand? It’s my personal favorite. I love the bitter edge, which is also why I love the chocolate/coffee types in general. Bitter rocks.
And how about the azuki (red bean) ice cream so popular in Japan? Or purple yam, another favorite? With fruits? Your ice cream typology seems uncomfortably limited to me. You need to work on this, buddy.
Comment by jdog — Sunday 29 May 05 @ 22.51 MDT+2.00
Good questions all, jdog. Green tea would fall into the fruit category for me, because of its quenching quality. While I am familiar with the red bean concoction in mochi and other such sweets, I have never had it nor the alluring purple yam in ice cream form, so I am not in a position to judge nor categorize them.
One thing I meant to mention in this post was the mystery of how rare coffee ice cream is here. It can be found, sure, but not nearly as often as you would think in a country where espresso and cappuccino are so highly valued, and so excellent in quality. In the picture, kapučin sladoled is just out of frame to the left, and Magda leaped on it like a gecko on a jujube. I went with malina (raspberry).
I’m sorry you find my organizational system constraining. A ciascuno il suo. It has worked for me since I first learned about peppermint stick.
Finally, an update: moments after I posted, Magda arrived to announce that she had tried After Eight®: “Disappointing [makes face]. It was full of little chunks of ice, which completely disqualified it.”
Comment by sgazzetti — Monday 30 May 05 @ 10.51 MDT+2.00
I know most of the people that read this won’t understand but: The best ice cream ever is Rumenko! It’s simple strawberry ice cream on a stick, probably similar to pepermint stick (although I haven’t tried nor seen it). I think it originates from Pekabela (ice cream factory from Belgrade I think), and Rumenko was well known among the former Yugoslvia republics. I’m not sure if they make anymore, but if you come across it somewere JDS, try it.
P.S. Capri is another (Top 2) option from the same maker
Comment by Dino — Monday 30 May 05 @ 15.29 MDT+2.00