Meat Ice creams

[donnad.livejournal.com]

There has been a lot of discussion going on over at this post. I was going to respond over there but figured it would just get lost in the shuffle.

I would like to try to clarify what I believe is Anns's complaint about meat ice creams. Ann correct me if I am wrong here.

Disclaimer: I am an omnivore, I eat meat. I do not like chicken liver at all therefore the thought of a chicken liver ice cream is a major squick for me. I have allergies to many other foods, many of them were made into ice creams this year, I actually had a run-in (so to speak) with one of those foods this year(mango if anyone is curious.)
I do not keep kosher.

So here is my take on this.

Say you have a table with several buckets of ice cream and one scoop and a bucket of rinse water.
First person, takes a scoop of the chicken liver ice cream, puts the scoop in the water, the water is now contaminated with chicken liver ice cream melt. Next person takes the scoop and scoops into the mango ice cream and puts the scoop back in the water. Mango ice cream is now contaminated with chicken liver water. Water is now contaminated with chicken liver and mango. Next one comes along, scoops into the chocolate ice cream, scoop goes back in the water, chocolate ice cream is now contaminated with the chicken liver and the mango. Water is now contaminated with chicken liver, mango and chocolate.

I come along, and I want vanilla. I take the scoop and proceed to contaminate the vanilla with chicken liver, mango and chocolate. Well, I am personally allergic to mango. I actually can't have the vanilla I want without having to deal with the contamination from the water of chicken liver, chocolate and mango melt. Thus I can't even have vanilla unless I use my own personal scoop, which BTW would be contaminated by anything else I may have dipped into prior to coming to the vanilla, thus contaminating the vaniila for someone else.

I think this is the issue at hand. How do we deal with stopping the cross contamination of dairy to non-dairy and meat to dairy/non-dairy?

Personally I think the meat ice creams are an interesting experiment and I don't want to discourage experimentation but... The situation could be easily remedied by a separation of them to a small table by themselves with their own scoops.

I think a separation of flavors based on type is a really a good idea for future Baitcons. The sorbets get a table, non-dairy/soy or coconut based on one table, the *hot* ice creams (like habanero) on another, the regular ice creams on one, and the meat on yet another. It would help to avoid cross contamination of dairy into meat, dairy into soy and other non-dairy flavors.



Now as for the other issue she raised. I too think that the person walking around with the torn t-shirt barely covering his privates was out of place, especially with so many young kids around. Call me a prude, but IMO, in the house area one should be a bit more modest. If it had been a speedo swim suit, it would have been fine. Or down at the stream, I wouldn't have blinked twice. But in the main common areas, where anyone could have driven in off the street he should have had a bit more modesty. I can only imagine what the owners of the property would have said/done had they decided to visit our little gathering and seen him.

Comments

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

82 scoops is a bit much but separate scoops for certain flavour classes could certainly help. In the other thread I played with the idea of matching coloured duct tape on scoops and tubs for the meat...

One would need to define weird, but there could be grouping to lessen the # of scoops. If attendees were to keep an eye out in the thrift shops during the year we'd probably be able to bring one heck of a lot of more scoops.

Re defining weird, though, there are a lot of different things that different people will consider contaminant...

[keith-m043.livejournal.com]

we didn't actually serve all 82 flavours at once. We might get by with 20-30 scoops. Are scoops that expensive?

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

As I really really liked the multiple small servings in quick succession thing, it becomes an issue of /washing/ 20-30 scoops in between 2 servings which are 10m apart.

Depending on the new site's dishwashing equipment, we might be able to do it. :)

[fixx.livejournal.com]

Fortunately I've been thinking about this very same question but from a completely different angle. In the conversation I was having at the end of Baitcon concerning the *many* people I witnessed using their own spoons to eat ice cream directly out of the containers, it was pointed out to me that a number of people were not very considerate with regard to how much they took per "serving" and interestingly enough we agreed that 1-2 teaspoonfuls seemed about fair and was greatly exceeded by many others.

