Aug

Cultural Encounters: Ice Cream Around the World

by Meredith Mullins on August 17, 2020

A global favorite
© Minsun Lee

The Inside Scoop on a Global Favorite

I scream. You scream. We all scream for ice cream.

Have you belted out those lyrics . . . or do you remember, in your childhood, having a Pavlovian response to the seductive call of an ice cream truck bell or jingle?

My ice cream truck tune still occasionally pops up from my subconscious childhood playlist and reminds me of the truck getting closer and closer to our house.

This was my first lesson in the science of sound waves, as we learned to judge exactly how long we had to gather up our coins and get to the corner. It was the highlight of those lazy summer afternoons.

The seductive call of the ice cream truck
© iStock/phaustov

Ice cream is a global treasure. It has been a favorite dessert for centuries—even long before refrigeration. And our cultural encounters with ice cream around the world offer a deeper look into the joys of our planet.

Adding the “taste” element to cultural encounters
© Minsun Lee

A Brief History: From Frozen Snow To . . .

From Alexander the Great to Chinese dynasties to Roman emperors, ice cream was mostly snow or ice mixed with inventive additives, like honey, nectar, fruits, and juices. The royal ice cream addicts of the day had “runners” constantly making trips to the mountains.

Its evolution continued as Marco Polo brought a more evolved concept from the far east to Italy that turned into the birth of sherbet. Some histories say that Catherine de Medici was also involved, bringing the concept to France, where milk, butter, and eggs were gradually added to the recipe.

Grateful to whomever brought ice cream to France
© Meredith Mullins

Even the American founding fathers had a role in the “birth of ice cream” story. George Washington is said to have had two ice cream pots in his home.

Thomas Jefferson had a simple recipe for vanilla ice cream, as well as a more complex recipe for an ice cream dish similar to Baked Alaska. And Dolley Madison is said to have served strawberry ice cream at President Madison’s second inaugural banquet.

Would Dolley Madison ever have imagined that ice cream could be rolled, as in Thailand?
© iStock/Fascinadora

A Global Ice Cream Tour

Different names. Different ingredients. But in almost every country in the world, you can find some kind of frozen treat.

Japan has many varieties of ice cream, but the most famous is its mochi. The colorful little balls consist of a sticky rice dumpling around an ice cream filling, with flavors such as green tea, red bean, and mango.

Little puffs of heaven: mango mochi from Japan
© iStock/Merrimon

Korean cuisine offers a special frozen dish called patbingsu, which is a tiny mountain of shaved milky ice with sweetened red beans and fruit at the summit. The taste changes with each bite, as the flavors and textures are altered in the melting process.

Korean Patbingsu—a melting mound of flavors
© iStock/nunawwoofy

A similar dish in the Philippines is called Halo-Halo (which translates from Tagalog to mishmash or mixture). The name is appropriate as so many sweet things can be added to this dessert. The basis is shaved ice, milk, and sweetened beans. Then coconut, plantains, gelatin cubes, jackfruit, star apple, tapioca, and yams can all be added.

Mexico is famous for its light, fruit-based paletas (very healthy!). They look like popsicles, and, are mostly just fresh fruit and water.

You can often see the fresh fruit in its frozen form. However, some paletas have added cream and sugar, perfect for satisfying the palate of those who are looking for something more decadent.

Mexican paletas—a healthy choice
© iStock/Esdelval

Ice cream in Turkey offers drama beyond the sense of taste, as vendors do amazing tricks with dondurma, which has an elastic component that allows it to stretch like taffy.

The mastic ingredient (plant resin) and salep (a flour made from orchid root) make the ice cream chewy as well as somewhat resistant to melting. Get out your knife and fork.

Is this ice cream or a visiting space alien in elastic form?
© iStock/boggy22

India’s traditional kulfi makes India one of the top ice-cream loving countries of the world. It usually comes in a popsicle form and is made with caramelized milk, nuts, sugar, and cardamom and comes in flavors such as mango, rose, almond, orange, and strawberry.

Kulfi from India, with a dash of saffron and pistachio
© iStock/SStajik

Germany’s special ice cream treat looks like a plate of spaghetti, with a name that is equally misleading—Spaghettieis. This creative dessert includes vanilla ice cream made to look like pasta, strawberry sauce to look like marinara, and white chocolate shavings to look like parmesan cheese.

