Nine Ice-creams That Shaped my Childhood (Including That Racist one…)
A FRIEND OF MINE recently went on a Tinder date. All was going well, he said, when they got onto the topic of favourite childhood ice-creams. According to my friend, he was so put-off by the woman’s choice of ice-cream that the date ended soon after that conversation and he hasn’t contacted her since. Sound silly? Perhaps, but if you really think about it, when we were kids sometimes the most important decision of the day, dare I say even the week, was which ice-cream to pick from the corner store freezer. Is it really that surprising that if you can’t see eye to eye on ice-cream, maybe you won’t agree on other important marital things like curtains and mortgage providers? After all, what could be more important than ice-cream?
Before I tell you what my friend’s Tinder date’s favourite ice-cream was (ie. the one that swiftly put a stop to any potential amorous activity that night), here are nine ice-creams that shaped my golden childhood years.
9. Eskimo Pie —Was I the only kid in primary school who thought there was something wrong with its title? A tiny bit racist, perhaps? What’s more, if the Inuit peoples of the Arctic Circle decided to bake a pie, I have high doubts it would have been a vanilla ice-cream bar covered in milk chocolate. Where would they get the chocolate from? The cacao plant would struggle to survive sub-zero temperatures, as would the vanilla plant, not to mention dairy cows. But even if the Inuits could somehow produce chocolate, why would they bake a cold pie? It just doesn’t make sense. And yet, people continued to buy Eskimo Pies and they never disappeared from corner store freezers. Maybe there were more bigots in our area than we thought.
8. Splice — If you really think about it, there’s no reason this ice-cream couldn’t have performed much better than it did. It was the perfect combination of ice-cream and ice lolly, with some pretty damn tasty flavour choices to boot. Yet somehow it wasn’t the ice-cream of choice for me, but whenever I did get it, I remembered how good it was and made mental notes to get it again. In this way it was a bit like Subway: very tasty sandwiches, but for some reason you keep forgetting it actually exists.
7. Rainbow Paddle Pop — There was something about the texture of Paddle Pops that was alluring. It was like chewy ice-cream made from creamed honey. But sometimes you would bite a piece and it would break off cleanly and you’d freeze and be overcome with regret that you shouldn’t have tried to hurry things, and now your Paddle Pop was noticeably smaller, so you’d revert to licking in an effort to prolong the experience for as long as possible. Live and learn…
6. Choc Mint Drumstick vs Mint Cornetto
Two ice-creams, both alike in dignity
In fair Freezerland, where we lay our scene
From choc fudge break to dairy milk chips
Where sticky vanilla makes children’s hands unclean.
From forth the fatal cones of these two foes
A pair of chocolate-bottomed wafers give their life
Whose golden first bite
Do with their death bury their eaters’ strife.
5. Monaco Bar — Buying a Monaco Bar was like that scene from Go where Simon and Marcus walk into a Vegas strip club and Simon announces: “I’d like to buy your most expensive bottle of champagne.” From the golden wrapper that peeled off perfectly, to the soft, dark, coffee biscuits that sandwiched the creamy vanilla inside, let’s face it, the Monaco Bar was as close to the velvet insides of a private lap-dance booth as an eight-year-old boy was ever gonna get.
4. Bubble ‘o Bill — To this day, I am still uncertain as to whether old Bill’s nose was edible or not. Was it bubble gum? Was it candy? You’d think it was bubble gum, hence the name, but I swear when that round ball got chewed up in your mouth with pink and yellow ice-cream and flakes of chocolate, it seemed pretty darn edible.
3. Weis’ Bar — Thanks to some clever advertising, this iced fruit bar rose to prominence in the mid ‘90s in Australia, and despite being exorbitantly priced (I think it was around $1.50 — a lot in those days), we all briefly switched allegiances to try out this new kid on the block. I still reckon Weis’ Bars are pretty good, but it puzzles me how quickly it was able to take up a sizeable chunk of my ice-cream eating marketshare, considering it was actually A LOT smaller than they made it look on TV.
2. Calippo — The thing about enjoying a Calippo wasn’t the ice lolly itself, it was the feeling it gave you when you bit the cardboard wrapper on the outside in order to break a piece off into your mouth. Calippo always had a habit of melting far too quickly for my liking, and most of my memories of this ice stick are of trying to suck melted sweet liquid from the bottom of the wrapper like a large straw. And what was with that aluminium foil lid on the top? Still, it did cool you down.
1. Golden Gaytime — The Holy grail of ice-creams. The bee’s knees. This little beauty contained everything you could ever want or dream of in a sweet frozen snack. A toffee and vanilla ice-cream dipped in chocolate and wrapped in honeycomb biscuits, on a wooden stick. According to Wikipedia, its name has survived despite its ‘possible homosexual connotations’, something I was no doubt unaware of at the tender young age of eight. Golden Gaytime was like the steak option at your favourite restaurant: you spend ages combing the menu, tossing up between the other interesting and healthy options (Should I get the fish tonight? I feel I don’t eat enough fish), when you know all you really want is to go the steak. That was the thing with Golden Gaytime—it always delivered what its name promised.
Oh yes, back to my friend on the Tinder date. The girl’s favourite ice-cream? It was Eskimo Pie. Go figure. ω
