The article refers to Magnum ice creams a lot, and makes it easy to infer that it is a British ice cream although it never actually says that. There's one clue in the article:
> The Magnum debuted in Germany in 1989, and hit the UK the year after.
Curiosity piqued, and one wikipedia article later [0], it turns out that it was originally a Danish invention developed in the late 1980s, first mass produced in Autumn 1988. It also mentions a Belgian needing to develop the needed chocolate in 1987.
Of all places I would not have guessed Aarhus was the home to Magnum, and it's celebrated with a gym called Friskohus (Frisko is the Danish Unilever sub-brand) on the site today.
> When you talk with cheese aficionados, it doesn’t usually take long for the conversation to veer this way: away from curds, whey, and mold, and toward matters of life and death. With the zeal of nineteenth-century naturalists, they discuss great lineages and endangered species, painstakingly cataloguing those cheeses that are thriving and those that are lost to history. [...]
ablation 2 hours ago [-]
A fantastic article. Ruby Tandoh's writing on food is always of high quality and gets an immediate bookmark from me.
ggm 2 hours ago [-]
There's a great sequence in Bill Forsyth's "comfort and joy" where somebody records their ice cream van jingle on a kids toy xylophone and plays it through a handheld PA. Just the right degree of mind-numbing repetitiveness and decibel ear busting noise.
It's fictionalised from very real British experiences with ice cream and fish and chips, working class communities, Italian family business, crime. And of course deep fried ice cream. I worked in an Italian migrants coffee bar/greasy spoon as a dish pig in 1970s edinburgh, the local chip shop and ice cream scene was almost entirely Italian, in some parts of Scotland going back to the end of the 19th century.
For some people the "99" from a van with a squirt of raspberry sauce is a key childhood memory, a lift from the darkness of intergenerational mass unemployment, and rainy day holidays on stoney beaches.
Gelato is posh. Mr Whippy is what poor people ate.
pasc1878 2 hours ago [-]
M
r Whippy and 99s are still there (although called flake now) having had them on a few of the recent hot days
ndsipa_pomu 17 minutes ago [-]
Also of note is that the "99 flake" ice cream features in the manifesto of Count Binface - he wants to reduce their price to 99p.
fsuts 2 hours ago [-]
For anyone not from Britain, majority of parents, taken in by advertising, feed kids highly processed ice cream sold at low prices, no different to most other countries.
Ingredients are terrible for all the brands mentioned. And British children have high obesity rates and dental issues.
The golden age was pre-big food when ice cream was made naturally.
The celebration of targeted product design, branding and advertising is something we should move away from. The companies don’t care about its customer’s health, just its profits.
ymolodtsov 48 minutes ago [-]
However natural ice cream can be, it's still a buttload of fats and sugars. Fine in moderation but could be bad. Still, I highly doubt ice cream alone is the reason for high obesity.
zarzavat 3 minutes ago [-]
Either teach your children moderation or else be disappointed when they become teenagers with their own money to spend. Helicopter don't fly forever.
hgomersall 1 hours ago [-]
There's been a real rennaisance of quality produce in the UK, including ice cream. There's some really good stuff to be bought, even in mainstream supermarkets.
physicsguy 1 hours ago [-]
They're all still shoving tons of emulsifiers and stabilisers and coconut and palm oil and xantham and locust bean gum and stuff in though. It's almost impossible to find ice cream without these.
It's even true of small producers - for e.g. around where I live in Derbyshire you see "Bluebells" icecream everywhere - "Luxury Artisan Ice Cream": https://bluebelldairy.co.uk/ but it still has all the above.
galacticdessert 57 minutes ago [-]
Just for my understanding, what is the issue with xanthan gum and locust bean gum? You need thickeners, stabilizers, and emulsifiers if you want high quality ice cream and that applies to both industrial as well as artisanal.
Xanthan or Agar Agar are commonly used even in household gelato (think a 1kg ice cream machine or something like a Ninja Creami - which is one of my own ever favorite and most recommended appliances) to reduce the formation of ice crystals. Locust Bean Gum and Guar Gum or is a thickener and can greatly improve the creaminess of the final product.
