[HN Gopher] How Ice Cream Became the Ultimate American Comfort Food ___________________________________________________________________ How Ice Cream Became the Ultimate American Comfort Food Author : rntn Score : 25 points Date : 2022-06-18 14:51 UTC (1 days ago) (HTM) web link (www.eater.com) (TXT) w3m dump (www.eater.com) | klodolph wrote: | Given the prevalence of lactose intolerance I think it's hard to | classify ice cream as "the ultimate" comfort food. | | When I hear people talking about "comfort food" it's usually | talking about simple (easy to prepare), high-carbohydrate foods | with balanced proteins like mac & cheese, spaghetti & meatballs, | pizza, grilled cheese sandwiches, etc. The stuff you'd feed to | children with unsophisticated palettes and an unending desire for | calories and protein. | willcipriano wrote: | > The stuff you'd feed to children | | Perhaps that's why it's comforting? Reminds you of a simpler | time, dad taking you out for ice cream on a summer day. | gunfighthacksaw wrote: | Also hearty food traditional to the culture(s) you exist in. | | When I'm in the UK, bangers and mash. In Central Europe some | cutlet and sauerkraut. | | This is also because I ate it with my grandparents and they | probably enjoyed it from the war when meat was scarce and it | was hard to get food from other lands. Like you say, a | simpler time. | kortilla wrote: | > lactose intolerance | | > mac & cheese | | > pizza | | > grilled cheese sandwiches | | I think I have some bad news for you about where cheese comes | from... | lr4444lr wrote: | Sugar is both serotonergic and dopaminergic, IIRC. Not as fast | and intensely as alcohol, but it's pretty good. | jmyeet wrote: | So ice cream isn't the ultimate comfort food because of lactose | intolerance but that's a factor in 3 of the 4 other foods you | mentioned. | | You also say an "unednding desire for calories and _protein_ ". | *Protein?" Where? Even with metaballs you're not really eating | that much meat (aka protein). Did you mean fat? | | It's kind of a weird take overall. Ice cream clearly has huge | cultural significance in the US as a comfort food. | klipt wrote: | > "Protein?" Where? | | Cheese is very high in protein. It's basically concentrated | milk. Obviously not lactose free though. | sokoloff wrote: | Hard cheeses tend to be low in lactose, often enough to not | bother people who are moderately lactose intolerant. | jayd16 wrote: | Cheese is low lactose compared to cream. | micromacrofoot wrote: | Plenty of good tasting plant based ice creams... I don't even | bother eating the real thing unless i'm out somewhere | adeelk93 wrote: | There are so many dairy free options nowadays, I hardly feel | the inconvenience of lactose intolerance. Including on ice | cream. | elitee_hacjerz wrote: | paulpauper wrote: | It tastes good and is cheap , i guess | r3trohack3r wrote: | It's pretty amazing that it's cheap. A lot to be taken for | granted in that statement. | | https://www.humanprogress.org/from-palace-to-parlour-the-sto... | LegitShady wrote: | I think this article fails to support the claim that ice cream is | the ultimate American comfort food. | wrycoder wrote: | Here in New England, we judge a town by how easy it is to get | good ice cream (not from the market). We eat it year-round, even | when it's snowing. In NH, we pour maple syrup on snow and eat | that, also. | | Most ice cream is too sweet - vanilla and pistachio are good | choices. | hprotagonist wrote: | grape nut ice cream, kid. | | or go north (or in your case, west) and get you a maple creemee | s0rce wrote: | Maple syrup on snow is amazing, I had that as a kid in Canada | (Ontario and Quebec). | irrational wrote: | I truly don't understand pistachio ice cream. Is it an acquired | taste? Do you have to eat it as a small child to grow up liking | it? | jmyeet wrote: | The problem with pistachio is that there are a lot of bad | pistachio ice creams and gelatos (IMHO). There's really an | art to getting it to where it both isn't bitter and isn't too | sweet. Ben & Jerry's for example is typically way, way too | sweet (in any flavour). There are a couple of exceptions but | I can't eat B&J's Pistachio. YMMV. | | My particular poison is pistachio of hazelnut gelato. In both | cases with correct balance you get something with a nutty, | creamy flavour. | | It's not something I had until I was an adult so it's not a | childhood thing either. | 1123581321 wrote: | Do you have favorite pistachio brands? I've never really | liked it, aside from one of the decent mass market brands, | Breyer's, perhaps. | mc32 wrote: | Like rum-raisin. It depends how they make it. | | I've heard laboratorio del gelato in NYC is good. Never | been to it --one day I may go pay a visit. | normac2 wrote: | This might be a case where people genetically taste things | differently, because pistachio ice cream wasn't an acquired | taste for me at all. Just seems delicious, though maybe a | hair off the map of the kind of taste you usually get in ice | cream. | linsomniac wrote: | My wife really wanted ice cream this summer, last summer we | largely went without because we were eating low fat+low sugar. We | got one of those Ninja Creami things and it's been pretty | fantastic. Much better than the low cal ice cream options at the | store. We can make a pint with between 120 and 300 calories, | depending on what