Greater's Ice Cream Read Online Free Page B

do that with commercial equipment. That’s one of the unique things we do that no one else can do.”
    Originally, the only flavors Graeter’s offered were vanilla and chocolate scooped into a dish or a cone. But Wilmer also had a knack for making molded ice cream. He would pack the ice cream into pretty molds in all sorts of shapes, like flowers and fruits. He would freeze them, unmold them and decorate them using a little hand pump spray atomizer.
    â€œHe had quite an artistic flair for them,” Lou said. “We made them to order for Sunday brunches and parties. My dad would pack them on ice and rock salt and hand deliver them.” World War II brought an end to the molded ice cream, and the company never brought it back.
    Another treat that has been part of the Graeter family for decades, but never sold, is what they call “lollipops.” To make them, balls of vanilla ice cream are hand-dipped into the same chocolate used to make the chocolate chips, completely enclosing the ice cream. They’re served frozen on a stick. Richard says he remembers Dick and Lou making them for family gatherings, but now the responsibility falls to Lou’s youngest son, Chip.
    Wilmer was responsible for ice cream sundaes at Graeter’s, too, creating what he called bittersweet topping sometime before World War II. The ice cream sundae had been invented sometime in the late 1800s, though, like ice cream itself, the actual creation stories vary. One popular story suggests that itwas created and named so ice cream shops could be open on Sunday, the Christian Sabbath. Another version says it was an accident of spilled syrup on ice cream that became so popular that store owners feared they would lose money on it. So they made it a Sunday-only special, giving it its name.
    Where Graeter’s differed from other ice cream shops of the time was in the chocolate topping it used for the sundaes. All the other ice cream shops simply used chocolate syrup. “My father made the first fudge topping. We call it bittersweet but it’s actually fudge. He made that from the Hershey cocoa,” Dick said. “There’re two kinds of cocoas you normally have. One is Dutch process, which is processed with an alkali. The other is natural process. The natural process cocoa will get thick when you cook it, whereas the Dutch process, no matter what you do, will not get thick. What he did, what we still do, is use the natural process cocoa to make our bittersweet topping.”
    Before the war, Wilmer tried to strike a deal with Hershey’s to create a chocolate specifically for Graeter’s bittersweet topping. “But the war came along and Hershey didn’t want anything to do with us,” Lou remembers. “We were too little to mess with,” Dick said.
    Another problem, however, was that chocolate became hard to come by once the war started. It was turned into K rations and sent overseas for soldiers. Chocolate was valued because it was high in calories, and K rations were created to make sure the troops ingested enough calories to sustain them in battle. The chocolate was vitamin-fortified and modified so it wouldn’t melt in the heat.
    Today, the company uses what it considers a better chocolate for its topping as well as the chips in the ice cream. Both come from a spinoff of Nestle called Mr. Peter’s. It’s also the chocolate used to make Graeter’s candy.
    About the same time as sundaes, parfaits became popular at soda fountains and were added to the menu at Graeter’s, too.They were sold in tall glasses as layers of ice cream and sauce topped with whipped cream. The main difference between parfaits and sundaes, according to historians, is the dish in which each is served. Sundaes were served simply in shallow bowls, while parfaits were concocted in tall, thin, tulip-shaped glasses. “Think of it as your fanciest sundae,” said Richard.
    Menus from the ’30s