"weird ice cream" news and stories

Salt and Pepper ice cream at Humphry Slocombe. Photo: Bradley Allen, Flickr.

Cold Stone Creamery last month introduced an ice cream that doesn't melt, which has led New York Magazine to say this week that Cold Stone's Jell-O-like dessert is proof positive that ice cream has become the latest playground for culinary innovation.

Indeeed, the world of frozen cream is much changed from those triple-threat Neapolitan cartons of chocolate, vanilla and strawberry many of us grew up with.

Just last month, our editors were smitten by Vosges' new curry coconut ice cream at the Fancy Food Show, Gourmet recently featured the wackiness that is San Francisco's Humphry Slocombe shop (prosciutto ice cream, anyone?) and Jeni's in Columbus, Ohio, peddles Thai chili ice cream alongside not so plain honey vanilla. In New York, Wylie Dusfresne serves a perfect miniature "everything" bagel -- made entirely of ice cream, naturally -- at his restaurant wd-50.

It's hip to eat savory ice creams, and if you go to a food festival you're bound to see something in the creamy, cold category no matter what the topic - even, yes, garlic. But octopus, that's an ice cream I've never either (a) tried or (b) cared to try. Jason from Damn Interesting agrees, and says: "damnit, we have to draw a line, and Octopus Ice Cream would have to be on the far side of that line."

Watch Iron Chef and you're bound to see some strange ice creams. Sure, sure, that's a spur-of-the-moment exercise in bizarro creativity. But this is a packaged variety available commercially. Does it sell? Has anyone tried it?

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