We All Scream

[Oracle_Hunter]

Originally Posted by The_Snark

It was better when we just had three flavors, that's for sure. Those are the only sources I allow.

This brings up a very important point - ice cream had a much better origin story back in the day.

Why, I remember back when ice cream stores had little hand-cranked churns that let them make the ice cream fresh in the store. You knew that people were really thinking seriously about what went into the ice cream, making sure all the flavors made sense even in complex ice creams. If you wanted to know how the ice cream was made you could look it up in any number of books, each of which approached the process from a different perspective - one book on the history of ice cream, another on the mechanical process of making it, and then a whole set detailing the theory of how ice cream is formed and why it is so tasty.

All that detail made homebrewing a cinch; all you needed was the core ice cream making system, a good knowledge of the backstory of ice cream and a ready supply of ingredients and inspiration! You could play around with your own flavoring and suit everything to your own taste. Sure, you could make some terrible flavors, but that's why the best ICMs (Ice Cream Masters) were the ones who really threw themselves into the discipline. Those guys were legends - it was an honor to be able to taste whatever they were serving up.

Today though? Now all the ice cream comes from a few big companies that flood the stores with their products. They construct these elaborate machines that sure can make ice cream easily, but you or I aren't ever going to be able to figure out how they do it; homebrewing is next to impossible, if you go in for these "modern ice cream makers." And the flavoring! They all use some obscure chemical formula to make new flavors - if you want to make a new flavor, you're going to have to a big library of chemicals and hope for the best.

No, modern ice cream killed the elite ice cream makers of the past; you kids don't know what you're missing out on. I'm just glad I kept my first edition ice cream maker around, so that I can try to get a taste of the good old days, even if nobody else is interesting in trying it.

[Charity]

I find it's best not to eat icecream and simply read what my peers have said and use their tastebuds to determine my preference.

[Roderick_BR]

Originally Posted by lesser_minion

One other problem - roleplaying games forum??!? Ice cream??!?? Can you even get strawberry ice cream of inflict serious wounds and vanilla ice cream of mass heal now?

Maybe in that CandyLand game.

[Starbuck_II]

Originally Posted by Ravens_cry

I like my ice cream to be effective, but not overly complex. I don't need a multiflavour Chocolate7/Fudge4/Banana2/Mint6 with a dip in Coconut.
I will eat straight vanilla, and even be happy with it. Why? Because it's my ice cream. Maybe I will say the beans were harvested in some deep underground vanilla mines, and the cream actually comes from an obese ugly cow with hygiene problems, the ice stolen from destitute penguins. It changes nothing mechanically about the ice cream, but I have made the ice cream my own, even though it's just plain old vanilla.

Coconut! That is too sci-fi for my tastes. I perfer vancian ice cream. Coconut has too terrible of a tastes to me.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Starbuck_II

Coconut! That is too sci-fi for my tastes. I perfer vancian ice cream. Coconut has too terrible of a tastes to me.

That and IMHO putting together coconut bananas and mint is just too much multi-flavoring. Sure, some people like it, but one looses all the advantages of going through with one flavor (or two/three that have some synergy).

Personally i am a bit surprised, that nobody mentioned walnuts yet. It's a solid base flavor and if you look through the avaliable variants, you can get whole walnuts in your ice cream, which is a real kicker.

[Ascension]

Originally Posted by Radar

Personally i am a bit surprised, that nobody mentioned walnuts yet. It's a solid base flavor and if you look through the avaliable variants, you can get whole walnuts in your ice cream, which is a real kicker.

Walnuts? Blech. Butter Pecan can do everything Walnut is capable of, and has butteryness on top of its nuttiness. Since Butter Pecan was published, Walnut has been obsolete. In fact, they oughta print a new PHB with Butter Pecan in place of Walnut so no n00bs will get tricked into trying to play one of those flavors.

[Worira]

Originally Posted by MCerberus

At this point it would be good to point out that the fruit flavors are brought back into some semblance of equality with some flavors (not vanilla and chocolate though) by using the Book of Toppings. A lot of people complain that the flavors get too "eastern", but it's really the only way to have good fruit flavors in a dessert dominated by chocolate. Using only grocery flavors and toppings, even vanilla can do strawberry's job better than strawberry.

