Knife-Fork-Spoon

On Milkmen, Fudge, and Snow Ice Cream

I often find myself getting all nostalgic this time of year. For some reason, many of my memories seem to pop out of nowhere. In the case of others, like milkmen, fudge, and snow ice cream, something will happen to trigger the memories. And it can make me downright homesick.

On Milkmen

I drink a lot of milk. In truth, I probably drink more than I should. But it could be worse. At least my milk of choice is fat-free milk. (And incidentally, when did they stop calling it skim milk?) My last couple of trips to the market have been to pick up milk. These trips made me long for the days of home milk delivery. When I was growing up in Iowa, it was always fun to go out, open the aluminum box emblazoned with the dairy logo, and talk out what he had left us that particular day. Where I grew up, we had a choice of Wapello Dairy and Meadow Gold Dairy. From what I can tell, these dairies no longer have a presence in the Hawkeye State.

That’s sad. So is the demise of the milkman. Yes, milkmen were the butt of many jokes that questioned a child’s parentage, but they provided a valuable service. Some dairies offered a wide variety of products available for home delivery, including milk, cream, eggs, and butter. We usually stuck to the milk and butter. If your household didn’t have a car or, as in my case, a mother who didn’t drive at the time, it was so convenient to step outside and find your dairy needs replenished.

Thinking about home milk delivery reminded me of something else I miss: glass bottles. There was nothing like getting ice cold milk from a glass bottle. Oh sure, sometimes it might have been difficult to pull of the paper tab to open the bottle, but it was well worth it. Eventually the dairy went to paper cartons, and well, it wasn’t the same.

Home milk delivery ended in my hometown long before my childhood. Today, it probably wouldn’t be good business practice to try and start it up again. Where I live now, it’s impossible to get grocery delivery, so it’s a sure thing that milk delivery would be scoffed at. Oh, there was a store that had grocery delivery, but it stopped when the largest grocery store in town changed its policy against being open on Sunday. They claimed that people could now get to the store whenever they wanted.

When I was being nostalgic about home milk delivery, it made me think of dairies in general. One of my favorite childhood memories involves another dairy: Williams Dairy. You could go buy your milk and cream there (and you could return the glass bottles for a refund), but the big attraction was the ice cream! There weren’t a gazillion flavors to draw you in, just really good ice cream. It was always a treat when our parents took us there for a cone. And it’s funny, I can still remember the smell as you opened the door, and it has been decades–I mean DECADES–since I was there. I really can’t describe the smell, but it meant that something good was on the way. Sadly, like many small businesses over the years, Williams Dairy was forced to close because it couldn’t compete with the large dairies. As I grew up, other businesses took over the space. The last one I remember was an auto parts place. It just doesn’t seem right.

On Fudge

My family wasn’t big on homemade sweets, but around holiday time, that changed. My mom made cookies (all right, she usually bought the Pillsbury cookie dough rolls), peanut butter fudge, and occasionally divinity. I loved making peanut clusters. And Dad made chocolate fudge. Now, there are lots and lots of recipes for chocolate fudge, but I still think the best one has always been the one on the can of Hershey’s Cocoa. For some reason, we never wrote down the recipe, so that meant going in search of a can of cocoa that had the recipe. And trust me, that wasn’t always easy. I could never understand why Hershey’s would make a can without the recipe; that would be like a bag of Nestle’s Chocolate Chips going out the factory door without the recipe for Tollhouse Cookies on it.

We had a special fudge pan. Well, it also doubled as the bean pan and the stew pan, but I prefer to remember the beat-up aluminum pan as the fudge pan. Dad would stand guard over the pan of fudge in the making, and I would be in charge of getting the water so he could do the “ball” test to see when it was done. Then it was stirring, and stirring, and stirring until it was just the right consistency and had that perfect amount of sheen. There was always fudge left in the pan, and my brother and I would share–yes, actually share.

I haven’t made chocolate fudge in many years. For one thing, my childhood love of chocolate is no longer there. And I don’t have one of those beat-up aluminum pans. No, I have nonstick, and maybe it’s me, but it just doesn’t taste the same. I haven’t seen the fudge recipe on a can of Hershey’s Cocoa for a long time, but I’m sure I could find it online. But I know I’d be disappointed. Some things just can’t be repeated.

On Snow Ice Cream

There were certain things that my father was in charge of when it came to cooking. He had been, after all, a cook in the army, so cooking for a few hundred less was nothing for him. Sunday night pancakes and french toast were his domain, as was chocolate fudge. And while those were good, my brother and I were especially fond of his snow ice cream.

Snow ice cream?

Yes, snow ice cream. Now, you have to know that this was back in the 1960s for the most part, and in Iowa. Today, I’m not sure I’d make it, at least not where I live in New York. But as a child, snow ice cream was another reason to look forward to heavy snowfalls. There were rules for making snow ice cream. There had to be at least 4 inches of fresh snow. After all, you had to make sure that the ground was completely covered; you didn’t want grass or dirt in your ice cream. And it had to be fresh, as the longer it was on the ground, the more chance there was for “things” to get in it. And it should go without saying that yellow snow was a definite culinary no-no.

Of course we had a specific pan for making snow ice cream. Mom had “earned” a large (and I mean large) roaster by hosting Stanley Parties and selling their products. This was also the pan for gunk–what we called Mom’s vegetable soup–but I digress. You need a lot of snow, so, obviously, you need a large pan. The ingredients are simple: snow, milk (Dad always used 2% or evaporated milk), sugar, and vanilla. You have to eat it fast, so an ice cream headache is often included as part of the experience. The mouth feel is unique, nothing like more traditional ice cream.

It’s unfortunate that many people will never have the experience of snow ice cream. I was going to post a recipe, but I’m not sure it’s a safe thing to make anymore. Even if you have a clean patch of snow, I worry about the atmosphere the snow traveled through on its way to the ground. It’s sad, but snow ice cream may be relegated to my memory of childhood.