There is a type of seaweed that is often used to give cheap foods a creamier taste, that upsets my stomach. Look for carrageenan or agar-agar as an ingredient and see if it helps to avoid those foods.
The most likely culprit would be a preservative, possibly sodium or potassium benzoate.
Some of my favorite flavors are burnt caramel, cardamom, a good quality chocolate, good strawberry, raspberry, or peach, or my very favorite, ginger. We make our own ginger ice cream, using both fresh ginger and candied ginger, with just a touch of lemon juice to brighten the flavor. Yum.
Some of the weirdest flavors I’ve had were in Japan. I had red bean ice cream (i hated it. Such an unpleasant mix of textures) and wasabi ice cream (worth trying once).
The worst ice creams I’ve had, other than maybe that red bean ice cream, had quality problems, rather than intrinsically bad flavors.
… which used to only be available at Babcock Hall on the Ag campus of the University of Wisconsin. Straight from UW cows.
I came here to vote for a flavor of theirs that I didn’t expect to like:
ORANGE CUSTARD CHOCOLATE CHIP.
Well, custard is richer, with less air and more milkfat than mere ice cream, so it’s really creamy, and the subtle orange is punctuated by flaked dark chocolate. Mmmmm…
Discovered it forty years ago, and I’ve been addicted ever since.
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Oh, the worst? Well, the kids and I didn’t have sufficiently mature palates to appreciate unsweetened Green Tea Ice Cream in Japan.
Update: I got Breyer’s Dulce De Leche a couple days ago. It’s okay, but I don’t think I’ll buy it again.
I don’t know if any ice cream includes Rice Krispy Squares, but it seems like an obvious mix to me, (unless they get soggy fast, which can’t be an insurmountable problem).
Now, I like Green Tea flavor, but I went into my first experience expecting savory instead of sweet, and that’s what I got. I do think you’ve got to be in the right mood for it. It’s a nice, light touch after a strongly-flavored meal.
@puzzlegal , the most amazing flavor gelato I ever had was Maple Ginger Snap. It was maple gelato with bits of fresh candied ginger, and bits of ginger snap cookies. It was amazing!
We have been enjoying pints from Marco recently. The Spicy PB Caramel is quite good–spiced with a more neutral heat like cayenne, I think, rather than something more vegetal, like jalapeño.
I’ve never had riso gelato anywhere but Florence. I like rice pudding and risotto, so the flavor and texture of it make me happy.
The most unusual flavor I’ve had recently is at a local wood-oven pizza place (the pizza and arancini are spectacular, but going on about that would be a hijack). They have a dessert that’s a bowl of black pepper ice cream (sweet cream with lots of ground pepper mixed in) served with a berry sauce and shredded fresh basil leaves. Sounds totally weird, but it was kind of revelatory. I would never have thought to combine those flavors.
I also like to mix high-quality plain tahini into almost any flavor for a flavor/texture boost.
The only truly bad ice cream is cheap stuff with high overrun that’s been handled badly in the cold chain. The texture is never right.
Not long ago, I was in a restaurant that had whiskey-flavored gelato. It was OK as a spoon-sized sample, but I don’t think I would want a bowl of it.
If a remember correctly I think the San Joaquin Asparagus Festival (formerly the Stockton Asparagus Festival) has had asparagus ice cream. They might be trying to one up Gilroy for weird ice cream flavors.
On a different note, I feel sorry for the guy who has to clean the port-a-potties at that festival.
That makes me think of the Felix Unger character on The Odd Couple TV series. One of his (thankfully rare) get-rich-quick schemes was broccoli-flavored bubble gum with opera star trading cards. Oscar Madison was not a fan of this idea.
The Stockton Asparagus festival and ice cream sounds similar.
I have attended this event in years now long past:
Which is as eccentric as you might imagine. I recall playing mini golf on an improvised playing field in the city park using large horseradish fragments as ill-shaped golf balls. If you hit your “ball” too hard, now you have several smaller balls and can’t advance to the next tee until they’ve all have been driven into the current hole.
One shan’t mention the horseradish ice cream, horseradish danish pastries, nor the horseradish martinis. One simply shan’t. 
Don’t forget to attend the root toss. Or the coronation of the Horseradish Queen.
While Ben and Jerrys ice cream base is decent , whoever invents their “flavours” needs a spell in a gastronomic reeducation gulag, “Vanilla with random candy and stuff and a cutesy name “ is NOT an acceptable flavour.
Here in the london, ice cream has improved in recent years, But come on gelateria guys and girls: if you are offering 4+ flavours of sorbet you need to offer orange and at least one berry. Oh and i know you get the mango out of a tin.
Agree with upthread that vanilla is the test of an ice cream makers quality.
Chocolate ice cream all tastes the same.
Even when i make it.
I want to taste a top ice cream mix put thru a carpigiani.
Ice cream is also a test of a restaurant: if you can’t even be bothered to buy in a decent ice cream, you suck. And can join B&J in the gulag.
Fine dining : bring back the bombe
bombe surprise?
As kids, we used to play softball with grapefruit from the tree in the backyard. It was a prolific tree, and if one got smashed, there was always a replacement.
I’ve had a craving for B&J’s Chunky Monkey lately. The banana ice cream tastes real (artifical banana flavoring is vile). And I really love the walnuts. But I hate that the chocolate pieces are too big. They get too hard in the frozen ice cream and are hard to bite through. I wish they either use shaved pieces or much smaller bits. I don’t like to do that much chewing when I’m eating ice cream.
I like Ben and Jerry’s ice cream, but I do wish they would offer more “smooth” varieties besides the standard vanilla/chocolate/strawberry, rather than all the “chunky” flavors they’re offering now. White Russian was my favorite flavor back in the 1990s. And looking through their flavor graveyard, they used to offer more fruit flavors, like Georgia Peach, Wild Maine Blueberry, and Sugar Plum. Those sound pretty interesting and I wish they’d bring back flavors like that.
And while not a B&J’s flavor, the mention of White Russian reminded me of a flavor I had at some ice cream shop while on a family vacation in Maine as a teenager called KGB – Kahlua, Grand Mariner, and Bailey’s, which was pretty good.
Agreed 100%.
I beg to differ. It all tastes the same to you, but not to me. I love the deep, dark flavors that Stonyfield Farms and Trader Joe’s offers. I also once had a good German chocolate flavor, but I forget the brand. Cheap chocolate all tastes the same.
You can have my Phish Food when you pry it from my cold, sticky fingers…
The smoothest ice cream I’ve ever had is Hagen-Dasz (sp?) Coffee. The coffee flavor is subtle, and the experience is smoooooth…