we do. | | It's almost like a shaved ice machine on steroids, it has an | impeller that starts at the top and moves down through the frozen | mixture and then back up. It's a knock off of some $5,000 | commercial machine. Instead of folding air and fat into the | mixture while freezing, you freeze the container and then it | completely destroys the ice crystals. | | I tend to do a mix of a third cup of 0% yogurt, a tbsp of | allulose (fairly expensive sugar substitute so most store | products don't use it), a pinch of xantham gum, and then the | remainder fruit (cherries, blueberries, mango, peaches, pears). | I've also done a can of low sugar canned fruit, xantham gum, | allulose, comes out kind of like a sorbet. | | My wife does a base using low fat evaporated milk, and she gets a | lot fancier (making low sugar mix ins, exotic flavors like coffee | bourbon), and those come out much richer. Those are more like 260 | calories/pint. It also allows you to taylor the flavor, for | example I'm happy with mine much less sweet than grocery store | ice creams. | | It seemed fairly gimicky, and we avoided it for quite a while | because of that, but she found it on sale for $150. Full price is | $200, woot had them refurb for $100 last week. Fairly expensive, | and noisy as hell, but we use it pretty much daily. | amelius wrote: | Do Americans eat more ice cream than, say, Italians? | dr_dshiv wrote: | I don't know, but the cost of a scoop of ice cream in the | states is like $4... maybe more. In Amsterdam, you get it | everywhere for EUR1.50 to EUR2. So, when it is summertime, an | ice cream a day is pretty typical consumption. Meaning, it has | become more luxury to have ice cream in the states. (Maybe I'm | wrong, this is a sense I have, open to correction). | jmyeet wrote: | $4? Maybe if you're buying artisanal gelato from SF, West LA | or Manhattan. Think Salt and Straw. | aidenn0 wrote: | I live in the US and I don't think I've ever paid $4 for a | scoop of ice cream in the US, but I haven't bought a scoop in | the last two months, so perhaps the recent supply | chain/inflation issues have happened. | | There is one place I know that charges $4 for what they call | a single scoop, but it is about 3x bigger than any scoop | elsewhere, and it's a pricey place in general ($8.50 for a | malt). | chrisseaton wrote: | You can buy ice cream by the _gallon_ (4.5 litres!!) in the | US. It can't be that expensive! In the UK half a litre (a | pint) is considered a lot of ice cream. | grzm wrote: | 5 quarts (4.7 liters) is common size. Yes, it's cheap. But | not usually very good quality, though. | irrational wrote: | Are we talking about eating it all yourself or sharing with | the entire family? | chrisseaton wrote: | That's the size it's available in, so either. | kortilla wrote: | > I don't know, but the cost of a scoop of ice cream in the | states is like $4... | | Only in hip ice cream places. $4 is about the going rate for | those 1.5 quart (1.4 liter) cartons at the grocery store. | [deleted] | sjf wrote: | The grocery store is always going to be cheaper. $4 is the | _low_ end of a single scoop in the bay area. And not for | some hipster, plant-based organic ice cream either, this is | at a regular parlor like Fenton 's. | wyager wrote: | Hip places charge like $15 for a cup of ice cream and do | weird (but tasty) gastronomy gimmicks like liquid nitrogen | freezing or maltodextrin usage. You pay more than $4 at | normie chains like coldstone. | 1123581321 wrote: | Coldstone serves 5-12oz plus toppings made and mixed on- | premise. Something like a food truck cup or cone is | closer to $2. Baskin Robbins is perhaps $3 for a one | scoop cone. But like the other user said, many Americans | would rather buy a half gallon or gallon from a grocery | store or c-store for $5 and eat too much of it. :) | kortilla wrote: | Yes, at least if you follow the weird requirements to qualify | as "ice cream" in the US. The gelatos that Italians usually | enjoy do not have enough butterfat to be considered "ice cream" | by the USDA. So strictly speaking, people in Italy eat very | little "ice cream" because their traditional recipes don't use | enough fat. | | Incidentally, this is why places that serve Italian-style ice | cream have to explicitly market it as "gelato" and not "ice | cream". | | Total derailment from your actual question, but a | Avshalom wrote: | Yeah some quick searches suggest we eat ~3x as much as Italy | but it's hard to tell what all is being included in | worldatlas.com or whatever | | Notably there's also sherbets, frozen custards, soft-serve, | frozen yogurt and a shit ton of cheap frozen-dairy-dessert. | Not counting the various non-dairy frozen stuff like granita, | sorbet, "Italian ice" | | VS whatever else they're eating over in Italy | cableshaft wrote: | J.J. McCullough made an informative and entertaining video about | the history of American ice cream as well. He makes a lot of | videos diving into the history of American (as well as Canadian, | as he's Canadian) culture: | | https://youtu.be/gvT3FHLy484 | monkeybutton wrote: | Is the ice-cream barge a recent revelation or am I just attuned | to seeing references to it? I only learned about it recently and | since then it's popped up multiple times. ___________________________________________________________________ (page generated 2022-06-19 23:00 UTC)