Dinner or dessert? Spaghetti or ice cream?
Only a taste test will reveal the answer.
© iStock/Sandra Albinger

Iran and Afghanistan also have a pasta-based approach to their frozen dessert. Faloodeh (Persian: فالوده) uses frozen vermicelli noodles with corn starch, rose water, lime juice, and often ground pistachios.

Just looking at this Faloodeh from Iran is cooling.
© iStock/Bonchan

Rwanda got its first taste of ice cream a few years ago thanks to the work of a Rwandan artist and a women’s drumming troupe. (Read more in the OIC story on that success.)

Sweet Dreams: The first taste of ice cream in Rwanda.
Photo Courtesy of Liro Films.

Of course we can’t go around the world without mentioning Italy’s gelato or the U.S. love of just plain scoops on cones—two of the most popular forms of ice cream in the world.

The magical world of Italian gelato
© Minsun Lee

What are your Flavorites?

We’ve come a long way from frozen snow, with stops along the way for Baskin and Robbins 31 flavors (one for every day of a month) and the creativity of Ben and Jerry with hits such as Chip Happens, Chocolate Therapy®, Everything But The …, and Cherry Garcia®.

The Guiness Book of Records awards La Heladería Coromoto (Ice Cream Shop Coromoto) in Venezuala the record for the most flavors offered—870 at the moment.

But the Game of Cones is not yet over. There will be no Breyer’s remorse.

Chefs around the world are pushing the boundaries, as we discover ice creams and sorbets with flavors of garlic, onion, wasabi, mustard, corn on the cob, jalapeño, cheeseburger, fois gras, horseradish, beet, and blue cheese.

Ice cream “artists” around the world are inventing new flavors every day.
© iStock/CharlieAJA

Often the culinary favorites of a country find their way into ice cream. Peru offers Mazamorra Violeta, an ice cream from its unique purple corn. Japan brings in flavors such as sea island salt, unagi (eel), and soy chicken.

Mexico offers avocado and tequila flavors. And Scotland makes . . . what else? Haggis flavored ice cream. (If you don’t know what that is, don’t ask.)

We might not be screaming as loudly for flavors such as horse flesh, cow tongue, and snake venom, but it’s always good to try new things, especially cultural encounters featuring desserts.

Tell me again. Is that chocolate or snake venom?
© Meredith Mullins

Oh I see, there are no boundaries except the imagination when you’re traveling (virtually or otherwise) in search of ice cream around the world.

And, as the United States and New Zealand continue to battle it out for the top ice-cream-loving country, we can all play a part. It’s summer. Chill out. Follow the siren call.

So many flavors . . . so little time
© Minsun Lee

And let us know your favorite ice cream flavors (although I doubt if we’ll get any votes for cow tongue).

Many thanks to Minsun Lee for her photographs. And, for those who want a culinary dessert adventure, here’s a recipe for patbingsu.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Meredith Mullins 2 Comments

Cultural Encounters/Worldwide Sites

Jul

Crossing Cultures in an Urban Garden

by Meredith Mullins on July 20, 2020

A cultural exchange via the sweet potato
© Meredith Mullins

A Tribute to Satsuma-imo: The Mighty Japanese Sweet Potato

“In Japan, in autumn, it is customary to collect fallen leaves, put sweet potatoes wrapped in aluminum foil in the leaves, and light the fallen leaves to bake them,” remembers Chiharu. “When I was a child I did this at my grandparents’ home. It was a special time of cooking and eating together.”

“Instead of ice cream trucks circling the neighborhoods to offer treats, we had stone-roasted sweet potato trucks,” says Midori of her childhood in Japan.

Stone roasted sweet potatoes
© iStock/kendoNice

Manami remembers planting sweet potatoes in elementary school and being excited when it was time to harvest the tiny schoolroom crop. And Hisako looked forward to sweet potatoes at snack time. “They warmed my body and my spirit,” she recalls.

Memories of the traditional Japanese sweet potato snack
© iStock/LewisTsePuiLung

Sweet Memories

What unites these memories of sweet potatoes is more than just nostalgia for Japanese culture. This team of Paris-based Japanese garden-lovers are all working in “Le Nid de l’Ortolan” — crossing cultures in a community garden in the heart of Paris.

