Ice cream

Okay, so I’m already feeling the wane of summer, but am not complaining, it’s a good one and we are fortunate to live where we live. It’s just that I feel the time is approaching when the doors will be closed at my favourite ice cream hangouts. Always a bummer; it triggers thoughts of stacking firewood; it feels like the last ticket just sold for the best concert ever. I drown my sorrows in baklava or pecan pie to soften withdrawal symptoms, left to find my way through fall and winter searching out substitute pleasurable moments like slurping a vanilla milkshake made of thick hard ice cream while sitting by the lake in the serene light of end-of-day when seagulls circle and call to no one in particular.

Picton Harbour, with all its delightful improvements, couldn’t be a better place in the entire world when accompanied by two scoops of butter pecan delight in a cup. I’ll share this with you. Always grab extra napkins if, like me, you happen to have a shaggy beard. In the harbour it’s the mallards and Canada geese that contribute to the stillness of eventide, where their colours ripple through a forest of reflections on the water from tall-masted sailing vessels; where three-storey manors sit high atop the far shore and whose windows have witnessed comings and goings below through cycles of boom and bust.

In my various travels about the island, I have come to draw happy faces on a wine tour map as a backup reminder where sources of ice cream can be found. I imagine students scooping ice cream and then returning to school in the fall claiming championships for men and women at arm wrestling having been in training with hands in tubs of frozen chocolate, Mardi Gras and coconut flavoured ice cream all summer long.

To fuel my enthusiasm for serious topics like ice cream, I dove into some research to get a picture of the history of the stuff to possibly become a sidebar chapter in my memoir. In the Roman Empire wouldn’t you know, Empresses and Emperors ordered minions to scale mountains and to return with snow and ice to keep their fruit drinks cool. By the fifth century BC, snow cones of shaved ice with honey and fruit could be had in the markets of Athens. Later, what came to known as cream ice was introduced to the table of Henry II of France by his beloved Italian bride, Catherine de Medici. The French still call it crème glacée and not by any other name.

Once it was discovered that dissolving saltpeter in water was a cooling technique, by 1660 even the minions could share in the delight. Fast forward in time to 1850 and closer to home, Thomas Webb of Toronto was the first Canadian to sell ice cream. By the end of that century and the introduction of the ice cream cone at a World’s Fair, the game was on. Ice Cream Parlours, street carts, Banana Boats, Shakes, Sundaes and all the rest led up to ice cream on wheels with the arrival of the memorable, specially outfitted Ice Cream truck. Now who could forget?

So also wouldn’t you know, while I’ve never considered myself to be a follower, it turns out that my favorite flavour of vanilla is the most popular flavour of them all. And as for our national status? Canada is ranked seventh out of the top ten ice cream consuming countries in the world. Although we’re not likely to displace our neighbours to the south of us in the US on the basis of volume, being a land of ice and snow I feel if we work on the idea of hothouses in winter where crème glacée is served with espresso we have a good chance on a per capita basis to topple New Zealand and garner the coolest trophy, the sought after the tall golden cone with three scoops of platinum and a cherry on top.