Guess what gave? What's that mango? So have you ever noticed that Ben and Jerry's flavors are really chunky, Like they always have big pieces of banana or pretzels or chocolate in them.
Yeah, I mean they do make chunky monkey, right, so at least that'd better be pretty chunky.
So when I was younger, I was always kind of thrown off by that style of ice cream, and I was kind of curious how they developed it. And apparently it's all because of Ben from Ben and Jerry's. According to their site, he has anosma, meaning he doesn't have a great sense of smell and he barely has a sense of taste too, So for him, like his love of ice cream is mostly textural, like he loves the
creamy mouthfeel. He likes those like big, delicious, crunchy treats that are mixed in And so that's how they came up with it, and over the years fans fell in love with that consistency too. But that's just the first of nine facts were dishing out today about ice cream. Let's dive in hey their podcast listeners, I'm Monga's particular and my co host Will Pearson is out today sunning himself at the beach. But don't worry, I've got our research superstar Gabe Luesy a with us on the line.
Hey Gabe, Hey, thanks for having me on. Yeah, of course. And we also have sitting behind that soundproof glass wearing his mister Softy T shirt, or as they call it in China, mister soft heart. Apparently there's no word for softie in China. That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil. So, Gabe, I know we're doing an episode on ice cream today. Are you an ice cream guy?
Like?
Do you have a go to flavor?
I am definitely an ice cream guy, like all good hearted people.
And American people.
Yeah, I like all good hearted American Now, yeah, my favorite flavor is probably cookies and cream. I could go for just about anything except chocolate. Not a chocolate guy.
Really, I wouldn't have guessed that. I am mostly a mint chocolate chip guy, though I'll eat most flavors. And I'm actually not sure if I've told you this, but my grandfather actually had an ice cream factory in India. U. Yeah, he had to drop out of college because his parents passed away, and then he did this correspondence course on electricity by mail, like from the States, and it was
like a text school from America or something. And he taught himself to wire things and he ended up building like a little ice factory, and then he branched out into ice cream too, and it was called Tamalia ice cream. But that's awesome, I know. I mean, my cousins got to enjoy it, but it was all gone by the
time I was a kid. But the most amazing thing to me was that when he used to come to the States, he was confused by the way Americans eat ice cream, because we eat it all year round, and how in India they only have it during the summer. Is that during the monsoons when it's super cold, they won't eat ice cream. It's just cultural or something. But I kicked this off with a Ben and Jerry's fact. So what do you have for us?
Well, I just read about this amazing ice cream from Spain called Chameleon.
So I'm already in drinued. What flavor is Chameleon?
Well, thankfully it's not chameleon, but it's basically this Willy Wonka style ice cream, where like the color changes as you lick it and that also changes the flavor too.
That's crazy. So it sounds amazing and like something for my dreams. But how come I haven't heard of this? Like, is it a new flavor?
Yeah, well, it's actually been around since twenty fourteen. It was created by this former physicist named Manuel Lenaris who was pursuing a degree in quote creating artists in ice cream.
That's what the La Time says.
At least, I guess it's a major at this Spanish culinary institute.
Huh. But anyway, I've only seen.
Pictures of the ice cream, but it's really beautiful, like at least one of the shades is. It's this gorgeous shimmery purple and pink color. And it has a bunch of flavors that come through too. There's a strawberry, cocoa, almonds, banana, pistachio, vanilla, and even caramel. What But the reason you haven't heard about it is that the inventor is still waiting for the patent to come through. Before you know it goes wide scale. And also, Kahlion isn't his only flavor. He
has this other one he's working on. It's just for adults though it has all these Peruvian and African herbs in it, and it's supposed to be an aphrodisiac.
So I always think it's funny when people try to mix medicine into ice cream. Like I actually pulled a fact about this. I saw this thing on life hacker where someone had made this peptobismal ice cream to deal with hangovers, which I know, to me, it just makes me nauseous think about it. But there's also a Korean
version that sounds way better. Apparently, like hard drinking is such a common thing in South Korea that hangover cures are actually like one hundred and twenty five million dollar industry. It's it's just insane to me. Yeah, But in that mix of like drugstore cures, there's actually an ice cream bar that's called Yandio Bar. I don't know how it's actually pronounced, but the name translates to hang in there,
which is so positive. But it's it's a grapefruit flavored ice cream bar with some special raisin juice in there too. It supposedly works wonders, And I mean for me, like what with or without a hangover? I'd be down to try like a grapefruit and vanilla ice cream. But what what do you have next?
Well, how about a fact about astronauts. And this isn't about astronaut ice cream. You know that that freeze dried monstrosity that they try to trick you into eating of planetariums. No, this is this is about the real ice cream than astronauts occasionally to try on mission.
That's really funny.
You know.
I wanted to start this thing where we would serve astronauts Sundays where it's just there's astronaut ice creams crumpled up with some chocolate sauce on top of it and whipped cream built time. I felt like that would do really well on Instagram. But so I thought astronauts used to complain about like missing ice cream in space, Like I didn't realize it was actually a thing that they get to eat. Yeah, they do.
And I mean for years, NASA had this list of the top three foods that their astronauts missed the most in space, and you know, it was fizzy drinks, pizza, and ice cream. But Atlas Obscura did this story and apparently every once in a while is a special treat. Astronauts now get real ice cream and it's sent to them at the International Space Station, and I was curious, you know, why is it such a big deal? And and you know the reason to have ice cream in space,
like why isn't it allowed? And actually the reason is you need freezer space to store the ice cream. And you know, because astronauts are using this limited freezer space on board, they you know, they have to make room for blood and urine samples and I don't know other experimental stuff and it's just hard to you know, save room for ice cream. But now now there's a workaround.
