Black, Brown, Purple, Orange

One of my favorite movies is Now and Then. I love that movie! It came out right when I was a young adolescent/teenager. I remember thinking how ‘cool’ all the friends were and that they were having such an awesome summer: riding their bikes everywhere, getting in adventures, hanging out in their tree house. These four friends were having the time of their young lives! I was so jealous that they could ride their bike to the diner, library, etc. I mean at that time I was allowed to ride my bike around my small neighborhood but that only consisted of my friends’ houses, pool, the community center, and the new tiny grocery store that was at the very front of my neighborhood.

One of the scenes I love in the movie Now and Then, is when the four girlfriends are sitting at the diner counting the money they had saved up to by a tree house and they order ‘black cows’. The waitress brings them their ‘black cows’ and calls the very obvious group of girlfriends ‘boys’ and they are all offended and freaked out because they think this waitress is a creepy/a witch (obviously I have seen this movie many a times).

But when I was that young adolescent watching this movie, not only was I jealous that they lived in a small enough town to ride their bikes EVERYWHERE, but I was jealous they were allowed to order and drink black cows or coke floats. Growing up my siblings and I weren’t allowed to have caffeine so we could have root beer floats, purple cows (grape soda floats), and orange julius (orange juice or orange soda floats). But NEVER a black cow!

Ok, bear with me I know this story is getting long, but there is a point to all this.

So as I was ‘reading’ July’s CBOM I was happy to see that they had a section on ‘ice cream beverages’. “Mmmm, Yummy!” I thought. “Who doesn’t love a nice cold smoothie, float, or shake?” So when I was reading this section of the cookbook I saw IT, in big bold letters: BLACK COW ICE CREAM SODA. I then read the list of ingredients and directions and was shocked to find out what Bruce weinstein, the author of this ice cream cookbook bible, was referring to as a ‘black cow.’ His version is simply a glorified root beer float with chocolate sauce. Since seeing the movie Now and Then I always thought a black cow was simply a coke float… is this not so? Or is this one of those things that are different depending on where you live? Or could this simply be Mr. Weinstein’s twist on this old classic?

Anyways, I knew I wanted to make this ice cream treat but then I debated about sharing this recipe on this blog because it was so simple. But this blog is for me to share my culinary experiences and adventures, and so, for me that is what this is! A learning/nostalgic adventure/experience!

And the final verdict: I didn’t like this as much as I thought I was going to the first go a round because I used A LOT of chocolate syrup. But when I tried it again I used a lot less chocolate syrup and thought it was better (as always my changes are expressed below).

Black Cow Ice Cream Soda
Prep Time: 3 minutes Serves: One

1/2 tablespoon chocolate syrup
1 (12 oz) can root beer
2 scoops vanilla ice cream

Place chocolate syrup in the bottom of a chilled glass. Add 4 ounces root beer and stir until well blended. Add one scoop of ice cream. Fill glass with remaining root beer. Top with remaining ice cream. Serve.

adapted from The Ultimate Ice Cream Book by Bruce Weinstein