Fandango is giving us a break from all the grim news this week with a question which I’m sure is still very provocative.

Ice Cream

What is your favorite ice cream? Please list not only your favorite flavor, but also the brand that is your favorite. Please be specific.

Whenever I get asked this question the first thing I always say is Golden North Honey icecream. It is made in South Australia and when I was young you could only buy it in the city at the Royal Adelaide Show every September because it was a small brand made in the mid north of the state. David introduced me to it as he’d had it while visiting northern towns with his family. It won a bunch of awards at the Show every year.

Later Golden North expanded and made the ice cream available in supermarkets and we’d get a tub to enjoy at home from time to time. Sadly, it I have never seen it available in Tasmania so it’s become a faded memory.

However, we have some really good ice cream in Tasmania too. There is a local brand called Valhalla that I like very much. I don’t have a particular favourite flavour of it though. I did love to get a fancy cone with whipped cream, ice cream and fresh berries, strawberries, raspberries or blueberries during the summer. They were often available from vans and stalls at summer events in Hobart.

Another ice cream I’d rate highly is New Zealand ice cream. It is so creamy, again I don’t have a favourite flavour. It’s so good that even plain vanilla is fine.

I do enjoy different flavours though, Coney Island Boysenberry is a favourite. I don’t think this is the same company as the American Coney Island. I could be wrong though. Of course I love chocolate ice cream or mint with chocolate bits in it, English Toffee, strawberry and cookies and cream. You can even buy an ice cream version of Tim Tam’s, the world’s best biscuits. Peter’s is my favourite of the main brands we have in Australia.

I wonder if one of the reasons that so many people nominate vanilla, strawberry and chocolate as their favourite flavours is because they are the easiest and cheapest to get. Naomi and I have noticed that unless you can afford the premium brands there are not as many flavours as there used to be. I’m sure that when we were kids there was lime flavoured ice cream. You don’t really see that anymore.

I have had Ben and Jerry’s when we were on a cruise. It’s good ice cream, pretty expensive to buy in Australia though. On the cruise ships you could get free soft serve ice cream too. Not a great variety of flavours but who doesn’t like soft serve?

If we want guilt free ice cream we sometimes buy Weis mango and vanilla half and halt sorbet and ice cream or their raspberry and dark chocolate. We haven’t managed to find their pineapple and lime at the shops yet. Or we buy Plantitude, which is a Woolworths brand. They have a great Cookies and Creme and a Vanilla Bean. I was surprised to find that Dairy Free and Vegan ice creams are actually really good. The diet ice creams I remember from when I was younger always had an aftertaste that I didn’t like but these are delicious.