Ice cream

Jan 14, 2019

No, not the store bought kind. Does any one remember old fashioned hand churned ice cream?
The machine was a wooden bucket with a metal canister inside and a bar on top that had a handle for cranking. There were paddles in the canister to keep the contents moving.
You put the ice cream mixture in the canister, then covered and inserted it in the bucket. You would pack, broken pieces of around it and salt...like sidewalk salt. I don’t know the science, just that it made ice cream.
Put on the cover and start cranking. The paddles would revolve and the mixture would freeze against the inside of the canister. Add more ice, more salt, and soon you would feel resistance and know the mixture was hardening. And your arms would be tired from constant revolving motion. You never did it alone because once you started churning, you could not stop. The person who was working with you would actually turn a few times with you so you could let go of handle till your turn to turn came up again.
It was difficult and tiring, but great fun. I don’t know if the ice cream was the best because of the work involved in making it or because it was really the best, but it doesn’t matter. It was the best because in my memory, there was none better.