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[OM] OT: Culinary Rant

Subject: [OM] OT: Culinary Rant
From: Chris Trask <christrask@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 20 Jan 2015 08:19:42 -0700 (GMT-07:00)
     While participating in our Tempe to Tucson bike journey this past weekend, 
I had an encounter with American culture that still has me in disbelief.  We 
had finished repairing the homeless fellows bike at the Picacho Peak rest stop, 
and I felt a need for chocolate ice cream.  So, I wandered into the Dairy Queen 
and stood in line for what seemed to be an eternity, thinking of nothing but 
enjoying cold, smooth chocolate ice cream.  It finally came my turn, and I 
asked for a chocolate ice cream cone.

"You want a cone dipped in chocolate?"

"No, I want a cone of chocolate ice cream."

"You mean an ice cream cone dipped in chocolate?"

"No, I want a cone of chocolate ice cream, NOT a cone of ice cream dipped in 
chocolate."

"We don't have chocolate ice cream."

     I left, my mind reeling in a culinary rant that reached back through the 
centuries.

     When the Spanish encountered the Aztecs in the 16th century, they noticed 
that the royalty had a beverage that consisted of cocoa and green chilis.  
Europeans at this point were on the verge of a major change in food.  Potatoes, 
tomatoes, citrus, and other food items were unknown in Europe, but were soon to 
be found everywhere.  Among them was cocoa.  It took almost a century before 
the Europeans took basic cocoa and devised chocolate.  It became the rage 
amongst the aristocracies.  

     In the second world war, American soldiers were quickly associated with 
Hershey bars, as they were widely handed out to children everywhere as the 3rd 
US Army and other units advanced through France and Germany.  It became 
established as a form of diplomacy, the chocolate being a valuable source of 
relief for thousands who were impoverished by the war.

     During the Berlin Wall crisis in the early 1960s, anything and everything 
that could fly was carrying cargo into Berlin.  Amongst those items were sacks 
of small packages attached to small, crude parachutes.  When on approach to 
Templehoff and other airfields, aircrews would open the sacks and empty them 
through the rear doors, and these small packages would float to the ground 
where they were eagerly snapped up by children.  Among the items in those 
packages were Hershey bars.  I was living beneath all of that airlift in 
France, and I may have made some of those packages as a school exercise where 
we assembled them one at a time with soap, toothpaste, and numerous other 
items.  Despite their small size and seemingly small value, they brought relief 
to children and others who were being held prisoners at the height of the Cold 
War.  Chocolate was there.

     So here I am, in a daze as I exit America's first and foremost ice cream 
franchise, empty-handed because Dairy Queen does not have chocolate ice cream.  
And I'm just a scant couple of hundred miles north of Mexico, where it all 
began a mere six centuries ago.  

     It's downright un-American.  They probably have chocolate ice cream in 
North Korea.

     The next day I encountered an independent espresso shop at our rest stop 
at Casa Grande.  Espresso, coffee, and 12 flavours of Dreyer's ice cream.  
Three of those were chocolate.  I could hardly wait as the owner scooped out 
two generous balls of simple chocolate ice cream.  I savoured every spoonful, 
and my faith in America was restored by way of an independent shop owner.

     Life is good.


Chris

When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro 
     - Hunter S. Thompson
-- 
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