The folks at Yahoo! are trying to make sure we don't miss out on the celebration of one of America's most revered occasions: National Ice Cream Month. July holds that distinction and, thanks to a decree by former President Ronald Reagan, it also holds the honor of hosting National Ice Cream Day. It falls every year on the third Sunday in July. Whether you can celebrate with sherbet, custard, frozen yogurt, Tofutti or any other variation is a matter of your own personal discretion.
Yahoo! says that its search engines indicate that the most popular flavor remains Vanilla. Huh? Not only does it indicate that we have boring collective sense of taste, you also have to wonder why people have to look up vanilla on the internet. What's not to know? I'd imagine people would have to look up the ingredients in flavors that aren't so obvious: Ben & Jerry's Phish Food or Baskin-Robbins' Penguin Swirl. (The latter contains no actual penguins). Why, for pete's sake, are we looking up vanilla?
The folks at Yahoo! were nice enough to list some of the more unusual ice cream flavors that people search for, including avocado, taro root, sweet corn and Guinness beer. To each his own, I guess, but corn-flavored ice cream would be enough to drive me away for good.
The best flavors I ever had were Baskin-Robbins' waffles and cream (it's like cookies and cream with chex squares instead of Oreos) and a flavor I got one time in small Wisconsin ice cream parlor that had sweet cream vanilla with Andes Creme De Mint candies mixed in. I have never seen it since, and I've tried to re-create it at places like Cold Stone Creamery and Maggie Moo's but never matched the same great taste.
So while you're celebrating National Ice Cream Month and National Ice Cream Day, take a few moments to share your favorite flavor with us in the comments section.
Even if it's vanilla.