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May 31, 2018 15 mins

Will grapefruit ice cream cure your hangovers? Have Japanese scientists really cracked the code on ice creams that won't melt? And why does seafood ice cream make patriots' mouths water? It's a Gabe and Mango ice cream episode (with plenty of extra facts sprinkled on top!) 

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Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guess what give? What's that? So? Have you ever noticed
that Ben and Jerry's flavors are really chunky, Like they
always have big pieces of banana or pretzels or chocolate
in them. Yeah, I mean they do make chunky monkey, right,
so at least that better be pretty chunky. So when
I was younger, I was always kind of thrown off
by that style of ice cream, and I was kind

(00:21):
of curious how they developed it. And apparently it's all
because of Ben from Ben and Jerry's. According to their sight,
he has a nasmia, meaning he doesn't have a great
sense of smell and he barely has a sense of
taste too, So for him, like his love of ice
cream is mostly textural, like he loves the creamy mouth wheel.

(00:41):
He likes those like big, delicious, crunchy treats that are
mixed in And so that's how they came up with it,
and over the years fans fell in love with that
consistency too. But that's just the first of nine facts
were dishing out today about ice cream. Let's dive ina.

(01:16):
Hey there, podcast listeners, I'm Monga in particular, and my
co host Will Pearson is out today sunning himself at
the beach. But don't worry, I've got our research superstar
Gabe Luizier with us on the line. Hey Gabe, Hey,
thanks for having me on. Yeah, of course. And we
also have sitting behind that soundproof glass wearing his Mr
Softy T shirt or as they call in China, Mr

(01:36):
soft Heart. Apparently there's no word for softy in China.
That's our friend and producer Tristan McNeil so gave. I.
I know we're doing an episode on ice cream today.
Are you an ice cream guy? Like? Do you have
a go to flavor? I am definitely an ice cream guy. Um,
like all good hearted people and American people. Yeah, like

(01:58):
all good hearted Americans. Um. No, Yeah, my favorite flavors
probably cookies and cream. Um. I could go for just
about anything except chocolate. Not a chocolate guy. Really, I
wouldn't have guessed that. I am mostly a mint chocolate
chip guy. Uh, though I'll eat most flavors. And I'm
actually not sure if I've told you this, but my
grandfather actually had an ice cream factory in India. Yeah,

(02:23):
he had to drop out of college because his parents
passed away, and then he did this. Uh correspondence course
on electricity by mail, like from the States, and uh
it was like a tech school from America or something.
And he taught himself to wire things and he ended
up building like a little ice factory. And then he
branched out into ice cream too, and it was called
Tamalia ice cream. But I know, I mean, my cousins

(02:47):
got to enjoy it, but it was all gone by
the time I was a kid. But the most amazing
thing to me was that when he used to come
to the States, he was confused by the way Americans
eat ice cream because we eat it all year round
and in India they only have it during the summers
and during the monsoons went super cold, they won't eat
ice cream. It's it's just uh cultural or something. But

(03:10):
I kicked this off with a Ben and Jerry's fact,
So what do you have for us? Well, I just
read about this amazing ice cream from Spain called Chameleon,
so I'm already intrigued. What flavor is chameleon? Well, thankfully
it's not chameleon, but it's basically this Willy Wonka style
ice cream, where like the color changes as you lick it,

(03:32):
and that also changes the flavor too. That's crazy. So
it sounds amazing and like something from my dreams. But
how come I haven't heard of this? Like, is it
a new flavor? Yeah, well, it's actually been around since
it was created by this former physicist named Manuel Lenaris,
who was pursuing a degree in quote creating artists in

(03:54):
ice cream. That's what the l a time says. At
least I guess it's a major at this Spanish culinary institute.
But anyway, I've only seen pictures of the ice cream,
but it's really beautiful, like at least one of the
shades is. It's this gorgeous shimmery purple and pink color.
And it has a bunch of flavors that come through too.