A team of community gardeners at the rooftop Le Nid de l’Ortolan garden
© Jean Auvray

And thanks to an innovative, cross-cultural idea from garden organizer Julien Chameroy, sweet potatoes are the focus of the moment (as well as a unique opportunity for a Japanese/French liaison project).

Patate douce/Sweet Potato/Satsuma-imo
© Julien Chameroy

Julien, too, had memories of sweet potatoes from his time living in Japan—hearing street vendors hawking grilled sweet potatoes and seeing people hurrying through the streets while taking bites of the warm, sweet treat.

Satsuma-imo: the delicious and nutritious Japanese sweet potato
© iStock/kuppa_rock

More than those memories, though, the Frenchman believes the sweet potato is a nutrient-rich vegetable that should have a place in the Paris community garden. And, he believes that learning about a plant—how it grows and what it needs in order to flourish—are all a part of the connection to nature.

Does food taste different when you grow it yourself?
© Meredith Mullins

His garden mantra: “The more you know about a vegetable, the better it tastes.”

Thus, the Satsuma-imo project was born, with a group of passionate Japanese amateur gardeners at the ready.

The team is ready for the life cycle of the sweet potato (satsuma-imo).
© Meredith Mullins

But First Some History: Le Nid de l’Ortolan

The site of the Satsuma-imo project, Le Nid de l’Ortolan, is a community garden born in 2017—a “nest” perched atop a gymnasium in the 5^tharrondissement of Paris (near rue Mouffetard).

The shared garden idea was seeded a few years earlier when founders Julien Chameroy and Joyce Sasse were working in a community garden in the 4^tharrondissement and realized there was no such jardin partagé in the 5^th.

The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye (well, a small elephant).
© Meredith Mullins

They found the unused plot of “roof” land and went through all the phases of joining the Charte Main Verte (literally translated to Green Hand, but, in English, think Green Thumb).

This city organization of now more than 70 neighborhood gardens in almost all the arrondissements was created to encourage urban gardening, to support education about nature and the environment, and to bring communities together in a more social way.

The “Nid” sits on a gym rooftop and is guarded by a retirement home,
whose residents also participate in the garden activities.
© Meredith Mullins

All of these goals also support Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo’s ever present plan for the “greening of Paris.”

The “Nid” has about 50 members divided into teams that rotate each year so everyone gets to know everyone. Since the “Nid” sits next to a retirement home, the members of that community are invited to participate also.

The teams decide in January what to plant, and the 240-square-meter space currently hosts beans, chard, squash, spinach, cucumbers, sunflowers strawberries, potatoes, artichokes, rhubarb, peppers, garlic, lettuce, broccoli, herbs of all kinds, and much more.

The telltale signs of squash to come
© Meredith Mullins

The Satsuma-imo Japanese Team

Each member of the Japanese sweet potato team seems to share the overarching goals of the community garden. They all want to see more green spaces in urban areas, particularly in Paris. And they all want to spend more time close to nature.

In the process of the Satsuma-imo project, they are learning about the variety of plants grown in France and the different ways these plants are consumed in France and Japan.

The Paris garden is growing crosnes, also known as a Japanese artichoke.
It’s a forgotten root vegetable that some chefs call the homely tuber.
© Meredith Mullins

You could tell by watching them work that they love touching the earth and feeling a part of the growing cycle. As Chiharu says, “Just thinking about this garden brightens my heart.”

Feeling a connection to the earth
© Meredith Mullins

The Sweet Potato Project

The satsuma-imo project began at a challenging time. Just after the start of the project, France went into a two-month corona confinement period. However, the timing proved serendipitous, as sweet potato seedlings must grow for at least a month to become ready for planting.

Chiharu shows off her sweet potato seedling “children.”
© Meredith Mullins

The seedlings were closely watched in the homes of the gardeners, a small pleasure during a time of little external stimulus.

“They took care of those seedlings as if they were their own children,” Julien says proudly. “And, when it comes to a plant, that makes a difference.”

Midori’s “confinement” seedlings were finally ready.
© Meredith Mullins

The Garden After Lockdown

When lockdown was finally lifted, the garden needed serious tending. First, the battle of the weeds took place (the weeds lost).

