Country people have exciting ways of living, and our life in rural Arkansas in the 50s was no different. I’ve already mentioned how exciting it was to have a white winter wonderland sparkling with diamond crystals of snow. Now, I’ll share with you what other odd thing we did with snow.
My dad loved ice cream, even in the cold wintertime, and us kids were no exception. So when he had a “taste” for ice cream, we got the taste too. When it snowed and the roads were impassable, we couldn’t go to town and buy ice cream. So one day, my daddy had a bright idea. He said, “Let’s make some snow ice cream.” Obviously, he wasn’t the first one to think of this, because I recently read where some other people who lived up north also made and ate this homemade ice cream.
So, how’s it made? After a good, long snow, we’d go outside to where snow had fallen on something elevated like one of the gigantic rocks in our yard or on top of a felled tree trunk or any other structure as high off the ground as possible. We’d take a clean pan and a glass or something to scoop the snow up with. Then, we’d rake the first layer of snow back – as though we thought it was dirty, which it probably wasn’t, but apparently we did it out of habit. Then, we’d scoop up as much snow as we wanted or needed. Then, we’d take the pan inside. Snow doesn’t melt right away. It lasts a while, so there’s time to get the other ingredients in before we end up with a pan of ice water.
Dad would beat eggs, vanilla flavor, pet milk, and sugar together, then stir the mixture into the snow until it had a light, yellow hue with a creamy texture. With our eager eyes fixed on the main bowl, he’d dish each of us a cup full. Then we sat by the heater, shivering and slurping snow ice cream made with the finest ingredients from Mom’s kitchen and the flakiest snow from heaven above. We wished each other happy eating!
