We All Scream for Ice Cream

Some memories start early and last forever. I love doing things that bring back good memories. My favorite thing that I do that takes me back to my childhood is the making and eating of homemade ice cream. My family and I make ice cream on special occasions such as family reunions and on my birthday that is in June.

I can hear the sounds now: Sounds of frantic children screaming (including myself), sounds of frustrated adults carrying on, sounds of people sucking the last drop out of their bowls and the annoying but pleasant sound of the ice cream freezers. The churning and turning sound of the freezers makes my belly turn for that scrumptious cream.

We had two ice cream freezers. One was electric. It was a red bucket with a silver container in the middle. We put ice around the container and then poured rock salt on top of the ice. The smell of the salt made my mouth and my eyes water because every time I tried to eat the salt saturated ice my mom would slap my hand. The salt made the ice stick together causing the machine to get hung up.

Never to fear because to the rescue I would go. I would shake it like a giant yahoo until it started back up. The other freezer was a hand-operated machine that was a wooden bucket with a container in the middle. We iced it down the same way as the other machine. It had a silver handle on it that we used to turn it. I was too little to turn it but when I tried I looked like I was paddling a monstrous row boat. It didn’t get stuck like the other freezer, but the harder the ice cream got the harder it was to turn.

The hardest part of all was the wait. I would do anything to try to get my mind off of the ice cream. I would swim, ride the four wheeler, ride my bike, and play in the sandbox, but it never worked. We would sit the freezers on the porch, so every time I went inside I would have to walk by them. After the extensive wait for the ice cream to get ready, we would sit down to eat. I would watch cautiously as my mom would lift the container out of the buckets. We ate out of little white plastic bowls and used clear plastic spoons. It always upset me when I ate because I always wanted to sit with the adults at the big blue picnic table. It never failed I always ended with my big brother and his friends at the plastic pumpkin orange fisher price table.

My mom always mixed up the ice cream. Peach and vanilla were usually the main flavors that we made. The ice cream was so soft it melted as soon as I would put it in my mouth. I could smell the vanilla before it evan touched my tongue. The vanilla had a smooth texture that reminded me of cream of wheat. The peach was the best because we put fresh peaches in the mix. The peach always was lumpy (because of the peaches). When I ate the peach ice cream, I would let the ice cream melt in my mouth then I would chew up the soft pieces of the peaches. My mom never asked us if we wanted more; she just gave it to us before we could ask for it.

When the sun went down and the ice cream was gone it was time to put the freezers up. It was sad to see the freezer go into the storage building, but not as sad as seeing the leftovers being fed to my dog.