Comments on: I Was The Ice Cream Terrorist

By: David

David — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:42:45 +0000

It’s funny because it’s true.

By: David

David — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 21:42:23 +0000

Yup, Gus got the idea from McGee.

Did you work at Toscanini’s?

By: Kurt

Kurt — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 17:22:53 +0000

This is your best blog post yet.

By: lizzit

lizzit — Tue, 02 Feb 2010 06:41:22 +0000

Yep, it’s the right tempurature. He should have started the sentance with, “At Tosci’s…”. That’s how Tosci’s gets it’s ice cream soooo creamy, by using such unusually low tempuratures. The extra low temp makes the ice crystals much smaller, making a smoother ice cream. I think the creator of Tosci’s technique got the idea from On Food and Cooking by Harold McGee, but it’s possible he came up with it independantly. There’s lots of reasons why Tosci’s is perhaps the best ice cream in the world, and that’s one of ‘em.

Gus, you rock!

By: Devon

Devon — Mon, 01 Feb 2010 20:06:46 +0000

This story is priceless.

By: David

David — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:43:50 +0000

I have a vague memory of telling you the story.

I’m posting these stories as I remember them, because I’m getting old.

By: Terra

Terra — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 20:30:18 +0000

This is one of my favorite stories ever, the sort of thing I like to tell my MIT-lifer co-workers when I’m trying to impress them with tales of my weird friends. To be honest, I’m glad you posted this, because I was having a hard time remembering to whom this had happened. (What a drag it is getting old…)

By: David

David — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:48:34 +0000

Given those three choices, I’d stick with Brigham’s. When you were a kid, they still had stores with soda fountains.

I did not confuse the freezer temperatures. First hardening was at -40, long-term storage was at -20, and the dipping tank was at about -5. Ice cream warms up pretty quickly when moved from -20 to -5, especially with the room temperature air circulation over the top of the tank.

In ’81 you could still transport food on a plane.The dry ice might not have been common, but it wasn’t unheard of.

By: Bryan

Bryan — Sat, 30 Jan 2010 03:05:27 +0000

Being From Brigham’s home town (Newton), it is indeed what I grew up on. That and Baskin Robbins, and Friendly’s. It was all we had, man!

Do you have the F’s and C’s confused on the freezer temps? I don’t think serving temp would be that cold. We saw the big conveyor freezer and the Ben & Jerry’s factory–I don’t think Tosci’s has one of those.

I’m amazed that even in 1981 they didn’t balk at a box of dry ice in the overhead bin.