It's this nonsense about flavours being somehow too "eastern" that really ticks me off. It's like they think the only flavor that's come out of the east is dragonfruit tea. Sure, some of the flavours sound a bit ornate, but it's not like you have to shout out the name of whatever you're eating. And even a basic chocolate could be made into a huge production if you shouted "Five Bean Food Of The Gods Forastero" whenever you took a lick of your cone.

[Weezer]

Originally Posted by Flickerdart

Oh, please. Neapolitan is a perfectly viable ice cream. All you've gotta do is shift the sprinkles to the strawberry, then get a Polymorph Any Flavour cast on you to make yourself into a Fudge Sundae. If anything, this shows how powerful the strawberry flavour is as an option.

Ahh, but you are overlooking the fact that pure chocolate with sprinkles on it is clearly superior. If you go straight chocolate then you can cast Polymorph Any Flavor at any time so you are a Fudge Sunday most of the time but if you ever really need that extra burst of flavor you can turn into the vaunted 'Banana Split' allowing two full flavors at once with no drawbacks. By using Neapolitan you are in truth restricting your options by decreasing the amount of chocolate, the most versatile flavor.

[lesser_minion]

You wouldn't believe some of the builds you can get out of vanilla - have you tried coming up with a honeycomb build? Trust me, 6th level toffee spells are nothing to sniff at.

The pistachio build isn't too bad, but I find it too complicated for my tastes. Strawberry is just plain overflavoured - my ICM bans it from all of his campaigns. If you try the blueberry variant, though, you will find it's a lot more subtle, and captures the fluff behind the flavour much better as well. I mean, who thought Chemical Flavour was a good idea?

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Ascension

Walnuts? Blech. Butter Pecan can do everything Walnut is capable of, and has butteryness on top of its nuttiness. Since Butter Pecan was published, Walnut has been obsolete. In fact, they oughta print a new PHB with Butter Pecan in place of Walnut so no n00bs will get tricked into trying to play one of those flavors.

I don't have the source for Butter Pecan, but it does sound a bit over the top - like one of those waffle bowls (which grant you all the benefits of a cone and a bowl with barelly any drawbacks).

Ice cream are not about picking always the best flavors - it's about enjoing your dessert. It's not like you can't have fun eating ice cream that are plainly good only because there are some better ones.

[Ascension]

Originally Posted by Radar

Ice cream are not about picking always the best flavors - it's about enjoing your dessert. It's not like you can't have fun eating ice cream that are plainly good only because there are some better ones.

Oh-ho-ho... you try playing an unoptimized walnut in a party with a butter pecan and then try telling me that again!

[Sebastian]

This thread is awesome.

Tasty, too.

[Telonius]

Ice Cream? Why bother with ice cream? Seriously, try some frozen custard. It might take a little getting used to, but it's a superior treat.

[Rockphed]

This happens every time! People go on and on about Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry, but they completely forget about Pumpkin! Sure, it has an unassuming exterior, but once you really look at it, it gets even more powerful than chocolate. Seriously, haven't you ever heard of Pumpzilla?

[Zaq]

Originally Posted by Rockphed

This happens every time! People go on and on about Chocolate, Vanilla and Strawberry, but they completely forget about Pumpkin! Sure, it has an unassuming exterior, but once you really look at it, it gets even more powerful than chocolate. Seriously, haven't you ever heard of Pumpzilla?

Please. We all know that Pump-Pump is a theoretical exercise and that no sane ICM would allow it on his table. Let's get back to the real discussion, please.

[Radar]

Originally Posted by Ascension

Oh-ho-ho... you try playing an unoptimized walnut in a party with a butter pecan and then try telling me that again!

But taking a similar flavor twice in a party wouldn't make much sense. Also if pecan is buttery on top of being nutty, doesn't it make vanilla fudge ripple redundant as well?

If optimisation is that important, then why i have never seen anyone having a chocolate ice cream with chocolate chips and sauce? Because it would hog all the good stuff and leave nothing for the others. That's why i don't think it would be wise to pick any of those "perfect" flavors.

[Yukitsu]

Originally Posted by lesser_minion

The pistachio build isn't too bad, but I find it too complicated for my tastes.