The battle of the weeds (the weeds lost)
© Meredith Mullins

Then, it was time to ready the soil for the planting of the sweet potato seedlings.

Choosing the best spots for the satsuma-imo seedlings
© Meredith Mullins

All systems were go. “The team was exceptional, always positive and humble,” Julien said. “It was not a case of ‘me, myself, and I,’ it was ‘what can WE do together to make this work.’”

The plants are now settling in to the warmth of the summer sun and will be ready for a late September or early October harvest.

The sweet potatoes have been gently planted and are now settling in for summer sun.
© Meredith Mullins

The Next Chapter

Aside from having the chance to speak in Japanese for a few hours every week and have a sweet potato harvest party in September, the real raison d’etre of all the Japanese community gardeners is to be close to nature.

“We need to re-create the bond we lost with nature as a whole and between ourselves. Nature has an incredible power to heal.” Julien believes. “We must work with nature, not against it.”

And so, after the sweet potato harvest in September—and a celebration of Satsuma-imo memories past and present—the team will plant fava beans immediately—to give back to the soil what the sweet potatoes needed to take.

Oh, I see. Crossing cultures continues on many levels . . . for humans and nature. The cycle continues in this urban garden, and life goes on.

Comment on this post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

For more information about Le Nid de l’Ortolan, visit their Facebook page. For more information about the Paris urban gardens, visit Charte Main Verte/Jardins Partagé.

Meredith Mullins 2 Comments

Crossing Cultures/France/Japan/Nature Discovery

Jul

An Audible Feast for the Global Community

by Joyce McGreevy on July 13, 2020

Hands painted to show a world map remind the author that as our global community celebrates World Listening Day, we have a world of sounds at our fingertips, online and in our physical environment. (Image by Pxhere)

Lend an ear to the world of sounds at your fingertips!

Have You Heard? World Listening Day Honors the “Hear” and Now.

Listen…do you hear that? It’s the sound of your world. From a cat’s purr to an elevator’s hum to human voices, sound is an important element of our natural and cultural environment. Shh…do you hear this? It’s the sound of people across six continents inviting you to World Listening Day, an annual event that will unite the global community this Saturday, July 18.

World Listening Day? What’s that?

I’m glad you asked. Listen closely and I’ll tell you.

A sign for Quiet Street in Bath, England sets the tone for mindful listening with the global community on World Listening Day July 18. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

It started—quietly enough—in the 1970s with a Canadian composer named Raymond Murray Schafer. His World Soundscape Project developed the fundamentals of acoustic ecology, the study of the relationship in sound between human beings and their environment.

“When you listen carefully to the soundscape,” said Schafer, “it becomes quite miraculous.”

Schafer’s ideas struck a chord with so many people around the world that in 2010, World Listening Day was founded. It falls on July 18 to honor Schafer’s birthday.

A jackrabbit with ears alert to the least sound reminds the author that listening to nature is one aspect of the mindful listening celebrated by the community on World Listening Day July 18. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

Now Hear This

This year, communities around the globe will be participating in listening events hosted by the World Listening Project. This year’s theme, created by Wildlife Sanctuary Vice President Katherine Krause is The Collective Field.

“Current times have asked each of us, individually and in concert, to retreat, reflect, and rethink the world we thought we knew,” says Krause. And so, on this international day of awareness, Krause asks us to still the noise in our head and to listen—really, listen—to the “collective field” of overlapping environments:

the natural world of animals, plants, land, water, and weather.
the human-built soundscape of traffic, machinery, and even architecture.
the cultural environment—the voices we hear, and the voices we “tune out.”

Soundwaves evoke the soundscapes that the global community will tune into on World Listening Day July 18. (Image by Pixabay)

What enhances or hinders our ability to tune in to the world’s wavelengths?

Say, What?

We’ll look at—I mean “listen to”—each environment in a moment. But first, I swear I can hear what you’re thinking: Isn’t listening something we do every day?

Yes, but mostly we hear passively. Most sounds blend and wash over us, whether we’re on a conference call or a beautiful island. At other times, we focus on one particular sound, whether it’s the warble of a bird or the whine of a leaf-blower. Sound experts call this directed listening.

