Butter Pecan
Pecan flavored ice cream with pecans
Date Tried - March 14, 2023
Location - Somewhere in the kitchen, or living room, I dunno
Format - Half Gallon
Milkshake It? - No
Buy Again? - Yes
“Butter is the most delicate of foods among barbarous nations, and one which distinguishes the wealthy from the multitude at large.”
~Pliny the Elder
A lot of very good flavors have led up to Butter Pecan.
Over a twelve day period in February, I tried Black Sweet Cherry, Chocolate Caramel Tornado, Mint Chip AND Brew Ha-Ha.
Juggernauts, all of them!
Butter Pecan was consciously inserted here as a way to flatten the curve, a means of slowing the mounting quality rate to avoid the inevitable crash and burn. That was the intent…then two things happened:
Peanut Butter Cookie found its way into the mix as a spur of the moment Limited Edition flavor decision. Faithful readers (Who at this point is not?) will recall that it was a disappointment.
Butter Pecan—a flavor being used to wipe the slate clean, to cleanse my overstimulated palate with something inoffensive and uninspired—knocked my socks off.
In my review of Brew Ha-Ha, I made this claim: “I’ve been pleasantly surprised by flavors in the past. And I fully expect to be in the days to come.”
Well, the day has come. I will buy Butter Pecan again, I assure you of this.
Why is it so good? Likely because butter is so good. I’ll share a fact with you here that I’ve admitted out loud in the past. At this stage in my life, if I’m cooking with butter, I will almost certainly shave a small piece off and eat it while I’m cooking. I don’t make a serious habit of it, but it’s something I do and I’ll own up to it. There are those in the food science world that think saturated fats are not as harmful as was once believed. I can’t speak to that. But I’ll note that if anything should worry me from a health perspective, it shouldn’t be my occasional cheeky butter slice.
It should be trying 50+ flavors of ice cream over the course of a calendar year.
Lisa was also a fan, but she felt the nuts themselves detracted from the experience, felt that they were too soft. I’m not sure I hold this opinion; pecans (unlike butter) are uniquely American. They are part of the fabric of this land and nation and should be revered as highly as squash or corn regardless of their malleability when captured in frozen dairy.
But Lisa did make me consider the validity of the following formula:
A simple flavor + A common nut = Boring ice cream
This, of course, is false. I’ve established as much with my newfound love for Butter Pecan. But going into this one, I did think it was true. And that’s because I equated Butter Pecan to Maple Walnut, a flavor that has yet to be reviewed in this newsletter. Maple Walnut is, without a doubt, an old person’s flavor—you’d be a damned fool to say otherwise.
But then…
If the walnuts were removed, you’d have maple ice cream—the timeless northeastern ambrosia that has folks foaming at the mouth all over the great state of Vermont. So what is this identity shift? What kind of voodoo is the humble walnut able to harness under these circumstances? I don’t know the answer. But I do know that, based on my positive experience with Butter Pecan, I’m probably underestimating Maple Walnut. That doesn’t mean I don’t want a simple Maple flavor to show up at my local Stewart’s.
Or, for that matter, Butter. No pecans, just butter.
And if that makes me a barbarian, then so be it.