This reminds me of a character I had named Jo Pistachio. Was the most complex character I've ever played.

[chiasaur11]

Originally Posted by Zaq

Please. We all know that Pump-Pump is a theoretical exercise and that no sane ICM would allow it on his table. Let's get back to the real discussion, please.

Hey, I managed to play it back when it was a chocolate peanut-butter ripple varient once (with those little footballs) and I gotta say, they weren't kidding on the boards when they said it was delicious. I mean, the guy eating plain old chocolate just sat there slackjawed.

[Roland St. Jude]

Sheriff of Moddingham: Please keep this discussion civil and within the Forum Rules. This forum has broad definitions of flaming and trolling, and do not permit posters to insult each other for any reason, including preferred flavor-profiles. While discussions of others' comments are acceptable, personal attacks on other posters or comments intended to incite flames (which, as the OP noted, will melt the ice cream) are never permitted.

Also, remember discussions of bananas are an inappropriate topic on this forum.

[Dogmantra]

Originally Posted by Roland St. Jude

Sheriff of Moddingham: Please keep this discussion civil and within the Forum Rules. This forum has broad definitions of flaming and trolling, and do not permit posters to insult each other for any reason, including preferred flavor-profiles. While discussions of others' comments are acceptable, personal attacks on other posters or comments intended to incite flames (which, as the OP noted, will melt the ice cream) are never permitted.

Also, remember discussions of bananas are an inappropriate topic on this forum.

Best. Mod post. EVER.

As for me, I like the less-played flavours. Of course you can go ChocoZilla, but where's the fun in that? Enjoyment of the flavour you pick, not optimisation, is the point of ice cream. I mean, yes you'd like to have Pecans rather than Walnuts, but if Pecans don't fit your sundae concept, then you're screwed. Besides, I heard a new Ice Cream edition was coming out soon, and they've addressed the balance issues between some of the flavours.

[Myshlaevsky]

Originally Posted by Dogmantra

Besides, I heard a new Ice Cream edition was coming out soon, and they've addressed the balance issues between some of the flavours.

You will be disappointed, I assure you. While they've managed to fix a standard scoop size and placed some heavy restrictions on cone length, the only flavour available is vanilla. I mean, sure, you can have some chocolate or strawberry sauce on it (and there are really a lot of sauces available) but all the famous combo-scoops and maniac sundaes are a thing of the past.

[Lycar]

Spoiler

Man, that's too good to pass up!

Originally Posted by Dogmantra

Besides, I heard a new Ice Cream edition was coming out soon, and they've addressed the balance issues between some of the flavours.

Bah, let me tell you one thing:

The golden age of ice cream was back then when there were just 3 flavours.

Chocolate, Vanilla, Strawberry.

And when it comes down to it, these are, to this day, the only real iconic flavours. Everything else is just variants. Of these base flavours.

Let us examine them in detail:

Vanilla is the still a well-liked flavour these days, it doesn't need improving to be good. It is a rich flavour, all without being overpowering. It goes well with any other flavour.

Strawberry. Well, to be honest, it probably is a bit controversial. Either you love strawberry, or you hate it. Back then, before they managed to refine the process, you would always have some pips and fruity bits in your ice cream. But hey, for some people that was the very reason they loved it!

Taste wise it is, admittedly, a bit plain. But the right sort of ICM can still turn it into something made of awesome (and strawberries)!

Chocolate is a bit controversial too. Sure, good chocolate is of a deep, rich flavour, very powerful. But therein lies the problem: Chocolate is a very jealous taste and does not tolerate other flavours beside it.

My advice would be to taste chocolate in small quantities, else it would spoil your enjoyment of the less-powerful flavours, especially strawberry.

Even chocolate lovers agree that a bit of vanilla goes very well with chocolate, and a few brave sould even like to have bits of fruit in their ice cream bowls too.

Unfortunately, there is a crowd of of people, who have fallen to the dark side of chocolate. Their senses have been dulled by the power of the flavour, and their tastebuds are dead to the joys of vanilla or strawberry!