Active listening is when we notice how sounds affect each other, our environment, ourselves, and others. During a “quiet” walk on a beach, for example, we might hear not only seagull cries and the whoosh of the waves, but also the light drum of our footfall on firm sand, the jingling collar of a playful dog, and in the distance, scattered outbreaks of faint voices and car radio music.

Listening as a Global Community

On July 18, thousands of people around the world will participate in a wide variety of listening activities. Here are just a few suggestions.

Take a soundwalk. This is any excursion whose main purpose is listening to the environment. It is exposing our ears to every sound around us no matter where we are.

People taking an urban soundwalk, one of the best ways the global community can celebrate World Listening Day. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

Before COVID, cities from Chicago to Sydney regularly offered guided soundwalks for small groups. Today you can still glean much from a solo or shared soundwalk of your own.

Walk in silence in an area that you think you know well, such as your own neighborhood. Listen attentively for as many sounds as possible. If walking with another, pause occasionally to compare what you’ve noticed. (Consider using breaks to jot down lists and exchange them in silence to stay in “listening mode.” )

Map the sounds of nature. Listen to the sounds of nature—even if you’re self-isolating. Nature Sound Map (see screenshot from website below) lets you travel the world, discovering soundscapes of our planet’s wildlife, oceans, and other natural phenomena.

Map of Australia with pinpoints of recorded sounds made accessible to the global community by the Nature Soundmap website.

Be sure to check out World Sounds (see screenshot from website below), too. This global archive offers both human-built and natural soundscapes. What would you hear on a walk through a market in London—or in Kampong Cham, Cambodia? What does the Eiffel Tower sound like? Find out on . . .

Screenshot from the World Sounds website that makes soundscapes recorded around the world accessible to the global community

Hear the sounds of urban life, markets, religious centers, and more nature soundscapes
on the World Sounds website. © World Sounds

Describe your day in sound. We each have a unique soundtrack that plays behind our day. As I write in my apartment, I hear the tapping of the keyboard under my fingers, the click and clink of ice in a thin glass of water, the murmur of an old refrigerator.

Sounds of the neighborhood filter in through the open window: the flute-like call of a western meadowlark, a breeze rustling Ponderosa pines, delivery trucks pulling into the parking lot, two girls discussing ice cream, and one block away, the cheers of peaceful protestors as passing drivers sound their car horns.

These sounds encapsulate not only nature and the built environment, but also several clues about the time, place, and culture in which I live. What does your day sound like? Describe it in a brief social media post or email and invite friends to respond with the sounds of their day.

Listen to others. Part of honoring the “hear” and now is to listen mindfully to people around us, gaining insight into each other’s experiences, viewpoints, and insights. This isn’t always easy. When we’re too reactive, too dismissive, or simply unaware, it’s as if the noise of our own conditioning drowns out what others are trying to say.

A crowd at a busy airport in various modes of listening or tuning out remind the author why we need World Listening Day to reunite our global community in the act of mindful listening. (Image by Pixabay)

The good news is that we can change this in a moment. We can break a “loud” habit by simply listening. We can quell the urge to instantly shut down a different opinion. We can stop one-upping a friend’s account of a significant personal experience with an oft-told tale of our own. We can refrain from retorting defensively, “Well, I’M not like that!” when someone opens up about experiencing racism, stereotyping, or other forms of bias.

Oh, I see: To hear the world clearly, we must first reckon with our own interruptions.

A man sits by the water, listening but also wearing earphones, a reminder of why we need World Listening Day to reunite our global community in the act of mindful listening. (Image by Pixabay)

Listening to the World

Wherever you are this Saturday, July 18, you can take part in World Listening Day. Whether you listen to nature, the human-built soundscape, the environment of cultural discourse, or all three, you’re sure to experience an aha moment. Now that’s a sound idea.

Find events specific to your country and join the global community for World Listening Day, here.

Sound expert Julian Treasure shares 5 ways to “re-tune” your ears for better listening, here.

“Being Hear,” by Emmy-winning acoustic ecologist Gordon Hempton, is a 10-minute treat for the senses, here.

Comment on the post below, or inspire insight with your own OIC Moment here.

Joyce McGreevy Comments

Crossing Cultures/Nature Discovery/Worldwide Sites

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