(04:15):
There's a strawberry, cocoa, almonds, banana, pistachio, vanilla, and even caramel.
But the reason you haven't heard about it is that
the inventors still waiting for the patent to come through.
Before you know it goes wide scale. And also chamelion
isn't his only flavor. He has this other one he's
working on. It's just for adults though it has uh

(04:38):
all these Peruvian and African herbs in it and it's
supposed to be an aphrodisiac. So I always think it's
funny when people try to mix medicine into ice cream.
Like I actually pulled a fact about this. I saw
this thing on life Hacker where someone had made this
pepto bismol ice cream to deal with hangovers, which I know,

(04:58):
to me, it just makes me nauseas think about it.
But there's also a Korean version that sounds way better. Apparently,
like hard drinking is such a common thing in South
Korea that hangover cures are actually like a hundred million
dollar industry. It's it's just insane to me. Yeah, But
in that mix of like drug store cures, there's actually
an ice cream bar that's called um yondio bar. I

(05:21):
don't know how it's actually pronounced, but the name translates
to hang in there, which is so positive. But it's
a It's a grape fruit flavored ice cream bar with
some special raisin juice in there too. It supposedly works.
Wonders and uh, I mean for me, like what with
or without a hangover? I'd be down to try like
a grape fruit in vanilla ice cream? But what, what

(05:43):
what do you have next? Well, how about a fact
about astronauts. Um, and this isn't about astronaut ice cream.
You know that that freeze dried monstrosity that they try
to trick you and eating a planetariums. No, this is
this is about the real ice cream that astronauts occasionally
get to try on mission. That's really funny. You know.
I wanted to start this thing where we would serve

(06:05):
astronauts Sundays where it's just, uh, there's astronaut ice creams
crumpled up with some chocolate sauce on top of it,
like and whip creaming. I felt like that would do
really well on Instagram. But so I thought astronauts used
to complain about like missing ice cream and space, Like
I didn't realize it was actually a thing that they
get to eat. Yeah, they do. And I mean for years,

(06:27):
NASA had this list of the top three foods that
they're astronauts missed the most in space, and you know,
it was fizzy drinks, pizza, and ice cream. But Atlas
obscured it did this story and apparently every once in
a while as a special treat, astronauts now get real
ice cream and it's sent to them at the International
Space station, and I was curious, you know, why is

(06:50):
it such a big deal? And and you know the
reason to have ice cream and space, like, why isn't
it allowed? And and actually the reason is you need
freezer space to store the ice cream. And you know,
because astronauts are using this limited freezer space on board,
they you know, they have to make room for blood
and urine samples and I don't know, other experimental stuff
and it's just hard to you know, save room for

(07:12):
ice cream. But now now there's a workaround. And and
that's because when shipments and supplies are sent up to
the space station, people will now you know, often sneak
a few pints of ice cream into those containers for
the astronauts. And but here's the catch. You know, because
there is no freezer space, they have to eat the
ice cream pretty quickly upon delivery. So you know what

(07:34):
ends up happening is, you know, they throw these little
zero gravity ice cream parties whenever the ice cream comes up.
Oh that's amazing. I kind of love that. So, um,
here's something that's a little less joyous but still funny
to be So, I was looking at this book The
Victorian City, which is about everyday life in Dickenzie in London,
and in the eighteen fifties, ice cream was obviously like

(07:57):
a big luxury and kid could buy a little taste
of ice cream and these Neapolitan ices from street vendors.
But what's funny is that apparently some of these folks started,
uh um, selling fraudulent ice cream to kids. Instead of
serving of ice cream, it was common for people to
serve you like scoops of mashed turnips instead. Oh, let

(08:20):
be so disappointing, like you just took a spoonful of
ice cream on a hot day and it just turned
out to be turnups. I know. It always feels like
some parents idea to like trick kids into eating veggies.
But the strange thing is that people still use that
trick today, like mashed potatoes are often used as a
stand in for ice cream on film sets because ice

(08:42):
cream is so melty. Oh yeah, that's funny. I love
those food hacks. Like you know how people, you know
you use glue as a stand in for cereal milk
on sets, and you know it's because it looks better
on film, and you know you can position the cereal
wherever you want it without worrying about it, you know,
floating away. But speaking of dripping ice cream, that's actually

(09:02):
another thing scientists have now fixed. So I love that
there are so many problems in the world, but the
one where fixed on focusing is like melty ice cream. Yeah,
it really shows you where our priorities live. But apparently
this has been in the works for a while now.
A few years ago, British scientists figured out a way
to slow down the melting process a little bit by

(09:25):
adding this special protein that binds the air and fat
and water together. And then Japanese scientists took it and
they figured out a different way of doing this. They
actually used a liquid extract from strawberries that stopped the
water and oils from separating. So you know what you
got where these ice cream and popsical treats that could

(09:45):
last three hours at a time and eighty degree heat
and all while still retaining their shape. Wow. Yeah, it's
pretty amazing. And the ice cream isn't that expensive either.
That's probably the most amazing part. It's it's actually only
about four dollars a pop. That's that's really incredible. I
am curious what the texture of it is like though. Yeah,