Those poor souls crave nothing more then the next kick of chocolate. But plain chocolate is no longer good enough for them, oh no! Now they require chocolate sprinkles on top, bits of actual dark chocolate liberally intermixed with their cream, or otherwise plain chocolate, as powerful as it is by itself, will taste like cardboard to them!

Some of the damned even know about the deep pit of despair they dug themselves by their gluttony, but do they try to pry themselves from the dark molasses?

No! Misery loved company, and like the damned of hell themselves, they will stop at nothing to ridicule those who venerate vanilla or evn *gasp* strawberry! Maybe it is the painful reminder of more innocent days, those fiends find the mere mention of strawberry to be blasphemous!


But back to the golden age of ice cream. Back in those days, it was almost blasphemous to even consider mixing any of the 3 great flavours.

But it could be done, and who does not agree that strawberry and vanilla go well together? Some intrepid explorers even mixed all three flavours and found it to their liking.

Of course, since back then, serving sizes were all the same, mixing your flavours meant getting less of them in a single serving. So your overall taste-experience accumulated much slower then if you would just stick to a single flavour serving.

Then there is also the fact that you just can not eat as much chocolate in one session before being full then, say, strawberry. So a strawberry-lover would accumulate taste-experience at a much higher rate.

That was okay though. Strawberry wasn't (and isn't) so terribly overflavoured, although you could (and can) do a lot with it.

And nowadays?

With all the hate-speech from the damned of the chocolate, strawberry has lost a lot of appeal to the younger generations.

"Only babies eat strawberry," they say, "real man eat chocolate! Nothing but! Everybody who disagrees is clearly insane!"

*sigh*

One has to admit though, the influx of new variants of strawberry (well, technically of fruit flavour really. But since strawberry was the one and original fruit flavour, we should honour it by refering to all fruit flavours as variants of strawberry), has improved the situation somewhat.

Cherry, pineapple (or even apple (although that's not a fruit really)!), grape... there is a bit of everything for those who look for a 'different' fruit flavour.

Of course the influx of new, more exotic fruits (dragonfruit has been mentioned for example), has caused a shism between the proponents of a more 'traditional' fruit flavour and those who embrace the new tastes, but seem to forget about the old classics.

Certainly, some of the later newcomers have a flavour that threaten to rival the strength of even chocolate. But they are nowhere as overpowering, and they go surprisingly well with other flavours, especially vanilla.

Yes, I would even go so far as to say: Vanilla is the true survivor of the flavour war. While chcolate has gone too far to the dark side (70% cocoa! Madness! Where will it stop?!) and strawberry struggles to remain viable amongst all the other fruity flavours, vanilla has endured unchanged.

Seriously, look at it: Sure, there is pistaccio, mint, hazelnut and all that, but everybody agrees that everything goes well with vanilla.

Heck, even some die-hard, dyed-in-the-wool chocolate fanatics can agree that a bit of vanilla makes everything better.

*sigh* What can I say? I'm a romantic, a dreamer. I wish for a world where you could eat chocolate, vanilla or strawberry, without being branded a heretic. Or even mix them, without chocolate drowning out all the other tastes.

Don't get me wrong: I like chocolate, I really do. But if eating chocolate means, I won't be able to enjoy strawberry or vanilla anymore, then I have to say: No chocolate for me!

What would be even better was if we could find a new, improved chocolate. Maybe less cocoa, more... milk? Coconut? Just as long as we get that accursed addicting qualities out of it.

The world has already too many chocolate-junkies as is.

But I have heard conflicting rumours about those new brands of flavours on the market, maybe someone has already sampled them?


Lycar

[Knaight]

Strawberry has served its purpose. It was there long enough for Raspberry to grab foothold. Now it needs to get out of the way. Chocolate works fine, as does Vanilla. But what of the forgotten ones? French Vanilla. Coffee. Both incredible tastes, mixing well with anything. You can take French Vanilla, throw on some berries, crumble a candy bar inside it, smash up some chocolate cookies and toss them in, then add caramel syrup and it is amazing. Coffee can be added to chocolate, but it can also serve as a base, tossing in caramel, toffee, mint chunks, and putting it in a waffle cone. Coffee needs a waffle cone. People put up restrictions on Coffee for a reason, Coffee in a sugar cone is just stupid. French Vanilla works in a sugar cone, Blue Moon(honestly, I don't know what goes into this. If you have a Kilwin's nearby, go ahead and taste it, but you probably won't get all that close unless you are really good at identifying taste) works in a sugar cone. Even chocolate works in a sugar cone. But Coffee, and Raspberry don't. They are waffle cone. End of Story.

