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The Golden Age of British Ice Cream

vittlesmagazine.com

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Re: The Golden Age of British Ice Cream

#11

Post by pasc1878 »

ggm wrote: post #6

There's a great sequence in Bill Forsyth's "comfort and joy" where somebody records their ice cream van jingle on a kids toy xylophone and plays it through a handheld PA. Just the right degree of mind-numbing repetitiveness and decibel ear busting noise. It's fictionalised from very real British experiences with ice cream and fish and chips, working class communities, Italian family business, crime. And of course dee…

M r Whippy and 99s are still there (although called flake now) having had them on a few of the recent hot days

Re: The Golden Age of British Ice Cream

#14

Post by fsuts »

lynx97 wrote: post #10
fsuts wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You perhaps missed where I said ‘taken in by marketing’. Companies don’t spend multi millions on advertising for no reason, advertising works.

Does it really matter who influences parents? After all, they are grown ups, have the responsibility. Its their call. If they fall for marketing, its still their own stupidity which endangers their children. Lets calla spade a spade.

I would urge you to refrain from using the word stupid.

All humans are not born equal, many are born with poor critical thinking which is not helped by regimented schooling and the isolated nuclear family pattern.

It’s for the strong to protect the weak, but instead modern consumer capitalism is built on the strong exploiting the weak.

Re: The Golden Age of British Ice Cream

#15

Post by tetris11 »

lynx97 wrote: post #10
fsuts wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You perhaps missed where I said ‘taken in by marketing’. Companies don’t spend multi millions on advertising for no reason, advertising works.

Does it really matter who influences parents? After all, they are grown ups, have the responsibility. Its their call. If they fall for marketing, its still their own stupidity which endangers their children. Lets calla spade a spade.

No one has both the time to avoid every deception set by large industry. We're all experts in our respective fields but can be completely side-jumped by something just adjacent to it, and we can't be experts in all.

Sometimes you just want to buy a tangerine without having to research beforehand which ones aren't absolutely plastered in antibiotics on their peel (read: the majority).

Re: The Golden Age of British Ice Cream

#16

Post by hgomersall »

fsuts wrote: post #4

For anyone not from Britain, majority of parents, taken in by advertising, feed kids highly processed ice cream sold at low prices, no different to most other countries. Ingredients are terrible for all the brands mentioned. And British children have high obesity rates and dental issues. The golden age was pre-big food when ice cream was made naturally. The celebration of targeted product design, branding and adverti…

There's been a real rennaisance of quality produce in the UK, including ice cream. There's some really good stuff to be bought, even in mainstream supermarkets.

Re: The Golden Age of British Ice Cream

#17

Post by physicsguy »

My great uncle worked for Walls after National Service; he died this year. He emigrated to Australia in the 60s so must have been before that.

Few stories I remember him telling me... part of his job was that he went out on the road giving freezers away to shops so that they could stock Walls ice creams (and only Walls ice creams). He said they had particular difficulty with this in Ireland where shopkeepers would accept the freezer for the shop but put a cheaper competitor's product in.

Re: The Golden Age of British Ice Cream

#18

Post by roshiya »

juleiie wrote: post #13

Those mass market ice cream are so tasteless and disgusting honestly. Do British even have any taste? As a French person it always astounds me what Britons can eat and proclaim they like it.

Genuine question: which French brands are you comparing them to? I'd be curious to know what you think is the benchmark.

Re: The Golden Age of British Ice Cream

#19

Post by danw1979 »

An excellent article which I disagree with on only one point: the Magnum wasn’t really invented in 1990; the brand name might have been, but I was eating substantial, stick-mounted “Choc Ices” thoughout the late 80s.

I don’t want to deny Walls the credit for taking it global though: In the early 2000’s I met a very interesting and clever chap, with a PhD in material sciences who worked for Walls in Bangkok, whose job it was to ensure the Magnum didn’t melt too quickly in the south east Asian heat.

Re: The Golden Age of British Ice Cream

#20

Post by physicsguy »

hgomersall wrote: post #16
fsuts wrote: post #4

For anyone not from Britain, majority of parents, taken in by advertising, feed kids highly processed ice cream sold at low prices, no different to most other countries. Ingredients are terrible for all the brands mentioned. And British children have high obesity rates and dental issues. The golden age was pre-big food when ice cream was made naturally. The celebration of targeted product design, branding and adverti…

There's been a real rennaisance of quality produce in the UK, including ice cream. There's some really good stuff to be bought, even in mainstream supermarkets.

They're all still shoving tons of emulsifiers and stabilisers and coconut and palm oil and xantham and locust bean gum and stuff in though. It's almost impossible to find ice cream without these.

For e.g.: "100% All Natural Ingredients" still has locust bean gum: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/product/remeo-n-4-pis...

Jude's Vanilla Ice Cream: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/product/jude-s-vanill... Locust Bean Gum and Guar Gum

It's even true of small producers - for e.g. around where I live in Derbyshire you see "Bluebells" icecream everywhere - "Luxury Artisan Ice Cream": https://bluebelldairy.co.uk/ but it still has all the above.

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