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

Aug

60-Something Digital Nomad Tells All!

by Joyce McGreevy on August 12, 2020

Joyce McGreevy, a blogger for OIC Moments, shares her lessons learned from travel as a 60-something digital nomad. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

On a plane, a train, a bus? Who knows? But I was giddy with wanderlust.
© Joyce McGreevy

10 Lessons I Learned from Travel

A tabloid headline floats over a deer-in-the-headlights photo of a 60-something woman. She’s been caught in the act of . . . traveling solo! As a digital nomad! This is what I picture whenever people express shock that I once sold my condo, donated most of my possessions, packed a small suitcase, and began traveling full time—while continuing to work.

Becoming a digital nomad is not unusual. But doing so as an older woman tends to flabbergast those around you.

People reacting to women’s life choices with shock is nothing new, of course. But there comes a time when anything a woman does that’s slightly outside of the norm prompts the response, “At your age?” A survey of female friends reveals that this happens from ages 2 to 102. Before and after those troublesome years, you’re free to do what you like without judgment.

Meanwhile, Your Honors, I plead guilty as charged. For 5 years, I was (gasp!) an older digital nomad. Shameless travel hussy that I am, I’d have continued this lifestyle for another 5 years but for the pandemic.

Have I learned my lesson? Oh, yes. There are at least 10 packable lessons I’ve learned from travel.

A sun dial with a clock face and writing instruments in Ireland reminds a digital nomad of lessons learned from travel. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy

Travel lesson learned in Ireland: Don’t let the clock run out on your life goals.
© Joyce McGreevy

1. If you’ve got a goal, get going.

I’m so glad I didn’t dither and miss my chance to travel. That I didn’t let age or modest finances deter me. That I didn’t think, “This must work out perfectly or it will be a disaster.”

Instead, I saw it as one more chapter in a lifelong series of learning adventures.

Travel lesson learned: Not every goal is about travel, but every goal is a journey. Don’t get stuck in park.

A list of subway stations in Bulgaria reminds a digital nomad of lessons learned from travel. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

Travel lesson learned in Bulgaria: To hone your navigational skills, keep challenging them.
© Joyce McGreevy

2. When you travel, you’re visiting someone’s home.

If you went to a neighbor’s house for the first time, you wouldn’t

elbow past them to take selfies in front of their artwork.
hunker down in their doorway to eat fast food.
make unfiltered comments on anything you see. “What a tiny fridge! Why’s this house so o-o-old?”
carve your initials on their walls and trees.

Yet residents of Venice, Barcelona, and other great cities have decried such behavior among a small but exasperating segment of travelers.

Travel lesson learned: Be curious, not injurious. Enjoy, don’t annoy.

3. Trying to see everything is the best way to miss most of it.

You would think that someone who’d spent several years traveling would have covered most of the globe by now.

Nope.

If there’s such a thing as Slow Travel, then I’m its biggest fan. Wherever I went, I lingered. I wanted a close-up view of everyday life, not a blurred view of every attraction. Even on short layovers I learned that slowing down is the key to gaining insight into a place.

Travel lesson learned: Take a trip, not an ego trip.

International signposts in Norway remind a digital nomad of lessons learned from travel. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

Travel lesson learned in Norway: Don’t engage in competitive travel.
So what if others have traveled farther, faster, or “before it was trendy”?
© Joyce McGreevy

4. Your feet are to travel what great novels are to reading.

“I have the European urge to use my feet when a drive can be dispensed with,” wrote Nabokov. Walking is a timeless activity, one that leads to in-the-moment observations and personal connections with history. When you explore a city on foot, it’s like losing yourself in a great work of literature as opposed to scanning tweets—it’s immersive, asks more of you, and richly rewards you, too.

Travel lesson learned: One mindful walk is better than a dozen rushed tours.

An overhead view of a river walk in Croatia reminds a digital nomad of lessons learned from travel. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

Travel lesson learned in Croatia: Discover new perspectives.
© Joyce McGreevy

5. No matter how light you pack, you won’t need half of it.

This is true whether you’re traveling to one country or 10, for 10 days or 10 weeks, and to formal or informal settings. If you need things you didn’t pack, you can buy them there. But if you pack things you don’t need, you still must carry them everywhere.

Travel lesson learned: The less you lug, the more carefree you’ll be.

A coatrack, a suitcase, and a travel mascot in Greece remind a digital nomad of lessons learned from travel. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

Travel lesson learned in Greece: A hook to hang my apron is all I need to feel at home.
© Joyce McGreevy

Travel lesson learned: The less you lug, the more carefree you’ll be.

6. We should talk to strangers more often.

No one’s asking you to follow someone down a dark alley, or to re-enact “My Dinner with André” on a six-hour train ride. But travel is a golden opportunity to find out what the rest of the world is thinking.

Don’t let that nifty travel app blind you to the people around you. Even language barriers can be overcome by empathy, smiles, laughter, and a bit of awkward miming.

Travel lesson learned: When we acknowledge each other, we extend the reach of community across cultures.

A baker making lavash bread in Turkey reminds a digital nomad aof lessons learned from travel. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

Travel lesson learned in Turkey: Savor world flavors—learn to cook cross-culturally.
© Joyce McGreevy

7. Don’t just look at the world, taste it.

My mother was an avid traveler and cook whose everyday repertoire celebrated global diversity. This is why my own journeys have always included culinary field trips. Exploring farmers markets, finding affordable cooking lessons, and swapping kitchen tales with locals is a great way to connect across cultures.

Travel lesson learned: “When life gives you lemons,” find out how local cooks use them!

8. Solo travel is glorious. So is the right traveling companion.

I love traveling solo. It nudges me out of my comfort zone and lets me be spontaneous.

I even learned to love dining solo without hiding behind a book. Often, this led to conversations with locals, who generously shared insights into their country’s history, lesser known landmarks, and of course, culinary culture.

Traveling with others can be Paradiso. Or Inferno. It’s all about attitude. I’ve witnessed travelers who waste time arguing. “I don’t know which museum! I thought you’d know which museum!” Who respond to any glitch by fuming, “This would never happen in [Anytown], USA!”

But sometimes you get to travel with people who embrace adventure, immerse themselves in a culture, and try new things. They find the upside of setbacks and help you notice things you would otherwise have missed.

Travel lesson learned: Travel in good company—your own or others.

Two loving travel companions in Ireland remind a digital nomad of lessons learned from travel. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

Enjoying another traveler’s perspective is like seeing two worlds at once.
© Joyce McGreevy

9. The best souvenirs aren’t things.

Traveling with one small suitcase meant I couldn’t get weighed down with “stuff.” But there’s no limit on the customs one can carry home.

Like Italy’s passeggiata—an elegant evening stroll. Or Montrealers’ love of reading in city parks—books, not cellphones. Or the Irish habit of acknowledging passersby with a greeting or at least a nod. Wearing a mask doesn’t diminish the pleasure of these rituals.

Travel lesson learned: Bring back new ideas, not knickknacks.

10. Fresh starts are a type of travel.

When I returned to the States, I moved to Bend, Oregon. The only people I knew locally were my sisters and their families. And because of Covid, only some of us could get together without risk.

But because of travel, I don’t feel lonely. Because of travel, I know there’s always a way to navigate and connect.

I’ve met fellow Oregonians by joining a volunteer group that meets online. I hike along the Deschutes River. I download library books that explore the history and beauty of the state.

A museum with a rainbow panorama walkway in Denmark reminds a digital nomad of lessons learned from travel. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

Having been a working nomad, I’m used to being productive from anywhere. I’m also used to getting on Zoom to catch up with the people I’ve met around the world. We share our joys, our worries, our national issues. You may consider these visits “virtual,” but the friendships are real.

Maybe that’s why I’ve adopted an explorer’s approach to our world’s surreal new circumstances. Oh, I see: Because of lessons learned from travel, I feel more at home on this vulnerable planet and within my vulnerable self.

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

Joyce McGreevy 9 Comments

Adventure Travel/Life Lessons/Worldwide Sites

Jul

Let a Tune Transport You!

by Joyce McGreevy on July 28, 2020

Travel Memories Inspired by Music

Imagine a melody with the power to recreate worlds. The cocoa-butter scented breeze of a beach in Maui in 1979—when it’s 2020 and you’re in Montréal. The soaring elegance of a train station in Leipzig—as you drift off to sleep in Lincoln City.

That’s what happens when a tune, any tune, becomes travel music. Oh, I see: When it comes to modes of travel, nothing transports us like music.

The influence of music on our memories has long been established by science. Music lights up the visual cortex like a rainbow-colored disco ball, spinning emotions into motion. One moment you’re pushing a shopping cart down a grocery aisle, the next moment you hear that song—and suddenly travel memories inspired by music come dancing out, whirling you along with them.

