Does Anyone Still Do This? Snow Ice Cream

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Friday December 23, 2011 · 11:00 AM PST

2011/12/23 · 11:00

When I was very young, my mother used to make a fresh, quick "ice cream" using snow. There was no rock salt required, no fussing with one of those hand crank ice cream makers... All she did was mix fresh snow with cream, some sugar and a little vanilla. If she had some home canned fruit, some of that could be added as well; but often as not it was plain vanilla ice cream. I remember it well.

And then, when I was five years old (winter of 1961) she stopped making it. I'll never forget the reason why, even though I couldn't understand it at the time. One day I asked her to make some snow ice cream, and she told me we couldn't do that anymore. In fact, she warned me not to eat any snow when I was outside playing in it...something I was wont to do from time to time. Puzzled, I asked her why not. "Because the snow is bad for you now", she told me. "It has radioactivity in it."

I didn't know what radioactivity was, but she had obviously heard something on the news, read something in a magazine,or perhaps just heard it in conversation...that the above ground atomic bomb testing being conducted in the desert had rendered snow radioactive all over the country. The only thing I was able to make of her explanation was that bombs had done something bad to the snow.

I don't know what made me remember this episode this morning. Perhaps the several diaries that have been posted these past few days about Christmas and Christmas memories. I did some googling, just to see what I could find on the subject, and sure enough there are recipes abound. So I have to assume that some people still do this, although I can't remember, after my own mother stopped doing it, other friends talking about making this at home.

Here is a basic recipe:

1 gallon snow
1 cup white sugar
1 tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups milk

When it starts to snow, place a large, clean bowl outside to collect the flakes. When full, stir in sugar and vanilla to taste, then stir in just enough milk for the desired consistency. Serve at once.

That's pretty straight forward. Paula Deen, from the FoodTV Network, has a typically simple recipe using sweetened condensed milk:

8 cups snow, or shaved ice
1 (14-ounce) can sweetened condensed milk
1 teaspoon vanilla extract

Place snow or shaved ice into a large bowl. Pour condensed milk over and add vanilla. Mix to combine. Serve immediately in bowls.

I found references on the internet to snow ice cream and a general panic among parents in the early sixties over the whole radioactivity thing, so I guess my memories on the subject are not isolated. Probably, these days, the bigger concern is the caution issued by Frank Zappa in his song "Don't Eat The Yellow Snow"

I was just wondering how many of you have similar memories of snow ice cream, if anyone still makes it, or if there are many who perhaps have never even heard of it?

Does anyone, if they still make it, have a more interesting recipe than the "plain ole vanilla" ones I posted here?

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