NATIONAL8 (Spotlight Weekly]

Scoops Of Solace

Summer is here and so is the frenzy for ice cream among the people of Kathmandu. The ice cream market is heating up as new brands and flavors seek their share of the season.

By AKSHAY SHARMA

Harihar Gupta, a native of Siraha district in the eastern terai, wheels his ice cream cart around Kathmandu to earn a living. "I have about 100 customer on an average hot day. But in colder times, not many buyers are around."

The ice cream scene has change. In recent years, there has been a surge in colors, flavors, parlors and brand names. "Names like Baskin Robbins, Move ‘n’ Pixs were not common before. The street vendors were doing brisk business," says 45-year-old Susmita Dhakal.

The ice cream sales graph rises and falls with the mercury. But since ice cream has become a fashionable component of the changing social trends of urban Kathmandu, the season is not the only selling point.

A dairy factory : Catering to the consumers

"My employer has 10 other vendors," Harihar says. "People usually prefer to have their ice cream in cups. The others go for cones," he says. "The traditional ice cream sticks are not in demand these days."

Mention of those sticks is enough to turn Susmita nostalgic. "Ice cream then meant a stick with reddish colored and enticingly flavoured things which vendors used to sell for 5 paisa," she recalls. "I haven’t had one of those in a long time."

To some, ice cream brings a welcome respite from the pressures of modern times. "In these times, when more and more people are stressed out and are consumed by the difficulties of living in a world where nothing is certain and nothing is safe, ice cream provides the escape," 19-year-old Anu Chettri says. "When that cold, sweet, refreshing bit of ice cream melts in your mouth, all your concerns melt away with it."

Teenager Gaurav Thakuri is thrilled by the therapeutic value of ice cream. "Life, for one brief moment, is sweet, tranquil, and all is right with the world. Now ice cream is not a religion, nor is it a substitute for religion. Ice cream has nothing to do with faith. But it is a strong medicine. It can change your priorities and transform your life."

"I have always believed that a good ice cream wants to be; a good ice cream freezer allows it to happen. I also believe that ice cream freezers hold inherited family memories of summer afternoons and childhood delights. Old ice cream freezers always evoke deep memories of past generations."

"Has anyone ever thought about the history of ice cream? Benjamin Franklin and Thomas Jefferson enjoyed scoops of them," asks Rajesh Shrestha, who works at the Radisson Hotel’s bakery.

Experts suggest that ice cream as we know it today probably came into existence in the middle of the 17th century when a chef employed by Charles I of England developed a technique of shaking flavored cream in a dish of ice. It became so popular that the king actually continued to keep the formula a "royal Secret". Slowly, the secret got out and many ice cream parlors began to spring up around Europe in the early 1800s.

However, it was in the United States where its manufacture and popularity soared. In fact, we know that George Washington purchased a cream machine for making ice and spent the unheard of sum of $200 making ice cream all summer!

"It was not until 1846, however, that a woman named Nancy Johnson, in New York, made life easier for all of us ice cream lovers by inventing a crude, but easy-to-use hand crank ice cream maker. Remarkably, she never patented the device!" said Uzwal Bhattacharya who used to work the Nepal Dairy.

A growing number of people also tend to make ice cream at home, because most middle-class families can afford a refrigerator, says a sociologist. The domestication of ice cream in Nepal has led to experiments of all sorts. But eating out has not lost its appeal.

"Couples are the main customers at our place," says Rajendra Neupane, who works at the Royal Alina's Bakery in Jawalakhel. "Our ice cream sales have gone up because people take out family packs. I have seen kids badgering their parents into buying ice cream."

He adds: "The ice cream parlors are usually the bigger sellers, because on-the-spot display boosts sales. Places like ours suffer because we have do not get the advantage of displaying more than one brand."

"Nepal Dairy seems to be leading in the ice cream competition," Neupane adds. But that, obviously, is not a done deal. The heat is on for consumers and competitors alike.

The Old-fashioned Way of Making Ice Cream

You can pack your cream for hardening right in your freezer by scraping it back into the cream can. Place a sheet of waxed paper across the top of the can, press the can cover down over waxed paper and plug the hole in the cover with either a cork stopper or tape. Drain off water, repack the freezer with five parts of ice and 1 part salt until entire can is covered with ice and salt mixture. Next, cover with burlap bag or some suitable material for insulation. Then let it stand until frozen hard.

People that have discovered in the last 140 years ways of making home-made ice cream so special.

