On Fri 09 Sep 2005 09:05:52a, sueb wrote in rec.food.cooking:

>
> Wayne Boatwright wrote:
>> On Thu 08 Sep 2005 07:37:48p, wrote in rec.food.cooking:
>>
>> > Hi, I'm sure this topic has been addressed in one form or another on
>> > the net. I've done some searching and found many threads about ice
>> > cream.
>>
>> Yep, you're right. Ice cream has been discussed to death here, but
>> then, so has everything else. :-) We just keep doing it.
>>
>> > The question I pose is pretty specific (in my mind) though. Does
>> > anyone else remember the vanilla ice cream that little old ladies
>> > made at church functions / social events? I can envision a certain
>> > taste, a certain texture that I still long for to this day. It's
>> > been at least 15 years since I had such an ice cream.
>>
> ........ deleted stuff
>> > I'm using a simple vanilla recipe from a Ben and Jerry's recipe book.
>> > Heavy whipping cream, milk, vanilla, sugar, eggs. Very
>> > straightforward, but it comes nowhere near the taste I'm looking for.
>>
>> A very good recipe, but most likely very wrong. It's highly doubtful
>> that the ice cream you remember had any whipping cream in it, and very
>> possibly no eggs. One reason was economics, as canned milk products
>> were less expensive. Another is that many recipes including eggs
>> required that they be cooked into a custard with milk - time consuming.
>>
>> More likely, those ice creams made for church socials were made with
>> evaporated milk, regular whole milk, sugar, and vanilla. Also, very
>> possibly, sweetened condensed milk. Remember, this wasn't gourmet ice
>> cream, although it tasted pretty darned good to most folks.
>
> Actually Wayne, I bet you are 180 degrees wrong. It's equally likely
> that the church social ice cream was made with better ingredients than
> he/she tried, because they were fresher. When my grandmother made ice
> cream, she used fresh eggs (from her hens), and fresh milk and cream
> (from her cows).

I think we're talking about two different things here. What my
grandmother made at would have been like what your grandmother made at
home. What they made at the church was usually made to make a profit as
well as offer some entertainment.

> The only thing they used from cans were things they put into cans. And
> cooking a custard was something done regularly, not thought of as
> particularly onerous or time consuming. People used to expect to have
> to take time cooking.

Evaporated and condensed milk was used by many people in the early part of
the 20th century, not just today. If you look at old cookbooks, ice cream
recipes frequently call for both.

>
> I suggest getting a hand cranked ice cream machine and continuing to
> experiment. One thing that always gives me the "old timey" feel is the
> slight taste of the rock salt in the finished product, as horrible as
> that sounds.
>
> Susan B.
>
>



--
Wayne Boatwright *¿*
____________________________________________

Give me a smart idiot over a stupid genius any day.
Sam Goldwyn, 1882-1974