Historically people used a lot of egg yolks as emulsifiers in ice creams, but there are reasons to limit them or directly not have them in your gelato. Think even just fat content, or allergies, or personal preference. For that you will need some sort of natural gum and as far as I know there are no known health hazards associated with them (unless you consume crazy amount like 10-20g/day, which means you have to eat it from the jar with a spoon... I would not recommend)
physicsguy 18 minutes ago [-]
They're basically used as you say to replace things like eggs and milk. The whole point of that from the industrial perspective is to save on cost, they weren't removed on health grounds. It was pointed out in a BBC documentary recently that most supermarket ice cream is now so shelf stable that if it wasn't for rats and mice which love the sugar, it wouldn't need to be kept frozen at all during transport because of all the emulsifiers.
In any case, the whole distinction around UPF vs non-UPF is the addition of ingredients that would not form part of a human diet typically. The thread above me was basically saying all ice creams are full of UPF ingredients and then someone's counterpoint was that there's plenty of good choice of non-UPFs. My point was that even things that "look" non-UPF often are. Whether UPFs are good or bad is up for debate and discussion although countries that consume a lot of them generally have much worse health outcomes.
hgomersall 20 minutes ago [-]
It isn't, you just have to look. Most of the organic ice creams are fairly clean - Yeo Valley, Duchy. Similarly the organic vegan ice creams from Booja Booja. Some small producers are good - Alder Tree in Suffolk typically have 3 ingredients (cream, sugar, fruit) and are delicious. Saffron (around Saffron Walden) are great too.
physicsguy 9 minutes ago [-]
It's interesting you note Yeo Valley because I've found their products very mixed - lots of them do have UPFs. It's interesting that their ice cream doesn't.
There's no Waitrose within 50 miles of me (East Midlands) so Duchy not available. Booja Booja is all dairy free so I wouldn't really consider it ice cream. But in any case it all has coconut oil in it.
OJFord 1 hours ago [-]
Xanthan, guar, and locust bean gum are to control melt and improve texture – many people add them to homemade ice-cream even.
lrasinen 39 minutes ago [-]
Xanthan is the best if you need non-toxic slime for artistic purposes (e.g. Halloween decorations).
Just make a stiff gel and hit it with a stick blender for desired consistency and lumpiness. This does introduce a lot of small air bubbles in it, so if you need clear slime let it stand for a few hours.
According to your statement, the vast majority of parents also do not care about the health of their own children. The reality is probably a bit different. Its not about caring, it is plain lack of information/stupidity. I know what I am talking about, grew up in a working class family. Looking back, there are soooo many things which happened while I was still in my parents house... From undiagnosed mental health issues of my mother to being fed sugar and milk to a point where I vomitted every other week. Turned out I am mildly lactose intollerant. Nobody helps these kids. The state cant help either, because it is notoriously bad at caring for basically anonymous kids. Its a dilemma. Nobody talks about the dangers of stupid parents, because, you know, its kind of a taboo.
fsuts 2 hours ago [-]
You perhaps missed where I said ‘taken in by marketing’.
Companies don’t spend multi millions on advertising for no reason, advertising works.
lynx97 2 hours ago [-]
Does it really matter who influences parents? After all, they are grown ups, have the responsibility. Its their call. If they fall for marketing, its still their own stupidity which endangers their children. Lets calla spade a spade.
tetris11 1 hours ago [-]
No one has both the time to avoid every deception set by large industry. We're all experts in our respective fields but can be completely side-jumped by something just adjacent to it, and we can't be experts in all.
Sometimes you just want to buy a tangerine without having to research beforehand which ones aren't absolutely plastered in antibiotics on their peel (read: the majority).
fsuts 1 hours ago [-]
I would urge you to refrain from using the word stupid.
All humans are not born equal, many are born with poor critical thinking which is not helped by regimented schooling and the isolated nuclear family pattern.
It’s for the strong to protect the weak, but instead modern consumer capitalism is built on the strong exploiting the weak.
lynx97 1 hours ago [-]
See, you dont like the word stupid, and I dont like the word strong/weak. It implies that people are not equal in their decision-making, which I strongly oppose. It also has a patronising touch to it, which I also oppose violently.
fsuts 17 minutes ago [-]
You are being idealistic and not basing your reasoning on science.
All people are not born with equally capable brains.
That’s just a fact.
People are not equal in their decision making.
dmurray 5 minutes ago [-]
> All people are not born with equally capable brains
You can't write this and then object to someone also shortening this to "stupid".
danw1979 1 hours ago [-]
An excellent article which I disagree with on only one point: the Magnum wasn’t really invented in 1990; the brand name might have been, but I was eating substantial, stick-mounted “Choc Ices” thoughout the late 80s.
