Cooking & Baking
Related: About this forumIce Cream’s Identity Crisis
Back then, we knew something was up if our mother returned from ShopRite with a half-gallon of Breyers ice cream. It meant that another 8-year-old first communicant had feigned an understanding of transubstantiation. It meant that someone was celebrating her first birthday, or that someone had seen his last.
Most of all, it meant a reprieve from the cheaper fake version of ice cream that usually defiled our freezer, a store-brand ice milk that tasted like nothing so much as frozen sadness. Ice milk represented dessert as punishment.
But in certain working-class homes, the Breyers brand lent a momentary class that lasted as long as room temperature would allow, in part because it was All Natural. The Breyers vanilla that my father used as a salve for his psychic wounds (administered late at night, by spoon) had flecks of vanilla bean. And the Breyers strawberry that I preferred could be stirred into a fruity, pinkish goop that I savored in loud, teasing slurps; the more this irritated siblings, the sweeter the taste.
Today, you will still see the Breyers brand at your friendly neighborhood grocery conglomerate. But do not assume, as I did, that just any Breyers carton will transport you to those halcyon days when a war waged in Vietnam, the president kept an enemies list and the slurping of melted strawberry could ignite a glorious dining-room donnybrook. Things have changed.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/dining/remembering-when-breyers-ice-cream-was-you-know-ice-cream.html
Warpy
(111,147 posts)and it works well and tastes a lot better than milk of mag.
However, I used to risk disaster for Breyer's chocolate once in a while in the hottest days of summer. You could actually taste the chocolate in it, unlike the anemic stuff from other manufacturers. I always thought their vanilla bean was a little strange but I adored the chocolate.
I haven't had it for years and didn't notice they weren't making ice cream any more, just some kind of adulterated frozen crap only a soap company could love.
Thanks for the warning.
elleng
(130,732 posts)after they started adding 'air,' imo.
Looked for a B&J flavor today, didn't find it, so went with HagenD Mango. Pretty good, as an occasional treat. No noticeable 'air.'
supernova
(39,345 posts)I can't stand grocery store ice cream any more, what with all the air and gums in it. Not to mention artificial flavors.
We have several cafes around here that make their own gelato and I get that when I have a hankering. Very satisfying.
elleng
(130,732 posts)'Fortunately' haven't found any places nearby that do what you have.
supernova
(39,345 posts)One of the places around here has a flavor they call Amadeus. It's chocolate hazelnut with chocolate fudge and pistachios mixed in. Yum!
Lugnut
(9,791 posts)We always had the good stuff in our freezer.
PADemD
(4,482 posts)Their ice cream was the only one I could find which didn't contain Carrageenan. When I eat foods which contain Carrageenan, I have acid reflux. Now even Breyer's contains Carrageenan.
Breyers natural vanilla ice cream: milk, cream, sugar, tara gum, natural flavor. Period.
Breyers extra-creamy vanilla frozen dairy dessert: milk, sugar, corn syrup, cream, whey, mono and diglycerides, carob bean gum, guar gum, carrageenan, natural flavor, annatto (for color), vitamin A palmitate, tara gum.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/17/dining/remembering-when-breyers-ice-cream-was-you-know-ice-cream.html?_r=0
See: Doubts surface about safety of common food additive, carrageenan
http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2013-03-18/health/ct-met-carrageenan-0318-20130318_1_carrageenan-fda-scientists-food-additive-safety
Fortinbras Armstrong
(4,473 posts)Now it's making pseudo-ice cream.
There is a gelateria in my town. The mango is to die for, and the pink grapefruit sorbet is even better (and I am no fan of grapefruit).
When I was in Italy some years ago, I was told that I must go to a gelateria and try the "crema". So I did, and after one taste, I said "New York Vanilla", which is not one of my favorite flavors. The pistachio was much better, and the hazelnut was incredible.
Freddie
(9,256 posts)Made in West Philly, it was the only ice cream that many around here would buy. Then Unilever bought them out and closed the factory, put hundreds out of work, and shrank the box.
I refuse to buy it no matter how good the sale is.
elleng
(130,732 posts)haven't for years, because it lost it quality YEARS ago.
SORRY about loss to Philly.