Ice pops and granitas refresh during dog days of summer
Few foods satisfy one's thirst and hunger on a sizzlingly hot day as much as a Popsicle, shave ice or other frozen treat made not of custard, as ice cream is, but of fruit, sugar and water. The brightness on the palate is almost as refreshing as falling facedown into a tub of crushed ice.
True shave ice is hard to find outside of Hawaii, but ice pops, sorbets and similar frozen treats are readily available in supermarkets, corner shops and local farmers markets.
Ian Corbett of Joypop, for example, recently began offering ice pops from a freezer attached to his bicycle at the Sebastopol Farmers Market on Sundays and at Sebastopol's Peacetown concerts at Ives Park on Wednesday evenings.
His treats, sweetened with coconut milk or agave nectar, include such ingredients as Spirulina and are 100 percent vegan.
A craving is hard to satisfy with just a day or two's availability each week. You can learn to make frozen confections at home; some, such as granita and ice pops are easy, while others, such as sorbet and shave ice, require special equipment.
Frozen Art of Santa Rosa is a source of both ice-cold deliciousness and inspiration. The little shop, located in Roseland at 500 Sebastopol Road, is open daily and offers nearly three dozen frozen pops, 20 of which contain no dairy and another 11 or so that are based on cream. Some, like pineapple chile, are spicy and others, such as mango, are rich and luscious.
All the choices can seem overwhelming, but proprietor Jorge Alcazar is quick to make suggestions about what to enjoy during hot weather.
“In the summer, I prefer cool flavors,” Alcazar said when asked about his seasonal favorites.
“I like watermelon, honeydew melon with mint, cantaloupe and cucumber spiked with Tajin,” he continued. (Tajin is a commercial spice blend from Mexico.)
There is a physiological reason not to indulge in cream-based desserts when temperatures soar. We flock to ice cream shops during hot weather - Screaming Mimi's in Sebastopol often has a line out the door on summer nights - but ices are more refreshing, in part because they don't kick our metabolism into high gear.
Ice cream is frozen custard, with eggs and cream, half-and-half or milk, creating a delicious but fairly high-calorie treat, which causes our metabolism to gear up, generating heat as it does its work. Ice cream will warm you in the winter, but its cooling effect in the summer is short-lived.
The same can be said of all frozen and even cold indulgences, including those ubiquitous summer quaffers, lemonade, iced tea and iced coffee. If you really want to cool off, drink hot tea, something Asian and Middle Eastern cultures understand, because it makes you sweat, which in turn cools you.
But it's hard to crave a hot cuppa when you feel like jumping into an ice machine. When the thermometer is pushing three figures, we want something cold, and if we can make it at home, all the better.
When asked if he had suggestions for home cooks, Alcazar emphasized the importance of using top-quality ingredients, including fruit in its own true season.
He also offered some invaluable pointers on creating the right texture with sweeteners and the size of the fruit chunks.
“Always add sugar or another sweetener,” he emphasized, explaining that it will bring up the fruit's color, encourage flavors to blossom and create a pleasing texture.
“Sweeteners don't freeze as solid as water or juice,” he explained, “and it makes a pop softer, so that it isn't like biting into an ice cube.”
He uses whole fruit, not just juice, and leaves it a bit chunky. Not big chunks, he emphasized, but smaller ones. For watermelon, he uses the entire fruit and pulses it in a food processor, stopping short of liquefying it.
Be sure, he added, to make the mixture sweeter than you think you want, as once frozen, our perception of sweetness and other flavors diminishes.
Popsicles or ice pops
If it's fruity, frozen and on a stick, most of us call it a Popsicle. But if it isn't made by Unilever, an international group of companies that also produces Best Foods mayonnaise, that's not what it is. It is an ice pop, the generic term.
Unilever's trademarks for frozen treats include Creamsicle, Fudgsicle and Yosicle, in addition to Popsicle. These confections are ubiquitous, carried in virtually every supermarket in the country. More than 2 billion are sold each year.
Even though Popsicle is a brand, its use is as common as Kleenex - also a brand; the generic term is facial tissue - it's infringed upon all the time by retails shops, equipment manufacturers, writers and bloggers. But there are few consequences, so unless you plan on going head to head with a multinational corporation, call your ice pops whatever you like.
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