The Portland daily press., 1895-07-08
AM ERICAN ICE-CREAM.
The Envy of the Effete European Catere
(From the New York Sun }

(From the New York Sun }
1ce-cream is -eminently an Ameri-
can speciality. All the Atlantic passenger
steamers plying between this port and
Europe take abroad in New York suffi-
cient supply of ice-cream for the voyage
back to New York as we'll as for the out
ward journey, despite the fact that the
cost of the article is greater here than
abroad, and that it is expensive stuff to
keep. The round trip occupies at least
three weeks, and the cream has to last
that period, one week of which the ship
is tied up in dock, with the cream eating
up ice in the refrigerator at a prodigious
rate When the autumn rush homeward
sets in and the steamers are crowded to
the limit, the amount of ice-cream thus
carried from this port and kept at least
two weeks for use ON the return voyage
Is big item in the provision account.
Many kinds of provisions and supplies
are cheaper in Europe than here, and of
these the steamers lay in double stock
at the European ports. Ice cream, too.
is cheaper in Europe, but it has the fatal
disadvantage that it is not ice-cream as
the American regards the article.
Ice has come to be less of novelty on
the table in Europe in recent years,
mainly, doubtless because of the insist
ence of the thousands of Americans who
make Europe their summer playground.
lce-cream too, you can get in most of
the big cities, even in England. But it
usually lacks the main, indefinable quail
ties that make it so attractive at home.
Europeans may talk about the inimitable
bouquet of their wines, but the bouquet
of American ice-cream is beyond them.
This is not a matter of natural advan-
tages and facilities as is claimed for the
wines and other things, for Switzerland
is full of ice-topped mountains and her
valleys filled with cows.
A varied and recent experience with the
ice-cream of Europe induces the conclu-
sion that only the sorbetto' one gets on
the piazzo of st. Marks in Venice ap-
proaches the delicious perfection of the
ordinary every day ice-cream of America.
Perhaps this is because the Venetians
themselves eat ice-cream, whereas in most
other European cities it is regarded as an
outlandish concoction, prepared --only for
the peculiar palate of the stranger. 1t
is far cry and a strange one from St.
Mark S to Madison square, but the de-
lighted exclamation of group of Ameri-
can girls ordering ice-cream there as they
had done all the way down from London,
fAh, this is something likep' covered
the distance in no time
One finds occasionally solitary soda
fountain in Europe nowadays but the
soda water, like the ice-cream, is unsatis-
factory and saddening. Something is
wrong, either with the sirups, the soda,
or the mixing of them. The drink is
either froth without flavor, or flavor
without fizz, or something else equally
disappointing. 1t is almost always
shadow without substance. and always a
foreign oddity. There is the consolation
in regard to soda water, however, that
there are substitutes for it, unsatisfactory
perhaps, but still wet, while there is no
substitute for ice-cream
There is nothing like the abundance of
soft drinks to be had in Europe that
one can get in any American town or
village. In England there are the pep
various mineral waters. while on the
continent there is the everlasting sherbet
In Italy Eand other southern countries
one can get perhaps half dozen different
trult slrups, which are served in small
quantities in large glasses. the waiter
Illlng up the glass from the water bottle
The country folk of the north make vari-
ous soits oI l1gh6 Deer from foOtS and
herbs but these cannot be had at public
places in cities, as birch beer, root beer,
sarsaparilla and the like can be got in
the United States. Of course the uni
Versal use OF beer and wine accounts Ito
great extent for the lack of variety in
SOFT drlnkns. A more comprehensive
reason, perhaps, is that no other people
on earth SO persistently drench themselves
with drinks, in all seasons and at all
hours, as do Americans. Anything like
the scene at big ssoda fountain in any
American town on a summers day is not
to be found in any other country.