[Magdalen] Creme de la Creme.

[Charles Wohlers]

Edy's is good, but Breyer's? Long, long ago, when I lived in Philly, 
Breyer's was premium, delicious ice cream. But they got bought out and went 
to the Dark Side.

YMMV

I do have to admit a soft place for Ben & Jerry's - the main office is in 
nearby Waterbury. The oils & gums added are to give it longer shelf life. 
Those of you who have made ice cream know that, after a few weeks, it tends 
to get ice crystals. The added carrageenan, et al., helps to prevent that.


Chad Wohlers
Woodbury, VT USA
chadwohl at satucket.com



-----Original Message----- 
From: James David Walley
Sent: Sunday, December 21, 2014 1:26 AM
To: magdalen at herberthouse.org
Subject: Re: [Magdalen] Creme de la Creme.

My opinion would be that any comparison that doesn't also include Breyer's 
and Dreyer's (one of which in known as Edy's on the east coast) isn't 
particularly complete.

Sent from my iPhone

On Dec 20, 2014, at 8:49 PM, Cantor03--- via Magdalen 
<magdalen at herberthouse.org> wrote:

>
> I've had occasion to taste and evaluate the two national (USA)
> premium ice cream brands this week.  True, there are other  national
> brands, but they don't have quite the same exalted reputation.
>
> The brands are Haagan Daz and Ben and Jerry's.
>
> I think the best way to evaluate ice cream is to sample their vanilla
> flavors.  IMHO this is the basic ice cream, and if the brand  doesn't
> do well with vanilla, the rest of their production is suspect.
>
> I thought this would be a quick and easy toss-up, but it wasn't.
> Both brands melted in the mouth, but there the characteristics of
> each brand surfaced.
>
> Haagan Daz (which I understand is an artificial term made up to
> give a sort of Scandinavian luster to the brand) melted away in
> the mouth and left a faint vanilla taste but no other residue.   The
> vanilla flavor was good but not overpowering.  I sampled the
> plain vanilla flavor; they have a vanilla bean flavor, as well.
>
> The Ben and Jerry's, OTOH, melted in the mouth but left an odd
> oily, even waxy residue.  The vanilla flavor of the Ben and  Jerry's
> was so subtle as to almost be non-existent, leaving an egg and
> cream taste, not necessarily bad, but not identifiable as vanilla.
>
> I looked at the ingredients, and found oils and wax listed for the
> B&J but not the Haagan Daz.
>
> I'd therefore rate the Haagan Daz as the superior product since
> I didn't find the oil/wax consistency pleasant.
>
> I know that B&J's has a lot of unusual and unique flavors, but
> I wonder if they haven't forgotten about the basic ice cream in
> their rush to mix in all sorts of stuff?
>
>
> David S.