When I first attended Baitcon about 11 years ago, not only were there fewer people, but the attitude was more that of a "tasting" than the feeding frenzy I saw this year. There appeared to be a very sincere concern that everybody got the opportunity to try each flavor. This year I was lucky to be able to get close enough to any one table to even see an empty container, but maybe that's because I was too polite to push. The people who just stood there and ate after serving themselves rather annoyed me as well, but I digress.

I've been thinking about all the ice creams I missed because when I got to them they were actually empty. These were the ones that were in typically quart containers and typically only about 80% full to begin with. I've just converted 0.8 Quarts to Teaspoonfulls and discovered it equals exactly 153, very close to the actual turnout. That's pretty good when you consider all the allergies to one thing or another and realized that out of the 158 people present, probably only 140 "1 tsp servings" where actually called for.

The next question would be how can you
a) motivate people who are used to taking large scoops of ice cream to restrict themselves to a teaspoon at t time
b) provide a sufficient number of these 1 tsp "scoops" to provide one for each flavor and hopefully also make them easy to clean

I don't have a precise answer but I'm thinking that somewhere there must be a device resembling a coring tool with a plunger or pusher. Ideally operation would be push twist tip and pull or something like that and then plunge to dispense the premeasured quantity into your bowl. I can think of lots of problems including nuts (in the ice cream I mean). I'm not even saying such devices if they exist are cheap. I am saying that we should look for something like this while we are thinking about it now, and who knows it might exist.

If it does not exist, the solution may be to simply provide a quantity of distinctive metal teaspoons in a cup next to each flavor with explicit instructions not to move the spoons among the containers.

An aside, during one frenzy I commented there were more scoops under the water in a bucket and a the man standing closest stated clearly hat he was unwilling to reach his hand into the bucket to get them, apparently fearing the discolored water, which considering the over all level of hygiene I was seeing I'd have been more willing to drink a cup of that water than lick his hand.

[underwatercolor.livejournal.com]

I thought the rounds were a great idea. I can't imagine the chaos otherwise. ;) My suggestions are these:

Each container needs its own serving spoon if anyone cares about contamination. (I don't, but I'm sure some do.) I suspect we could get enough ice cream scoops. However, we don't really want ice cream scoops, as it's kinda hard to serve a sample (1-2 teaspoons) with many ice cream scoops. The teaspoons and tablespoons I keep in my house can serve even hard ices without bending, and they're not expensive. :) I think if we had about 40 such spoons and good water pressure, we might be able to wash them between rounds.

The other point I have is labeling. It wasn't easy to figure out which ice cream was which, although it was usually possible. I'd strongly recommend color coded stickers for milk, meat, vegan, spicy, etc. as well as clear labels on the ice creams and tables. People taking ice creams they don't want wastes good ice cream and creates allergy hazards. ;)

Thanks again! :)

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Another idea for serving small amounts would be melon ballers...

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

colored tape would probably not work in the dark... string/rope would...

perhaps glow sticks taped to the scoops and containers ;) rope easier.

another thing that would help in a LINE - buffet style rules, both sides of the table along the long side - things would flow i expect. the mob rule thing works not so well for the small and not pushy... i was balancing patience vs pushy with a bias towards pushy later on as people would magically slide in front of me whilst about to grab a scoop or flavor.

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[istemi.livejournal.com]

Buffet style was tried at Big Indian. It took forever to get through, and there wasn't much left by the time the last third of the line got served.

the mob rule thing works not so well for the small and not pushy
I was concerned about how the kids fared in the mob.

If only we could start off with the nasty sugar-and-fat-rush feeling. Was anyone in doubt that they'd get enough ice cream after the first round?

[forgotten-aria.livejournal.com]

It's not a question of enough for me. It's a question of getting to try all the new experiences, especially the ones that I missed because people thought they were wonderful and took lots.

If I wanted a specific volume of ice cream, I'd buy some from the store and go hide in a corner.

