Now, I would never have thought about those as possible ice cream flavors at all!
I was in Gilroy, CA a couple of summers ago, and the city bills itself as “The Garlic Capital of the World.” My mother insisted we go there, since she loves tghe stuff. We tried some of thier garlic ice cream, and it was extremely garlicky.
Here in Vancouver, we have two gelato places, which have a wide variety of flavors. When I’ve been there, these are some of the more odd flavors I’ve seen:
[ul]
[li]garlic[/li][li]curry[/li][li]wildberry with jalapeno (I tried it, and it was very good; then again, I like spicy food)[/li][li]aged balsamic vinegar (my brother pointed this one out to me)[/li][li]dill pickle[/li][li]durian (the only one with a lid on it all the time, for reasons of smell)[/li][li]I’m sure there are more, but I can’t remember them quite at the moment.[/li][/ul]
I heard of some guy who was selling spaghetti-flavored ice cream, but I’m not sure where he was located. Still, I wouldn’t eat that.
So have you heard of any other weird ice cream flavors? Or eaten them? Tell your stories!
While living in Japan in 1986 or '87, I tried Green Tea Ice Cream once. It tasted like frozen Milk of Magnesia. Perhaps I had the wrong cultural attitude, but I found it awful and inedible. Like eating chalk.
(I should add that I love Asian food in general, and this was one of the few culinary experiences I disliked. Barbecued sparrow? Bring it on. But that ice cream was awful.)
I once read an interview with a woman who worked as a taster for an ice cream manufacturer in the UK. Apparently they’re willing to try anything to see if it might be a hit. The one flavour I do recall was smoked salmon.
If you want to see the original Mainichi article, scroll down a bit on their front page.
A variety show was doing a program on Hamamatsu (where the best Unagi eels are raised on farms) a few weeks ago, and the hosts tried the eel ice cream (it’s sold by one (and only one) of the eel farm/restaurants, btw). They also thought it was pretty weird and weren’t too thrilled about the taste.
Barbecued eel and eel cookies, otoh, are exquisite.
If you go to an Indian grocery store, you can find ice cream that has been flower-flavored (Rose, for instance). It seems odd, but nowhere near as odd as those in the OP. (And I’ve eaten flower-flavored candy, like C. Howard’s violet mints and gum).
I heard that they once made a single gallon of ketchup ice cream for a manager who really liked ketchup. It was done as a joke, and no one wanted to eat it.
Last night, at Baskin-Robbins, I saw that the Flavor of the Month was America’s Birthday Cake. This had white-cake flavored ice cream mixed with strawberry ice cream and blue cream frosting. I did not have the necessary, ah, curiosity to try it and settled for peanut-butter-and-chocolate and pralines n’ cream instead.
I have tried green tea ice cream, but didn’t think it was so odd as to be included in my OP. After all, I am Chinese. (and we Chinese eat some pretty weird things) Of course, it might sound odd to other Dopers, and I realize that. But every time I’ve had green tea ice cream, it’s been good, so maybe it’s just me. :shrug:
As for licorice ice cream, I once saw some blue licorice ice cream many years ago. (this would have been when my brother was about five or so, making it at least fifteen years ago) I never tried it, but it was in one of those 4L (about a gallon, I think) tubs. A starter size of it (say, 500 mL) I could understand, but 4L? Is there anybody out there who will happily down 4L of the stuff? (not in one sitting, of course) Probably yes.
I’d never heard of it (green tea) before i moved to SF. Here there are ice cream stores that sell 40 flavors, all ones that would freak out the good people still living back home in Illinois. I’ll get around to trying some of those stores eventually, its usually not hot enough here for me to want ice cream (lousy fog!!).
I had an aunt in the Peace Corps in Somalia who wrote to us that she had eaten soy nut ice cream. She seemed to think it was good. I’ve always been curious about what it actually tasted like.
I’ve had Stout Beer Ice Cream. It’s OK, but nothing special. A small Creamery here in the states, MicroBatch, makes limited runs of any number of odd-ball flavors. Every year they make a run of some bizzare flavor for April Fool’s Day. One year, it was Creamed Corn Ice Cream. They sold every pint, too…
I’m waiting for Grean Bean Ice Cream, but I think perhaps the worst possible flavor would be Anchovy Ice Cream.
(and we Chinese eat some pretty weird things) Of course, it might sound odd to other Dopers, and I realize that. But every time I’ve had green tea ice cream, it’s been good, so maybe it’s just me. :shrug: