We've got a healthy appreciation for odd-flavored ice creams here at Slashfood. We've written about soy sauce ice cream, habanero ice cream and Stilton ice cream, just to name a few.
My personal favorite is sweet corn ice cream. It sounds odd, but once you taste it you think "oh, that makes sense." The pale yellow ice cream has a subtle, summery corn flavor, studded with fresh kernels, like buttered corn on the cob distilled into a perfect, chilled essence.
I just had some today, at a place called Tara's in Santa Fe that specializes in non-standard flavors - they also make terrific sage, strawberry balsamic, chile-pistachio and black sesame ice creams. But there's something about cold sweet corn that's perfect for a hot June evening. My parents, recently returned from Singapore, described a local street food that I just may hop on a plane to try: corn ice cream, drizzled with syrup, and slapped between two pieces of pink-dyed white sandwich bread.
Until then, I'll have to make do with this recipe for sweet corn ice cream on Epicurious and am planning to try it this weekend. I bet it would be good with a cayenne caramel sauce.
New York Times Magazine's food issue
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
6-18-2008 @ 6:06PM
Gobo said...
I visited an Ice Cream Museum in Tokyo which had sweet corn ice cream, as well as bizarre flavors like crab, squid, fried chicken, rice, and sea urchin.
I tried one called "Dracula The Cool" that was garlic-mint flavored. Not bad!
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6-18-2008 @ 9:56PM
badfrog101 said...
Southeast Asians often look at sweet corn as sweet, and serve it as dessert. I have found this gummy corn candy from Japan that is opaque yellow and shaped like a miniature ear of corn. It's really good, and makes an interesting hostess gift.
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6-18-2008 @ 10:03PM
Bear said...
Jeni's Ice Cream in Columbus, OH has produced Ohio sweet corn with blackberry in the past, as one of their seasonal flavors. It was amazing. Most of their ice cream is, actually. Current flavors are online at http://jenisicecreams.com/0500allflavors.html if anyone's interested (an unsolicited endorsement from a huge fan -- their Lapsang Souchong with Armagnac Prune changed my life!)
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6-19-2008 @ 12:03AM
Gobo said...
Bear: Jeni's is the best ice cream anywhere. Their salted caramel is a masterpiece. It's the single best thing in Columbus OH :)
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6-19-2008 @ 2:23PM
Celeste said...
When I was in Hong Kong a few years ago, we were served sweet corn juice at a restaurant, compliments of the house. It was delicious.
In the Boston area, Christina's in Inman Square has a lot of unusual flavors, including sweet corn (which my friend loves), avocado, and so on. The flavors rotate, though, so whenever I go, it's not there. I always get something else and come back later. Poor me. :)
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