And that's because when shipments and supplies are sent up to the space station, people will now you know, often sneak a few pints of ice cream into those containers for the astronauts. But here's the catch. You know, because there is no freezer space, they have to eat the ice cream pretty quickly upon delivery. So you know what ends up happening is, you know, they throw these little zero gravity ice cream parties whenever the ice cream comes up.
Oh that's amazing. I kind of love that. So here's something that's a little less joyous but still funny to be So I was looking at this book The Victorian City, which is about everyday life in Dekenzie in London, and in the eighteen fifties, ice cream was obviously like a big luxury and could buy a little taste of ice cream and these Neapolitan ices from street vendors. But what's funny is that apparently some of these folks started selling
fraudulent ice cream to kids. Instead of a serving of ice cream, it was common for people to serve you like scoops of mashed turnips instead. Oh, it'd be so disappointing. You just took a spoonful.
Of ice cream on a hot day and it just turned out to be mashed up.
I know. It almost feels like some parents' idea to like trick kids into eating veggies. But the strange thing is that people still use that trick today, like mashed potatoes are often used as a stand in for ice cream on film sets because ice cream is so melty. Oh yeah, that's funny.
I love those food hacks, Like you know how people, you know, you use glue as a stand in for cereal milk on sets, and you know it's because it looks better on film, and you know you can position the cereal wherever you want it without worrying about it, you know, floating away.
Huh.
But speaking of dripping ice cream, that's actually another thing scientists have now fixed.
So I love that there are so many problems in the world, but the one where fixed on focusing is like melty ice cream.
Yeah, it really shows you where our priority slot. But apparently this has been in the works for a while now. A few years ago, British scientists figured out a way to slow down the melting process a little bit by adding this special protein that binds the air and fat and water together. And then Japanese scientists took it and they figured out a different way of doing this. They actually used a liquid extract from strawberries that stopped the
water and oils from separating. So you know what you got were these ice cream and popsicle treats that could last three hours at a time and eighty degree heat and all while still retaining their shape.
Wow.
Yeah, it's pretty amazing. And the ice cream isn't that expensive either. That's probably the most amazing part. It's actually only about four dollars a pop.
That's really incredible. I am curious what the texture of it is like though.
Yeah, food and Wine reported that the Japanese weren't the only ones making these advances. Like there's a grocery store in Australia that has their own technique. They haven't revealed what it is, but they turn out ice cream sandwiches they won't melt in the Australian sun.
That's pretty crazy. So I guess we'll have a whole variety of different non melty ice creams to try in the future. But it is kind of weird to think that, like kids in the future might not get ice cream headaches because they can eat a cone as slowly as they want, or like they'll never have sticky hands from ice cream dripping all over them. And you know, you and I will be telling our grand is these stories
like they're war stories. So I knew Clint Eastwood was mayor of this beautiful town of Carmel in California, but I didn't know that ice cream was actually one of the first measures he brought up at his first city council meeting. And at the time there had been some sort of water shortage and so the city refused to give an ice cream parlor a license on their main strip, and Clint Eastwood's campaign was actually on getting rid of this kill joy mentality and bringing back these street corners
where kids could happily eat ice cream again. I mean, this is what you remembered from his youth and what he wanted to bring back. But he also reinstituted the pledge of allegiance before every meeting, which feels very Clint Eastwood. And the article also pointed out, though, that he voted to ban beachfront fireworks on July fourth, which sounds a little antithetical to those other two things.
Yeah, so much for getting rid of the kill joy mentality. Wow, I know, well, I know, We've got two more ice cream facts to share, but before we do, let's take a quick break.
Welcome back to part time genius. Abe. Do you know what the grossest ice cream flavor served as a state dinner has to be? No, what's that oyster? It was oyster flavored ice cream. So Jake Cross and A Metal Flaws did the story on the history of ice cream in America. And Dolly Madison, who was you know, by all accounts, the greatest host or hostess in Washington, d C, used to serve oyster ice cream to guests who were totally wowed by it.
Wow, I'm kind of surprised people kept coming to these parties after that.
Yeah, I know. But actually, the other thing I learned from the piece was that George Washington was really the person who made serving ice cream at state dinners a thing like he had a three hundred piece machine to make and serve ice cream in his kitchen, and it sort of became the ultimate sign of luxury if you could serve ice cream at your dinners, because it was just such an effort to make, and that's kind of what kicked off America's obsession with it. So I don't know,
I think that's my last fact. But how do you want to end this? Well, how about with a really quick fact.
So you know Rupert Grint, right, m.
H Yeah, he played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies.
Oh yeah, exactly. And you know, he grew up making those movies. So when he passed his driving exam, he
was already worth a lot of money by then. And you know, so one day people on set were talking about, you know what sorts of fancy cars they were thinking about buying with all their HP money, And for some reason, Rupert's dream was to own an ice cream truck, and so, you know, he got one and the first time he took it out for a spin, he actually he went to a pub and when he was leaving, all these kids came up to him trying to buy ice cream.
And the problem was he hadn't bothered to stock any in the truck, which is just like the world's biggest tease right now. Totaling around in an ice cream truck with zero ice cream on board, what did you think would happen? But anyway, he sort of learned his lesson after that, and now he keeps the van stocked with you know, tons of popsicles, and there's even a working soft serve machine on board, and so sometimes he just drives around to villages and gives out free ice cream to kids.
It's pretty awesome, right, Yeah, I mean that's great. I mean it is funny. I told a story about people tricking kids with mash turnips instead of ice cream, and you told a story about Ron Weasley magically delivering ice cream to village kids in his spare time. So I do think you have to take home the trophy today?
Well, thank you so much. I think I know just how I'll be celebrating.
Well, that's it for today's nine Things. Moving back with the full length episode tomorrow, but thank you so much for listening. Thanks again for listening.
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