Creamy White Marble and Creamy Ice Cream
The logo has changed, but the ice cream remains delicious, and Blue Bell continues to put Sylacauga on the map, or the GPS, if you prefer. I hear so many people on social media sites relating memories of ice cream and the various companies that were once located here, and so I decided this might be a cool subject, a subject that would bring back memories for us all. Look at each logo, and see what memories you can churn up from those days so long ago. Give me a call if you have some special ones. I would love to hear them.
I have so many memories of my own about homemade ice cream back in the days of my childhood. I liked riding in the truck with Daddy to the old ice house on the corner of Industrial and Fourth Streets, and purchasing a big block of ice, handled by strong men with big tongs, taking it home in the old washtub and beginning what usually turned out to be quite an adventure. The ice pick was a great way to relieve frustrations and change the block of ice into manageable chunks so that the silver churn would continue to turn and not get stuck by big jagged pieces of ice. Too little to do much else, I was usually given the job of sitting on top of the folded newspaper and gunny sack that covered the freezer to hold it steady while Daddy cranked. It was so much trouble (for him) just cool for me, but the end product was so-o good; and only Blue Bell with its current Homemade Vanilla has come close to replicating it. This popular flavor has caused my two freezers, one a hand-crank model and one an electric model to gather dust on the shelf of the utility room.
Ice Cream is just good and refreshing, and the “tasties” for ice cream has been with the world a long while. According to the International Dairy Foods Association, Alexander the Great (356 B.C.) liked snow, flavored with honey and nectar; and the Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar (54-86 A.D.) sent runners into the mountains to bring back snow so that he could enjoy snow-cream flavored with fruits and juices. I thought my Mama thought up snow ice cream. This same historical account credits Marco Polo with the first recipe, brought back from the Far East, for sherbet, which evolved into ice cream by the 16thcentury. The English, French, and Italians jumped right into the “cream ice” craze; but according to records, the first café in France, the Café Procope, was the first to serve this recipe of milk, butter, and eggs to the public.
Quite a bit later, in 1929, a group of Sylacauga business men which included J.W. Brown, J.S. Pitts, C.W. Wright, Garrett Hagan, and D.A. Park had the vision to see Sylacauga as an ideal place for a creamery. They saw such a business as a market for all of the milk produced in the area, especially cream from the Avondale Mills Dairy which was well known for its purity and high performance on state tests. According to The Sylacauga News, Friday, May 31, 1929, the Frostkist Ice Cream and Creamery Company was to be located in the north end of the Sylacauga Warehouse Company on the corner of Industrial Avenue and Fourth Street. The goal of the directors was to be up and running by June 15th; and they would call the product “Frostkist Ice Cream,” assuring the people of Sylacauga that “it will have the same tingling delightfulness that the name implies.”
I like what they said in The Sylacauga News, Friday, July 5, 1929, issue. “In using Frostkist Ice Cream you are building Sylacauga. You are doing your bit to create a market for milk, which in turn adds to the local farmers’ income. Make Sylacauga grow by using Sylacauga-made products.”
Next time you are in town go by Blue Bell’s wonderful ice cream parlor or your favorite grocery store and think about this statement. We may not be helping any local cows, but we are helping our city and all the people who work at Blue Bell when we eat this product. Notice, too, that Blue Bell is a wonderful community partner. Besides that, this ice cream is so-o-o good!! See you next time with more good information about ice cream.
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