I HAVE DEVOTED 20 POUNDS OF MY LIFE TO CHIPWICHES: So said Richard LaMotta (cousin of Jake), the 67-year-old inventor of the Chipwich, who died of a heart attack last week.
It strikes that the the early 1980s were an era for innovation in the ice cream novelty industry -- between LaMotta's creation, the related Oreo ice cream sandwich and the Dove bar -- and we haven't seen anything breakthroughs quite on that level since when it comes to handheld single-serving products. Instead, we saw the upscaling of product through Ben & Jerry's and the like, and more recently the whole gelato wave. Isn't it time for a next-generation red, white and blue popsicle?
What I've been looking for, to no avail, is a good root beer popsicle.
ReplyDeleteI'm with you Adam. I believe the technical term is bombpop.
ReplyDeleteI remembered it as "super star bomb pop," but couldn't find confirmation on the Google.
ReplyDeleteOne of my fondest memories from law school began with the night on which (inexplicably) one of my friends decided we should all shoot gin, which later involved one of my other friends leadings us down the street as he demanded a "[Samuel L. Jackson-favored participle] Chipwich."
ReplyDeleteIt's funny, the town in MA where I grew up banned ice cream trucks (supposedly for safety reasons, but in reality one of the selectmen probably owned a Brigham's or something) when I was fairly young. The neighborhood where I live now in MD has an ice cream truck come through just about every day in the spring and summer, so I'm sort of having a second childhood. I don't indulge that often, but my next-door neighbors do a huge percentage of the time, so the truck stops on our block automatically, making it hard to resist sometimes. I usually go for the Chipwich. The neighbors' 7-year old daughter is a bomb pop fan and their 4-year old son usually gets a character-themed thing like a Batman or Iron Man pop, the composition of which is basically a mystery to me. I will be on the lookout for anything that seems innovative.
ReplyDeleteOh man, I could NOT agree more.
ReplyDeleteBig fan of Nibs. That's something new.
ReplyDeletehttp://chowhound.chow.com/topics/300586
Root beer water ice is pretty fabulous, though.
ReplyDeleteSo how long does Dippen Dots get to be "the ice cream of the future?"
ReplyDeleteAt our Little League park, the menu (ice cream menu - is there a name for that?) lists it as a bomb pop. Ordered one Saturday for the kiddo.
ReplyDeleteThe ice cream truck item that I miss is "Chip Candy Crunch,", which is basically vanilla ice cream covered with the chocolate crunch coating, but in the very center there is solid chocolate candy. A terrific mix of textures and extremely satisfying, but I never see it anymore except when we're in New England.
ReplyDeleteYou know, with all the disposable income among the bloggers and commenters here, there's really no excuse for an unfilled product niche. If you think a root beer popsicle would be a winning product idea, make it happen.
ReplyDeleteOf course, all of the great food product innovations of the last thirty-five years have followed the same recipe: take existing popular product (ice cream, coffee, beer, hamburgers, other fast food, etc.) and go upscale with it with higher quality ingredients and higher margins. Aside from the Chipwich, I can't think of any exceptions.
The Double Down. Every creation invented by Taco Bell. Adding bacon to cheeseburgers. The blooming onion.
ReplyDeleteBacon cheeseburgers date from 1963, and are thus outside of my 35-year range.
ReplyDeleteI dispute that any of the others are great food product innovations. In particular, none of the Taco Bell innovations (a generous term for recombinations of eight basic ingredients) have had staying power, and no one has sought to imitate the blooming onion.
I dunno. You can get the onion thing at both Outback and Chili's (the Awesome Blossom), and you can what seem to be Bloomin' Onion-inspired "onion strings" just about everywhere.
ReplyDeleteI actually think that the Next Big Thing will be gourmet popsicles. In Mexico, you can get amazing paletas in flavors like honeydew, banana, strawberry, and other delicious things. They're fabulous. But they're hard to find in America unless you happen to live in a good Mexican neighborhood (and they're virtually impossible to find in NYC -- please let me know if you have a source!) There is already a little gourmet popsicles stand in Brooklyn at the flea market. It follows the mold of taking an existing product and upgrading it, and they would be cheap to produce. Anyway, gourmet popsicles. You heard it here first.
ReplyDeleteI'm late to this, but here's a reinvented, adult bombpop:
ReplyDeletehttp://restauranteve.com/articles/downloads/washingtonian_0708.pdf