Here are some helpful suggestions:

1. Protect all working surfaces with newspaper. Salt is corrosive. Be careful not to kill valuable backyard grass when making ice cream outdoors in the good old summer time.

2. Use rubber gloves to protect hands from cold and salt .

3. Do not use this freezer for commercial purposes.

4. Use a glass or plastic measuring cup for rock salt, since salt pits metals.

5. Use wooden spoon for stirring and repacking ice cream to retard melting (wood does not conduct heat).

6. It is best to make a cooked recipe the night before so it has plenty of time to chill.

7. Make sure your wooden scraper blades are 1/8 inches away from the metal dasher. These screws are set at the factory, and should be loose, but never more than 1/8 inches or the end result may be freezing around the can while the middle remains liquid.

8. Freezing should not be too slow or too fast. A greater amount of salt will melt the ice faster, causing the ice cream to freeze faster. A too rapid freezing time does not allow for sufficient agitation and produces a course texture. An extended period of freezing causes a spongy' buttery texture.

9. You lose the delectable taste and good texture of home-made ice cream if it is stored too long. It can be kept up to a month if properly packaged for freezing.

10. The salt used in making home-made ice cream is rods salt. It is a course salt and should be used instead of regular table salt.

11. You can hasten the hardening process by placing the entire can containing the ice cream mix (after initial churning) in the freezer unit of your refrigerator.

12. To your vanilla-based mixtures, consider adding such flavor pick-ups as crumbled cookies or candies, granola, instant coffee mixes, small chocolate bits or even dabs of jams, jellies and peanut butter.

13. Fold in ingredients such as fresh or thawed frozen fruit slices about 20 minutes after removing the dasher from the churned ice cream mixture.

14. Try filling pre-cooked pie shells with ice cream before final hardening or orange and lemon shells with orange and lemon sherbets. Fill ice cream puff shells with ice cream and top off with sauce.

15. Fill parfait glasses with vanilla ice cream, add green crème-de-menthe and top with whipped cream. Just use your imagination. There are endless pleasures in store for you with the aid of your freezer.

Helpful Hints On Preparing Ice Cream

By Uzwal Bhattacharya

Making Your First Batch

First, have all your ingredients chilling in the refrigerator.

Second, prepare your ice by filling a cloth bag and breaking it into coarse pieces using a mallet or hammer.

Third, place your stainless steel cream can into the wooden tub so that it rests easily on the metal tub center in the bottom of the tub. Insert your dasher in the can making sure that the protrusion on the bottom of the cream can fits into the socket of the dasher.

Fourth, pour your recipe into the cream can, never filling the can more than half full. Assemble the can cover and turn the dasher stem with your fingers until it turns freely.

Fifth, place the gear-frame into position by grasping the gear-frame and engage the dasher stem into the socket of the gear-frame. If you have a hand crank freezer, slide the cranking end into the tub ear. The opposite end of the gear-frame fits into the tub latch. Gently push the thumb latch down until the gear-frame is snug. If you own an electric unit, be sure to hold the unit with the label facing you. Insert the right side of the unit into the steel ear and the left side (marked latch end) fits into the latch, gently push the thumb latch down until unit is secure.

Finally, it is time to fill the wooden tub with ice. Fill your tub to the top of the can with ice. Crank or run your motor for about 2 minutes so that the can chills evenly. Add cups of rock salt to the top of the ice. As the ice melts down 2 to inches, add more ice and 2 more cups of salt. The amount of ice and rock salt you use will vary according to the ambient air temperature. Do not increase your salt usage until you have churned the freezer for 10 minutes. After 10 minutes you should notice the cream becoming firmer At this point, if too much salt is used the result will be excessive freezing to the extent that a crust of frozen cream will fore, on the inside edge of the can while the middle will remain liquid. If this occurs, allow the brine to warm up and thereafter decrease the amount of salt added when you add ice

NOTE: Occasionally, your dasher blade screws may loosen allowing the blades to move more than 1/8" from the dasher. Simply screw the blades down to 1/8" and resume freezing.

Discontinue Churning

When your ice cream mix has been churned sufficiently (usually about 20-25 minutes and becomes the consistency of soft ice cream, it is ready for packing. The time can best be determined when it becomes difficult to turn the crank handle, or the motor begins to sound like it is really straining. Manually unplug your motor unit when you hear it straining, further churning will not improve the quality of the ice cream. Now remove the can cover. Take the dasher out and scrape off excess ice cream with a wooden spoon. Your ice cream is now ready to eat and enjoy!