Today we take for granted being able to buy a large selection of different icecreams in cups, on sticks or in cones of individual serves and containers up to probably3-4 litres, and every size in between; and we can go to icecream shops and select a container size and which ever fresh icecream flavour(s) we’d like put into it. The other day we bought a litre of fresh icecream, half tiramisu and half choc mint which reminded me of how different it is today to have some icecream at home compared with when I was a child. And nearly everyone’s mothers, aunties and grandmothers made icecream at home. I really disliked Mum’s recipe, finding it too rich and creamy for my taste, but the Bertram girls all loved it! I preferred the more watery, gelato type recipe that Aunty Mary made, and still do.
Back then, in the 50s, at the corner shop you could buy either (1) an icecream called a dixie cup – a waxed, lidded cup with a little wooden spoon-shaped spatula that fitted within rims of that cup, and there was a tab to pull off the lid; or (2) a scoop or two of icecream in a single or double cone; or (3) a Cream-Between (I’m not sure of Peters’ spelling) along the lines of any of the sandwich type icecreams pictured here You bought the icecream wapped in foil, and two wafer biscuits the same size to put the icecream in when you unwrapped it from its foil wrapper. These were a bit special – we only ever got one of these perhaps 3-4 times a year. These were all before the days of icecreams of any kind on a stick, when icy poles and choc wedges began to appear around 1960.
The refrigerator in our kitchen was pretty typical – it had a small section inside just big enough to slide in the two icecream trays that came with the ‘frig (which had a little door on the front of it to protect the contents when the frig opened) Instead of making icecream you could fill these trays with water and with a removable divider rack with a handle to lift to turn out the iceblocks to cool drinks… and it was either iceblocks or Mum’s home made icecream, and ourfamily with three children, I don’t recall us having iceblocks in our drinks very often! From the corner shop you could buy a slab of iccream we called ‘a brick’ in a waxed cardboard container about half the horizontal size of a house brick, which would be wrapped in several sheets of newspaper and taken home as quickly as possible, and put in the ‘frig beside or just under the freezer to keep it from melting too fast before it was served.
I do remember at least one special childhood birthday or Christmas party (same time of year) with quite a few children seated around the dining table in the Trevallyn house, and possibly another early one in the Bifrons Court house – for which an icecream cake was bought over at the Peters icecream factory on Talbot Road. I don’t remember the logistics of keeping it cold etc, it might have been in a lent or rented container of dry ice – I don’t recall. I only remember the exquisite beauty of flowers and leaves in cream, pink and touches of green that decorated that icecream cake, something like this pic though I don’t remember them ever coming in a tin like this one.
That was a novelty until ‘frigs began to have larger freezer sections at the top of the interior cabinet; but today refrigerators usually have a separate freezer section of roughly around 1/4-1/3 the total storage capacity. This enables most people to have some iceblock trays along with a container or two of icecream or a bunch of individually wrapped icecreams.
Like most people I know, in ours we keep an iceblock tray or two, several packs of frozen vegetables, several cuts of meat and fish, perhaps a container of two of prepared homecooked meals, and sometimes a loaf of bread or a pack of sliced sandwich bread. But freezing draws moisture out of bread, so I only occasionally have some in there with a plan to use it within a few days – I find it wonderful for toasted sandwiches.
Favourite fillings for toasted sandwiches include
- 2C grated cheese+1/4C tomato sauce+ 2T of a slosh of Worcester sauce+an egg+ decent knob of butter. Combine all in a saucepan, and heat stirring constantly all ingredients have combined. Cool before using.
- finely sliced tasty cheese+butter+scrape of Vegemite (or scrape of Marmite – it’s a poor substitute imo)
- finely sliced tasty cheese+butter+sliced ham+sliced tomato
- finely sliced cheese+butter+sliced ham+hot mustard
Spread a little butter on each sandwich and brown on a buttered hot plate or the electric frypan, then cut into quarters or squares and eat!