(10:06):
Food and Wine reported that the Japanese weren't the only
ones making these advances. Like there's a grocery store in
Australia that has their own technique. They haven't revealed what
it is, but they turned out ice cream sandwiches they
won't melt in the Australian sun. I think that's pretty crazy.
So I guess we'll have a whole variety of different
non melty ice creams to try in the future. But

(10:27):
it is kind of weird to think that, like kids
in the future might not get ice cream headaches because
they can eat a cone as slowly as they want,
or like they'll never have sticky hands from ice cream
dripping all over them. And and you know, you and
I will be telling our grank as these stories like
their war stories. So I knew Clint Eastwood was mayor

(10:48):
of this beautiful town of Carmel in California, but I
didn't know that ice cream was actually one of the
first measures he brought up at his first city council meeting.
And at the time there had been some sort of
water shortage, and so the city refused to give an
ice cream parlor a license on their main strip and
Clint Eastwood's campaign was actually on getting rid of this

(11:09):
kill joy mentality and bringing back the street corners where
kids could happily eat ice cream again. I mean, this
is what you remembered from his youth and when he
wanted to bring back. But he also reinstitute the Pledge
of allegiance before every meeting, which feels very Clint Eastwood.
And the article also pointed out though that, uh he
voted to ban beachfront fireworks on July four, which sounds

(11:32):
a little antithetical to those other two things. Yeah, so
much for getting rid of the kill joy mentality. Well,
I know, well, I know, We've got two more ice
cream facts to share, but before we do, let's take
a quick break. Welcome back to part time Genius. So

(12:00):
do you know what the grossest ice cream flavor served
as a state dinner has to be? No, what's that? Oyster?
It was oyster flavored ice cream. So Jake Crossing a
Metal Flaws did the story on the history of ice
cream in America. And Dolly Madison, who was you know,
by all accounts, the greatest host or hostess in uh

(12:20):
in Washington, d C used to serve oyster ice cream
two guests who were totally wowed by it. I'm kind
of surprised people kept coming to these parties after that. Yeah,
I know. But actually, the other thing I learned from
the piece was that George Washington was really the person
who made serving ice cream at state dinners a thing
like he had a three piece machine to make and

(12:41):
serve ice cream in his kitchen, and it sort of
became the ultimate sign of luxury if you could serve
ice cream at your dinners, because it was just such
an effort to make. And that's kind of what kicked
off America's obsession with it. So I don't know, I
think that's my last fact. But how do you want
to end this? Well, how the out with a really
quick fact? So you know Rupert Grint, right, Yeah, he

(13:04):
played Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter movies. Oh yeah, exactly.
And you know he grew up making those movies. So
when he passed his driving exam, he was already worth
a lot of money by then. And you know, so
one day, people on set we're talking about, you know
what sorts of fancy cars they were thinking about buying
with all their HP money, And for some reason, Rupert's
dream was to own an ice cream truck, and so

(13:27):
you know, he got one, and the first time he
took it out for a spin, he actually he went
to a pub and when he was leaving, all these
kids came up to him trying to buy ice cream.
And the problem was he hadn't bothered to stock any
in the truck, which is just like the world's biggest teaser,
coogling around in the ice cream truck with zero ice
cream on board, like what did you think would happen?

(13:49):
But anyway, he sort of learned his lesson after that,
and now he keeps the van stocked with tons of
popsicles and there's even a working saft serve machine on board,
and so sometimes he just drives around the villages and
gives out free ice cream to kids. It's it's pretty awesome, right, yeah,
I mean that's great. I mean it is funny. I
told a story about people tricking kids with mash turnips

(14:11):
instead of ice cream, and you told a story about
Ron Weasley magically delivering ice cream the village kids in
his spare time. So I do think you have to
take home in the trophy today. Well, thank you so much.
I think I know just how I'll be celebrating. Well,
that's it for today's nine Things. Moving back with the
full length episode tomorrow, but thank you so much for listening.

(14:45):
Thanks again for listening. Part Time Genius is a production
of how stuff works, and wouldn't be possible without several
brilliant people who do the important things we couldn't even
begin to understand. Tristan McNeil does the editing thing. Noel
Brown made the theme song and does the MIXI mixy
sound thing. J Roland does the exact producer thing. Gave
Bluesier is our lead researcher, with support from the Research
Army including Austin Thompson, Nolan Brown and Lucas Adams and

(15:08):
Eve Jeff Cook gets the show to your ears. Good job, Eves.
If you like what you heard, we hope you'll subscribe,
And if you really really like what you've heard, maybe
you could leave a good review for us. Do we do?
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