Cones make the ice cream. You have to go way sideways, away from mainstream ice cream, and focus on the cone. The cone is critical. Your raspberry coffee ice cream with whipped cream, caramel, and a scoop of French vanilla is nothing if you put it in a sugar cone.

[Ascension]

Originally Posted by Knaight

Cones make the ice cream. You have to go way sideways, away from mainstream ice cream, and focus on the cone. The cone is critical. Your raspberry coffee ice cream with whipped cream, caramel, and a scoop of French vanilla is nothing if you put it in a sugar cone.

But the cone rules weren't even in first edition! They weren't introduced until 2E's Unearthed Recipes, and even then they were just variant rules. They shouldn't be considered part of the core Ice Cream experience!

[Kurald Galain]

You are all a bunch of {scrubbed}! I totally want to {scrubbed} now.

Chocolate.

[Eldan]

You people really need to calm down a little.

Let me tell you a little story. For quite a long time, I had never eaten ice cream. I've heard people talk about it here and there, and even tried a few other frozen things, but it took quite some time.
But then, I got a few new friends in a new school, and we had long lunch breaks, up to two hours and nothing to do. So we started talking and then ice cream came up. We decided to try it.
Well, we took the basic flavours, I took vanilla, my friend took chocolate and the third person in our group, who liked cracking nuts in real life took hazelnut.
It was a fun thing to do. Then I started looking around in the Ice cream parlour, because I was interested in new flavours and after some time, I came upon Fruitscape. I immediately loved the idea, even if the company that had made it was no longer in business. I managed to get my hands on a few fan-copies. They were good, but a little bland compared to the real stuff. Of course, many people never liked fruit, but I didn't care.

Now, when suddenly the big ice cream companies announced that they would ditch the remaining fruit flavours, since they were confusing new customers who had never tasted real Fruitscape, I was enraged. Of course, they promised us that much of the stuff we loved would still be around, but I never saw the coconut and banana and raspberry I loved. Instead, they tried to sell me chocolate with bits of dried fruit in it.

Not my thing. Now, of course, as always, the entire Ice cream parlour was already talking about it. Listening to them shout at each other, however made me realize one thing:

While I never liked chocolate and prefered fruit, I understood people who did. I would probably never share their tastes, but we could still sit together and each eat our own bowl or cone, after all, we all loved ice cream.

I'm not some strange person who only eats moldy fruit they found under the stars, as some other claimed, nor were they stupid kids who had half-dead tastebuds which couldn't taste anything other than chocolate. They were just people who enjoyed their ice cream.

And that is what this is about: it's not about what flavour you like. It's about getting together with other people and enjoying your dessert.

[Telonius]

Strawberry? Never. I'm allergic to it anyway, and chocolate is better in a cone.

Still no takers on the frozen custard possibility? Come on, even the ice cream makers realized what a great idea it was. The entire Soft Serve system was set up to cash in on FC's success. While Soft Serve does appeal to many, it's a pale imitation of the real thing.

[Kris Strife]

This thread made me loose San and I was already so far in the negatives I'd gone sane.

Also: Why has no one discussed milk shakes? They totally make strawberry the superior choice.

[Eldan]

Well, we could include milkshakes in the discussion, but honestly: discussing milkshakes and frozen custard on a forum dedicated to an ice cream webcomic? Also, strawberries might well be fun in one kind of dessert, but they usually have little in common, besides the common basic ingredient.

I, myself, don't have much experience with other desserts apart from Ice Cream. I mean, I have read the recipe book for Mustards&Mastercakes, sure, and I thought the ideas were good, and once one of my friends started a round of Gamma Whirl, but apart from that...

Also, there are all those annoying White Cream types, who claim to be superiour flavour-mixers.

[Riffington]

I know some of the people on the Other Board were talking about a Marscapone cone. I was worried that it might be too cheesy for my ICM to allow, but it sounds so sweet! How do I get this one past him?