I don’t want to deny Walls the credit for taking it global though: In the early 2000’s I met a very interesting and clever chap, with a PhD in material sciences who worked for Walls in Bangkok, whose job it was to ensure the Magnum didn’t melt too quickly in the south east Asian heat.
mrob 1 hours ago [-]
British ice cream is generally terrible because our laws are too lax. Previously (from 1996 until 2015), "ice cream" required a minimum of 5% milk fat and 2.5% milk protein. This is still low compared the the USA's requirement of 10% milk fat and 6% milk solids-not-fat (proteins and carbohydrates combined), but it at least met the common-sense definition that an ice cream must contain cream.
In 2015, this requirement was abolished, and now you can sell anything sweet and frozen as "ice cream" even if it contains no dairy at all.
physicsguy 1 hours ago [-]
My great uncle worked for Walls after National Service; he died this year. He emigrated to Australia in the 60s so must have been before that.
Few stories I remember him telling me... part of his job was that he went out on the road giving freezers away to shops so that they could stock Walls ice creams (and only Walls ice creams). He said they had particular difficulty with this in Ireland where shopkeepers would accept the freezer for the shop but put a cheaper competitor's product in.
nyjah 34 minutes ago [-]
Ice cream is the one food we haven’t destroyed in America. In the rural areas around me I can go to a handful of farms and get the ice cream that’s made right there and find them in the local grocery stores too. It’s depressing how great the icecream is when the rest of the food supply has taken a sharp dive the other direction.
thorin 47 minutes ago [-]
I was at a graduate recruitment event in the UK for Unilever around 1998 when he speaker told us about the Magnum story. The premise was that someone might pay £1 for an ice cream to eat at home which seemed ridiculous at the time, given that people were probably expecting to pay 25-50p per choc ice/lolly, and that it might be something that would appeal more to adults than children. The Magnum was a big success and drove the way to flashier and more expensive ice creams!
nitin_flanker 2 hours ago [-]
What a fantastic read into the history. I work with many food scientists and constantly track what's up with chocolate / ice-cream industry these days.
There's always a struggle between companies choosing profits (by adopting cheaper, more processed ingredients) and consumers wanting tasty but healthy foods. In UK things are improving because of regulations, but everywhere else things are not that good, and it's not just ice creams.
1 hours ago [-]
xnorswap 41 minutes ago [-]
> At the end of the day, a Magnum is a choc ice
This feels like slander! No matter how true it is.
It's hard to describe just how much better the ice-cream in a magnum was than the competing products of the time.
bux93 28 minutes ago [-]
Every word in that last sentence is true. Especially the word "was". Shrinkflation has taken a particular toll on the thick mantle, and Magnums now are basically the choc ices they once beat out. Though with optional nuts and berries.
WhereIsTheTruth 3 hours ago [-]
It started with cream, to end up with additives
juleiie 1 hours ago [-]
Those mass market ice cream are so tasteless and disgusting honestly. Do British even have any taste? As a French person it always astounds me what Britons can eat and proclaim they like it.
danw1979 1 hours ago [-]
Please, just give us this one thing to enjoy, to have after our Roast Bif. We don’t have much. We need this.
roshiya 1 hours ago [-]
Genuine question: which French brands are you comparing them to? I'd be curious to know what you think is the benchmark.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Flavours_Cornetto
> The Magnum debuted in Germany in 1989, and hit the UK the year after.
Curiosity piqued, and one wikipedia article later [0], it turns out that it was originally a Danish invention developed in the late 1980s, first mass produced in Autumn 1988. It also mentions a Belgian needing to develop the needed chocolate in 1987.
Of all places I would not have guessed Aarhus was the home to Magnum, and it's celebrated with a gym called Friskohus (Frisko is the Danish Unilever sub-brand) on the site today.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnum_(ice_cream)
I'll take any excuse to recommend Ruby's essay on British Cheese, "How a cheese goes extinct: https://www.newyorker.com/culture/annals-of-gastronomy/how-a...
> When you talk with cheese aficionados, it doesn’t usually take long for the conversation to veer this way: away from curds, whey, and mold, and toward matters of life and death. With the zeal of nineteenth-century naturalists, they discuss great lineages and endangered species, painstakingly cataloguing those cheeses that are thriving and those that are lost to history. [...]
