I don’t buy vanilla and generally don’t eat it unless it comes on a pre-made other thing, like an ice cream sandwich or ice cream cake. If I had to get vanilla, I’d probably get B&J because I do love them. Chubby Hubby is one of the best things ever (malt flavored ice cream with chocolate-covered, peanut butter filled pretzels and some fudge swirls… all that salt and chocolate in perfect balance). I have Choc Fudge Brownie in my freezer at all times in the perfect single serving size (Hoodsie-sized, for my NE people).
I think if I didn’t like B&J the state of VT would track me down and revoke my HS diploma and somehow my driver’s license.
I said no. When I buy B&J it’s usually Phish Food or Cherry Garcia. For Haagen Dazs it’s the Spirits Collection flavours, especially the rum and the bourbon. On the other hand, plain vanilla ice cream (Breyers, Blue Bunny, store brand, whatever) is definitely high on the list of comfort foods.
Can’t get B&J here. But vanilla is the only ice-cream flavour I ever buy in any ice-cream. My wife and kids go for other flavours, me, I like vanilla (preferably real)
I was in Safeway yesterday so I checked, and could not find B&J vanilla. (Although the pints were on a two-for-six-dollars sale, so I was tempted. But I didn’t buy it. I did buy a few of the little cups of chocolate fudge brownie, which make portion control easier.) And checking the website just now, they list vanilla but not chocolate and not strawberry. So only one of the “traditional” three flavors.
I buy Ben & Jerry’s when it’s on sale. A few weeks ago it was buy one get one free, so I grabbed some. I grabbed two vanilla, two chocolate brownie, and two strawberry cheesecake. I never buy the weird stuff, though. I normally buy the store brands or Breyers pints when on sale. Usually some kind of chocolate peanut butter or regular chocolate or vanilla.
Ben & Jerry’s is one of several “superpremium” ice cream brands. I think they’redefined as having higher butterfat content than regular ice cream and less air mixed in, so they’re denser. That can make them hard to scoop; I’ve broken spoons trying to cut into the ice cream so long ago I bought a good quality ice cream scoop.
Also superpremium ice creams often have higher quality mix-ins, like the chocolate bits in New York Super Fudge Chunk.
Thank you for the recommendation. We obviously have similar tastes in vanilla ice cream since I, too, deeply regret the decline of Breyers Vanilla. I’ll try that next time I want vanilla ice cream.
I’m in the “I usually buy vanilla to put a scoop on my blueberry pie or chocolate cake” camp. But vanilla ice cream is a nice flavor.
We were addicted to the strawberry cheesecake one for a while. One of our previous dachshunds would barf up the bite we gave him every time. He never barfed up any other ice cream we ate.
We’re trying to be much better with our current doxie’s diet, so he gets no ice cream.
I buy vanilla ice cream on occasion. I don’t eat ice cream often, but when I do, vanilla is certain an option I consider.
Good vanilla ice cream isn’t just bland, unflavored ice cream. Vanilla is a flavor, just as much as pistachio or strawberry or anything else. So it’s worth picking it up once in a while.
By the way, plain old Breyer’s vanilla used to be quite good, although it seems to have gone downhill in recent years. It’s still not terrible. But not what it once was.
And if I’m gettng Ben & Jerry, I really like Cherry Garcia, which is vanilla-based.
BTW, if you ever wondered why B&J ice cream always seems to involve big chunks, this is what the company website says, “Co-founder Ben Cohen has no sense of smell and very little sense of taste. So when he was developing our earliest ice cream flavors, he loved the texture of the big chunks. Fans loved it too, and it’s since become our signature style.”
That’s my go-to Ben & Jerry flavor, too. That, Haagen Daaz Chocolate chocolate chip, and a slightly fluffier vanilla to go with other desserts are probably my three most common ice cream purchases.
Even “bland, unflavored ice cream” isn’t really all that bland. Thomas Sweet’s in Princeton, NJ has been selling “Sweet Cream” ice cream (with no vanilla or other flavors) for decades.
And I wrote about the adulteration of Breyer’s vanilla by various added gums earlier in the thread. I blame this for the decline in quality. The Breyer’s website, as I noted, claims that they’re bringing back the gum-less, additive-less version, but I haven’t seen it in stores yet.
We’d only seen our kid once in the last two years. But got a call yesterday, and he was driving a truck through the midwest and said “I gotta get some Culver’s, so if there’s one right off the freeway…” So we drove an hour, and all bonded over frozen custard!
(Their flavor of the day was Midnight Madness… dark chocolate with toffee pieces. But the wife still prefers vanilla… it IS good…)
