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Thus it is that the best ice cream in the world, as anyone who has tried it will argue, is sold by McConnell's, in California, which somehow manages to saturate its product with 22% butterfat, currently a North American record. By Gerber's of Atlanta. By Graeter's of Cincinnati. By Bud's of San Francisco. By Vivoli's of Berkeley. By (whisper its name) Bailey's of Boston, which takes no notice of the new superpremium trend because it has been serving only the best since 1873, thank you very much, and which serves its sundaes in silver-plated bowls resting on silver-plated salvers. In New York City, you get Häagen-Dazs at Elaine's, and Sedutto's at the Four Seasons and "21." Germaine's in Washington, D.C., serves a litchi-nut ice cream made specially by Bob's Famous; Lockeober's in Boston serves ice cream specially made by Bailey's. Chasen's, Scandia and Perino's in Los Angeles haughtily refuse to divulge their ice-cream brands.
Forget all this, and resolve the next time you are in Texas to obtain the best ice cream in the world, which is made by the Blue Bell Creameries of Washington County, between Austin and Houston. Texans admit that this is true. President Ed Kruse says, "We don't regard our ice cream as gourmet as such but rather as just a damn good product." He starts telling a story about a lady from Anderson, Texas, who moved to the wilds of California and had a friend regularly ship her Blue Bell's damn good product by commercial airliner. Have we heard this story before? Only once, at each of the best ice-cream shops in the world. Are some of these people turning up the air pump ever so slightly on the truth? Of course not; it is all true; the faltering U.S. airline industry would be bankrupt if it were not for thousands of gluttonous eccentrics, exiled from their home towns, freighting the world's best ice cream back and forth.
And now the writer is going to excuse himself. Ben & Jerry's, in Vermont, is only 2½ hours away. Steve's new place in Northampton, Mass., may be a little nearer, although there is traffic to consider. Bob's Famous in Washington is not out of the question, a mere ten hours of maniacal driving in the beckoning distance. Decisions, decisions. Shallow thinkers may feel that a householder who must budget his sanity—so much for taxes, so much for education, etc.—should not fritter it away by brooding about a children's dessert. They are wrong. What is clear is that at this stage in the decline of the West, instinct tells us that we have a right to live in the golden age of something. Why should that something be acid rain or rocket launchers? Why not—an Oreo-mint cone, please, with a scoop of cantaloupe, and jimmies—do our wistful dreaming about one of civilization's benign marvels, ice cream? —By John Skow.
Reported by Liz Ryan/Boston and Janice C. Simpson/New York, with other U.S. bureaus