It's fictionalised from very real British experiences with ice cream and fish and chips, working class communities, Italian family business, crime. And of course deep fried ice cream. I worked in an Italian migrants coffee bar/greasy spoon as a dish pig in 1970s edinburgh, the local chip shop and ice cream scene was almost entirely Italian, in some parts of Scotland going back to the end of the 19th century.
For some people the "99" from a van with a squirt of raspberry sauce is a key childhood memory, a lift from the darkness of intergenerational mass unemployment, and rainy day holidays on stoney beaches.
Gelato is posh. Mr Whippy is what poor people ate.
Ingredients are terrible for all the brands mentioned. And British children have high obesity rates and dental issues.
The golden age was pre-big food when ice cream was made naturally.
The celebration of targeted product design, branding and advertising is something we should move away from. The companies don’t care about its customer’s health, just its profits.
For e.g.: "100% All Natural Ingredients" still has locust bean gum: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/product/remeo-n-4-pis...
Jude's Vanilla Ice Cream: https://www.sainsburys.co.uk/groceries/product/jude-s-vanill... Locust Bean Gum and Guar Gum
It's even true of small producers - for e.g. around where I live in Derbyshire you see "Bluebells" icecream everywhere - "Luxury Artisan Ice Cream": https://bluebelldairy.co.uk/ but it still has all the above.
Xanthan or Agar Agar are commonly used even in household gelato (think a 1kg ice cream machine or something like a Ninja Creami - which is one of my own ever favorite and most recommended appliances) to reduce the formation of ice crystals. Locust Bean Gum and Guar Gum or is a thickener and can greatly improve the creaminess of the final product.
Historically people used a lot of egg yolks as emulsifiers in ice creams, but there are reasons to limit them or directly not have them in your gelato. Think even just fat content, or allergies, or personal preference. For that you will need some sort of natural gum and as far as I know there are no known health hazards associated with them (unless you consume crazy amount like 10-20g/day, which means you have to eat it from the jar with a spoon... I would not recommend)
In any case, the whole distinction around UPF vs non-UPF is the addition of ingredients that would not form part of a human diet typically. The thread above me was basically saying all ice creams are full of UPF ingredients and then someone's counterpoint was that there's plenty of good choice of non-UPFs. My point was that even things that "look" non-UPF often are. Whether UPFs are good or bad is up for debate and discussion although countries that consume a lot of them generally have much worse health outcomes.
There's no Waitrose within 50 miles of me (East Midlands) so Duchy not available. Booja Booja is all dairy free so I wouldn't really consider it ice cream. But in any case it all has coconut oil in it.
Just make a stiff gel and hit it with a stick blender for desired consistency and lumpiness. This does introduce a lot of small air bubbles in it, so if you need clear slime let it stand for a few hours.
Name some brands please.
Companies don’t spend multi millions on advertising for no reason, advertising works.
Sometimes you just want to buy a tangerine without having to research beforehand which ones aren't absolutely plastered in antibiotics on their peel (read: the majority).
All humans are not born equal, many are born with poor critical thinking which is not helped by regimented schooling and the isolated nuclear family pattern.
It’s for the strong to protect the weak, but instead modern consumer capitalism is built on the strong exploiting the weak.
All people are not born with equally capable brains.
That’s just a fact.
People are not equal in their decision making.
You can't write this and then object to someone also shortening this to "stupid".
I don’t want to deny Walls the credit for taking it global though: In the early 2000’s I met a very interesting and clever chap, with a PhD in material sciences who worked for Walls in Bangkok, whose job it was to ensure the Magnum didn’t melt too quickly in the south east Asian heat.
In 2015, this requirement was abolished, and now you can sell anything sweet and frozen as "ice cream" even if it contains no dairy at all.
Few stories I remember him telling me... part of his job was that he went out on the road giving freezers away to shops so that they could stock Walls ice creams (and only Walls ice creams). He said they had particular difficulty with this in Ireland where shopkeepers would accept the freezer for the shop but put a cheaper competitor's product in.
There's always a struggle between companies choosing profits (by adopting cheaper, more processed ingredients) and consumers wanting tasty but healthy foods. In UK things are improving because of regulations, but everywhere else things are not that good, and it's not just ice creams.
This feels like slander! No matter how true it is.
It's hard to describe just how much better the ice-cream in a magnum was than the competing products of the time.