Too Busy to Make Ice Cream











Who knows when it started, probably many generations ago. Home made, hand cranked ice cream at Granny and Papa’s (pronounced Paw Paw) was the ultimate treat ever. Today we go to the freezer and pull out a quart of store-bought ice cream and have a bowl. It is like fast food, quick and easy, but not the same. Ice cream at Granny’s was a social event that lasted for hours and today many years later it exists as a sweet memory of my childhood. Granny, with help from some of the girls or women would mix up the ingredients from memory. She never used a recipe as far as I can remember. Just so the tradition can continue we do have the recipe:

Ice cream recipe from Myrtle Lindsey Hamberlin
Gallons
1 1½ Ingredient
4 6 eggs
1 1½ can of canned milk
1 1/3 2½ minimum cups of sugar
1 2/3 2½ maximum cups of sugar
2/3 1 table spoons of real vanilla
4 5 bananas or 1 box of other fruit
½ ½ cup extra sugar for sour fruit

Fill the remainder of the container with whole milk.
If you knew Granny, you know she never used anything but the best ingredients. This was not one percent or two percent milk, but whole milk straight from the cow with about two cups of cream at the top unless you shook it up. To make it even richer, she would scoop the cream from the top of another gallon or two and add to the mix. Sometimes it was plain vanilla, but usually there was some type of fresh fruit such as bananas, peaches, or strawberries. It was not unusual to make several freezers, depending on how much extra milk was available.

I liked helping Papa because he did the “man’s” job. We drove seven miles to Gilmer in the black ‘49 Chevy. I am not sure what color it was initially, but Papa had repainted the car for some reason with a can of black paint and a paintbrush. You could tell because the brush strokes were obvious (he was really good at fixing anything with paint and bailing wire). We would go to the Gilmer Ice house, the only place in town to buy ice. It came in large blocks about a foot square. We would get a few blocks of ice and put them in the trunk of the car in an old gunnysack, or toe sack as we use to call them. They were recycled feed sacks about two feet by three feet and made of rough burlap as I recall. I don’t remember what we talked about on the way to town and back. Probably not much and that was OK. Papa was a man of few words.

Ice cream was always made on the concrete driveway in the back of the house right in front of the garage. Papa would put the blocks of ice in the gunny sack or toe sack as some called them and crush it with the side or back of an ax. We would help add the crushed ice and salt to the freezer as someone, usually Papa, turned the crank. Once there was enough ice in the freezer we would put one of the gunny sacks on top and we would take turns sitting on it to help keep it steady. The freezer held two gallons of ice cream and stood about two feet off the ground. Papa would give each of us a chance to turn the handle or crank until we tired. It wouldn’t take long and the ice cream would start to get hard and only Papa or one of the other adults could turn it once it got hard.

Someone would bring out the bowls and spoons for everyone and scoop out the heavenly treat. The two gallons wouldn’t last long and Granny would have another batch mixed up, ready for freezing by the time it was gone. We would eat all the ice cream we could hold while sitting around on the driveway or the back lawn. There always seemed to be lots of cousins and other relatives or neighbors there for the treat. I guess they could sense that it was time for ice cream and come by for a visit just at the right time. If there wasn’t enough ice cream, Granny would mix up another batch and we would freeze more until everyone was satisfied.

Remember, this took place in Kelsey, Texas where it gets hot in the summer. It was a social event where the adults would sit around in the cool of the evening, eating ice cream and talking while we played fun games such as hide and seek, tag, or Annie over. You would have thought you were in heaven surrounded by all the people you love and all the ice cream you could eat. It was a carefree time of my life. Everybody seemed to love everybody and you never wanted the evening to end.

Now it seems everyone is too busy to make ice cream. When do we take time as families to just sit around making and eating ice cream and talking as the sun goes down? I say if you are too busy to make homemade ice cream, you are too busy for heaven because it was a bit of heaven on earth.