Throughout the roughly two and a half centuries our great country has been a country, we’ve taken pleasure in many simple things. During the 20th Century, some ad executive somewhere boiled the substance of American life down to three things– baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie. Those three things are wonderful and certainly part of quintessential Americana, but he left out something crucial to our summer days and nights, and anytime of year, when you think about it. Ice cream and all sorts of frozen treats have been an American pastime just as much as an apple pie on a windowsill, a weiner with mustard and relish, and a double header at Wrigley Field.
When you think about it, it won’t come as any surprise to you that 90% of households in the United States regularly indulge in a sweet, frozen treat of some kind or another. In this year alone, the average American will consume ice cream about 28,5 times. We love our ice cream. We’ll eat it in cups, on cones, or frozen to a stick. We’ll put sprinkles on top, cover it in our favorite syrup, or eat it right out of the container. Disposable ice cream cups make eating your favorite frozen desserts on the go. Who has time to sit still, anyway?
Frozen yogurt is an item that many Americans love to enjoy almost as much as their ice cream. Gelato–ice cream made italian style–is also very popular all across the country. It might surprise you to learn, however that vanilla is still the most popular flavor of ice cream around. That’s right, 28% of consumers rated vanilla as the most popular our of dozens of flavors sampled. The International Ice Cream Association took a survey, and plain old vanilla won out. Who would have guessed?
The way vendors serve ice cream, gelato, frozen yogurt has come a long way over the last century. Individual ice cream cups with lids help keep kids–and their parents as often as not–from getting too sticky and messy. Paper cups that can be thrown away quickly at a country fair or while on a walk on the boardwalk at the beach have made convenience a great selling point for mobile vendors. Also, mini tasting spoons and sample spoons are available almost anywhere so that you can taste before you buy. That way you’ll know exactly what you’re getting when you order bacon and egg flavored ice cream. It’s a real thing!
Now days, we don’t have to go down to the ice cream, parlor if we want a scoop or two. We can drive over to our local grocery store at snag all the ingredients and supplies we need to make our very own ice cream sunday. Cups, cones, syrup, toppings, and napkins. Don’t forget the napkins! Ice cream is as American as anything you could compare it to. Baseball, hot dogs, and apple pie are great, but so is a triple scoop cone.