[keith-m043.livejournal.com]

hmm, maybe we should have bulk amounts of some commercial ice cream available all the time to throw at the people who want to eat a large amount of ice cream. I wonder how easily one could get a soft ice cream machine (cheap and/or used) and how easy it would be to run it (and even make novel mixtures for it of some popular flavour like CLH or Pinapple/sourcream)

[donnad.livejournal.com]

soft ice cream machines are prohibitively expensive and a PITA to clean and keep sanitized. I ran an ice cream shop for a carnival for three years, remember. Not to mention the mix ghat goes inn them, (and you can't just make it up as you go, you have to buy the premix or the machine will not work properly.) is in large 40 pound bags that have to absolutely be kept refrigerated or will spoil within hours. been there done that.

[keith-m043.livejournal.com]

*nod*, I have had some experience running a soda fountain for Balticon/DisClave, and I was hoping that soft ice cream might be as easy to deal with as soda syrup. *sigh*

[vettecat.livejournal.com]

Here's a small one: http://www.cooking.com/products/shprodde.asp?SKU=199758

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

perhaps we need servers then as well, here, have a 1/2 scoop, no you may not take half a pint because it's all you plan on eating and you luuuurve is so. have some beef on a shingle too, it's the daily special, next!

the server volunteers would naturally get their dibs first.

i was all set for 2 round as i was taking tablespoon portions (except for one, where i took two tablespoons - bad me ;P) by the third round, i was sugared out. man. getting old.

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[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Or stop with the scoops entirely and go for some strong tablespoons instead. Or melon ballers!

I'm not being facetious. I did my best to try every flavor that came out, but I wasn't taking much more than a teaspoon/tablespoon of any flavor, except when someone else was serving it to me. And I often gave the balance of the larger portions to other people.

Smaller serving utensils would be a way to keep anything from dissappearing all that quickly before everyone had tried it.

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

oooh, yes, smaller utensils would certainly be useful!

there were a couple icecream SPADES - that's 1/3 of a pint per scoop right there - of course, it was the ONLY tool that could break up certain solidly frozen flavors... i think a few scoops died that nite trying to scrape what amounted to rock.

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[qwrrty.livejournal.com]

I was concerned about how the kids fared in the mob.

I figured that in order for my 7-year-old to get any ice cream at all, I'd have to run interference for him, so that's mostly what I did. He and I went from table to table, I read off the flavors, and got him a scoop of the ones he wanted. It worked out well.

Biggest problem was that his palate is not quite... mature enough to take on Baitcon, so when he's looking for "chocolate" and the closest available alternative is "dark chocolate balsamic fig," it doesn't go over so well. :-)

He did actually try the chicken liver ice cream. I can only assume he thought it was a joke.

And, for the record, he was very pleased with most of the sorbets and the ginger-lemon ice cream. Score!

[larksdream]

I was looking for "chocolate" too! *sob* ;-)

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

These days, if there's a flavor you know you want, be sure to bring the ingredients for it, and that counts chocolate, strawberry, and usually vanilla. :) (Actually, Marc made up some extra chocolate custards, but we don't have a good way to publicize that sort of thing.)

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

the mob rule thing works not so well for the small and not pushy...

Yup. Hence my sometimes-noted 'assertiveness' (if I gotta be small I gotta be quick). I did my best not to be rude or push ahead of anyone, but it wasn't easy.

I do agree that separate tables, such as the "savory/meat" table, the "hot" table, etc. would work. If folks are upset about the mob-mentality, then lines should be enforced. We did lines for meals and no one seemed to complain.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Meals don't melt :)

[weegoddess.livejournal.com]

Ahh. good point.

[jbsegal.livejournal.com]

Find Istemi's comment, above.

We used to do lines. It doesn't work at even half the flavors, 2/3 the people, without doing half-gallons or more of "the flavors everyone wants" and then only if you can figure out what those are in advance. (Some of which we can - Thai Tea. Pineapple Sour Cream....)

[larksdream]

people would magically slide in front of me whilst about to grab a scoop or flavor

That was us small people. *G*

[perspicuity.livejournal.com]

i was wondering what some of that sticky stuff on my boots was :)

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