Faster Cars and Smellier Air

Like making candles or cobbling shoes, we are losing the craft of ice cream soda-jerking.

This week, three different ice cream stores were unable to fill my ice cream soda order. These included a Baskin Robbins franchise, where the term appeared on the menu misleadingly as a category, utterly divorced from its proper context in American History and our hearts.

If I wanted an ice cream soda, I was going to have to make one myself.

Fortunately, it turns out my mother is one of the world authorities on the subject. After a few ambiguous successes, I called her up for advice.

The Bottom Part

I found that most recipes called for way too little chocolate sauce. At least four tablespoons of chocolate syrup were necessary to achieve acceptable results. Mom added

A soda jerk will whip up the bottom part. If you don’t use milk, a table spoon of ice cream can substitute for cream. You might use whip cream; it will be a fun experiment to try.

Soda Content

Mom confirmed my suspicion that adding the ice cream next was a mistake. Instead, she said first to pour in some soda water and stir. Then, after the ice cream, add a little more non-fizzy soda to top it off.

Her surprising postscript:

The problem is you really need one of those soda fountains. They have a spigot with two adjustments. One is the frizzy spritzy stuff, the other is just the normal pour. Pop [my grandfather. —Dave] would take a bottle of soda, take the top off, put his thumb on it, shake it, invert it, and spray it into the glass to simulate the frizzy setting.

If you can master that one, boy, that’s a talent right up there.

Perhaps one day years from now, all this will be showcased in some kind of Colonial Williamsburg-esque Holocene Park attraction.