An Eternal Verity

Not everyone swoons over Haagen-Dazs' Rum Raisin or rushes out to get Baskin-Robbins' flavor of the month (last month's offering: Condorman Crunch). Some gourmets prefer to make their own, some prefer what they find in the supermarket. TIME asked several notable ice-cream addicts to reflect on their favorite flavors. The answers:

By Gael Greene, food critic for New York magazine

For me, it's not the least bit excessive to rank the quality ice cream explosion with the sexual revolution, the women's movement and peace for our time. Great ice cream is sacred and brave, an eternal verity. And the passionate appetite for quality ice cream gives me hope for the survival of our civilization.

Though I am a fool for swirls and toasted nutlings in 16% butterfat, and fresh peach or berry can make me weep with joy, unreformable junk food cravings still linger. As a wantonly spoiled New Yorker, I could enjoy a sublime birthday cake prepared by any of a dozen master patissiers. But for the last three birthdays I have insisted on a Baskin-Robbins Mickey Mouse with blue eyes and an orange necktie cloaking layers of English Toffee, Pralines 'N Cream and Jamoca Almond Fudge. And they have to tear me away at midnight to keep me from devouring Mickey's last leftover ear.

Of course if you are serious about these things, you must inevitably discover homemade ice cream--silken and voluptuous. A dozen supernal ice creams have passed through my life, notably the mythic chocolate almond chip fudge swirl created on Christmas (two quarts for company, one quart for me and my then husband to eat by the light of the freezer at 1 a.m.).

I shall never trust anyone who doesn't love ice cream.

They probably hate the beach because of the sand, sleep in pajamas, never eat spareribs and kiss with their mouths closed. What deprivation. Give me rum raisin, give me butterscotch excess.

By Julia Child, star of the television series The French Chef

I think that Haagen-Dazs and those other new ice creams are all terribly amusing, but I always feel that they are more expensive because of their names.

I like Sealtest. It's very good--especially the vanilla and the chocolate, and a wonderful mixture called Heavenly Hash.

It is certainly easy to make your own ice cream, especially with the new Waring Ice Cream Parlor. It used to be such a hassle to chop up the ice and to find the coarse salt, but now you can use plain ice cubes and table salt, and it only takes 20 or 30 min. to freeze. I have a very nice sour cream recipe that features whole eggs, sugar, vanilla, and sour cream in place of fresh cream. I also do a fresh fruit sherbet. When Bartlett pears are in season, they have the best flavor. Fresh strawberries and raspberries are easy to do because you just have to sieve them and beat them up with some sugar and lemon juice. I'm also fond of pink grapefruit, but that's a little more complicated.

If you have too many flavors, then they mask each other and you end with a mishmash. But there was that very simple recipe that we did on television. You spoon a little bourbon whisky over vanilla ice cream and sprinkle on some finely powdered instant coffee. That makes a delicious dessert.

By James Beard, master chef and author of a score of cookbooks

My favorite flavor is certainly ginger.

It's a great specialty of the mandarin restaurants in San Francisco and Beverly Hills. In my most recent food classes, we have made lots of ginger, but also peach, mango, coffee and vanilla. I'm always very happy with a fine vanilla. It should be a custard or a French ice cream.

The main thing is the ingredients.

Good eggs, good cream and good fruit, preferably fresh fruit. If fresh fruit is not available, a little Grand Marnier helps.

As for brand names, I don't know one from another.

Even the best ingredients don't guarantee success. I once had a dinner party for eight people, none of whom had ever been to my house. All of them were well known, most in the food field. I had done a very special ice cream as part of a dessert. But my housekeeper, who has been with me for years, neglected to get it frozen. When it was finally frozen and served, it was a gallon of large lumps. It was like soup. Do not serve soup for dessert.

By Craig Claiborne, food writer for the New York Times

When I was a child in Mississippi, Sunday was my favorite day of all, particularly in summer and most especially when fresh peaches were at the peak of their season. My mother would make a vanilla base--a simple English custard, really--into which she would blend those peaches with their melting sweet flesh, and she would pour this into the container of a hand-cranked freezer. My father would take the ice pick and chip away at a huge block of ice, more than enough to fill the space surrounding the metal cylinder containing the custard, adding alternate layers of rock salt. And all of us would take turns at rotating the handle up to an hour or longer. When the turning became labored and more difficult, the magic moment had arrived. The lid of the canister was removed along with the double layer of wax paper beneath it (this to act as a guard against rock salt crystals) and, heavenly day, what an irresistible rush for silver spoons to dip into that white-tinted-with-pink confection. The lucky one got to lick the wondrous creamy leftovers that were still clinging to the mixer.

I have never lost my enthusiasm for ice cream, of almost any flavor. I have never been an icebox raider, except for one irreversible craving. Ice cream. Or sherbets. Or a fantastic ice, what the French call granites and the Italians call granita. There's nothing to give succor to the palate like the frozen purity of a seasonal berry or fruit juice made semisolid.

I learned about ices fairly late in life, while dining some years ago at the Taillevent, one of my favorite restaurants in all Paris. At the end of a meal that had included an incredible Roquefort cheese souffle, roast caneton au citron, Anna potatoes, salad with assorted cheeses and an apple tart, there was nothing more to be desired. Until the assorted ices were displayed. I had them all--raspberry, lemon, grapefruit and pear. It gave added luster and significance to the champagne that accompanied it and instilled a craving for assorted ices that would last a lifetime.

By Chris Chase, author of The Great American Waistline

Growing up, I thought that the rest of my family had queer tastes in ice cream. Rum raisin. Maple walnut.

Vanilla. I always knew that chocolate was the only flavor worth losing my teeth over.

I loved Good Humors because they had chocolate shells. And I loved it when, on a summer night, my grandmother would give me 35-c- (I think it was 35-c-, my memory is as fragile as my teeth) and send me to the store where the druggist would personally pack a half-pint container with Breyers' best. Two flavors. Whatever my grandmother fancied, plus chocolate.

As I grew older, I dared more (chocolate was still best for a broken heart, but Rocky Road--chocolate with nuts and marshmallows--was good too) and I began to make brand distinctions. I didn't go by butterfat, I let my taste buds do the walking. Howard Johnson's got my vote. So did Schrafft's.

Then, on a trip to California a few years back, I discovered Swensen's. I still remember the first cone, a scoop of coconut and a scoop of Swiss chocolate with almonds and oranges. Later, Swensen's came to New York, but there are thrills you can't recapture.

In Italian restaurants, I like spumoni (it has chocolate in it). I also like the vanilla-chocolate-strawberry brick ice cream that used to be a staple of children's birthday parties. I still eat around the chocolate, saving it for last.

Lately, I have a new habit. Baskin-Robbins' 31 Karat Bars.

They come in two flavors, Pralines 'N Cream, with a kind of butterscotch overcoat, and Jamoca Almond Fudge, sheathed in chocolate. Sometimes, I buy a six-pack of Jamoca Almond Fudge bars, eat two of them on my way home from work, and finish the rest before the 11 o'clock news. I know it's disgusting, but I don't care any more. And besides, it's a lot cheaper than whisky or cocaine.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so viewer discretion is required.