Friday 18 June 2010

Raspberry ripple




Wall's ice cream came in family bricks,
served at home as a special pudding after Sunday lunch.
We became pretty adept at cutting it into equal fifths.

I liked Neapolitan, three segments of 
strawberry,vanilla and chocolate flavour,


habitually referred to by my grandma as Metropolitan.
But my favourite was Raspberry Ripple.


So I can never look at a Rosa mundi
without it conjuring up the memory
of roast beef, lamb and pork
in strict weekly rotation,
each with its proper accompaniment -
mustard, mint sauce, apple sauce. 


An odd fusion lodged deep in the little grey cells, 
adjacent to similarly vivid childhood memories associated with 
mimosa, vanilla sugar, raffia, Plasticine and Lily of the Valley.
And if anyone could find me a plastic troll and a Pez machine to sniff,
I'd be ten again.

7 comments:

  1. Childhood with siblings (or boarding school friends) really teaches you to divide equally. In our case, it was the block of Summer County (yuk) per breakfast table of 8 that we could divide with laser precision....

    And aaaah, the smell of Plasticine! One of my favourite playthings ever, a new pack and a clean board......

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  2. Summer County! That was margarine wasn't it? Plasticine in ridged strips that peeled apart so satisfactorily and lovely to marble and plait with. Impossible to avoid that final sad brown lump though.

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  3. One of us used to be sent out on a Sunday to buy a "brick" of icecream from the icecream van. It would be brought home, wrapped in newspaper and put at the base of the front door (where the draft was). Somehow mum seemed able to time Sunday lunch round the icecream man's arrival and we had icream that was at that lovely just melted stage with tinned pineapple cubes.......... sigh........

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  4. Oh, the smell of that plastic troll! Curiously, even as a child, the smell seemed to take me back even further...

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  5. Yes I forgot about the wrapping in newspaper business. How much insulation that provided is debatable.

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  6. I remember the ad - Summer County,
    'Summer County Mmmm Mmmm Mm'

    I've always loathed margarine - the invention of the devil. I would always rather have dry bread!

    Ice cream blocks - remember the one with the green layer? Yum!

    I loved the ripples, but not a fan of food that is just pink - for some reason.

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