A woman exuberantly enjoying the beach reminds the author of the transportive power of travel memories inspired by music. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

At the office in January you hear a certain song, and suddenly it’s summer
and you’re barefoot on a beach in July.
© Joyce McGreevy

“Magical Mystery Tour”

Travel music can be a trickster. Like the time a song from a passing car in Chicago whisked me back to a village in France.

A basket of croissants symbolizes the way travel memories inspired by music often include vivid sensory details. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

So what was the song? Something iconic like “La Vie en Rose”? Pas du tout.

It was “What’s Up” by 4 Non Blondes, an alternative rock band from San Francisco.

But to memory, none of that matters. Because of where and when I heard the song, the Jukebox of Memory selected it for my subconscious travel music playlist. Hearing it again, I’m instantly back in Port Launay in 1993:

I taste buttery, cloud-like croissants—croissants so marvelous that I show up at the boulangerie each morning before sunup.
I feel the thrum of my rented Citroën zipping over the back roads—I who haven’t driven in years.
I see primroses around the cottage where my young son and I sit by the fire, reading Breton tales of the sea.

All that joie de vivre and Breton beauty magically preserved in an angsty California rock song. This kind of travel music mismatch, it turns out, is surprisingly common.

A jazz trio in Denmark symbolize why travel memories inspired by music make us feel as if we are re-living, not just recalling, an experience. (Image © by Joyce McGreevy)

“Come Fly With Me” (and other musical flights of fancy)

Of course, some travel songs are on the nose. And by “nose” I mean the nose cone of a Boeing 707 pointing up at a big blue sky. That’s where I’m transported whenever I hear “Up, Up, and Away.”

Written by Jimmy Webb and popularized by The Fifth Dimension, it became Trans World Airlines’ theme song in 1968. Five notes in, I can practically smell the jet fuel, so vividly does this tune recall the joy of a travel adventure’s beginning.

Oh, I have a whole catalog in my head labeled Travel Music Linked to Airplanes. It’s where I keep travel memories that are . .

Ecstatic: Art Garfunkel singing “Break Away, fly across your ocean . . . to awaken in another country.”
Glamorous: Joe Sample’s jazz classic “Night Flight.”
Wistful: Peter, Paul, and Mary’s “Leavin’ on a Jet Plane.”

Name any mode of transport and you’ll find travel songs for it. “Night Boat to Cairo,” “Last Train to Clarksville,” “On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe” to name but a few. Some travel songs, like “Let’s Get Away from It All,” with its boat to Bermuda, plane to Saint Paul and kayak to Quincy or Nyack, pack in every means of travel but the pogo stick.

“They Call Me the Wanderer”

Some music makes you want to travel somewhere, anywhere, even when you’re toolin’ around town on errands. Many a mild-mannered commuter has experienced raw wanderlust at hearing a classic road trip song like “Route 66” or “Born to Be Wild.”

Then there are songs that evoke longings for places we’ve never been. Like the Faroe Islands, which I researched obsessively after hearing Faroese singer-songwriter, Teitur. Indeed, millions of music lovers felt wanderlust for Cuba the first time they heard Buena Vista Social Club, the musical ensemble celebrated in the documentary of the same name.

“Summer in the City”

You could fill a library with songs about cities—from “Istanbul, Not Constantinople” and “New York State of Mind,” to two entirely different songs with the title “Galway Girl.”

A concert at Lollapalooza taken before the pandemic reminds that author that travel memories inspired by music can be comforting now that such popular events have been canceled. (Image © by Julie Larkin)

With most destination concerts canceled in 2020, we travel via musical memories.
Above: Lollapalooza, Chicago in 2017.
© Julie Larkin

Great cities, in turn, send you home with memories to unpack musically. Any song by the late, great Alain Toussaint or young visionary Trombone Shorty takes me back to New Orleans—wherever I am. And this recently released music video stirs this traveler’s fond memories of a favorite U.S. city, Chicago. Let’s go!

“Take Me Home, Country Roads”

And sometimes travel music takes me all the way home. Home, where childhood memories and my love of travel began. Where my late parents spent evenings planning family travel adventures, as popular French songs floated up from the RCA record player, those Gallic melodies mixing with the aroma of Boeuf Bourguinon from the kitchen.

That’s why whenever I hear “La Vie en Rose” I’m instantly transported . . . to Syosset, Long Island.

To quote French cabaret singer Maurice Chevalier, “Ah yes, I remember it well!” Whether your travel memories inspired by music transport you to a favorite destination or to the land of childhood, the common “chord” is magic—the magic that occurs when travel memories have a soundtrack.

What’s on your travel music playlist? Share a favorite tune and the travel memories it evokes for you in the comments below.