Screaming for ice cream!
If you have a hard time making decisions, don't go into most ice cream shops these days. You could spend hours decided on a flavor -- which is just want our Nancy Giles did.
They keep it old-school in Seaside Heights on the Jersey Shore -- from the wooden boardwalk, to the Kohr's ice cream stand, which has presided over the beach for 75 years.
Their most popular flavor, says Greg Kohr, is the orange cream: "Everyone says, 'Oh my God, it reminds me of a creamsicle.'"
Kohr's grandfather started the business, and invented the machine they still use.
"Vanilla is still a very, very popular flavor," he said.
In fact, vanilla remains Americans' favorite flavor.
The average American eats (or in Giles' case, inhales) 22 pounds of ice cream a year.
And our totally unscientific survey found quite a few traditionalists. Favorites include chocolate, and vanilla with sprinkles.
But Kohr's is trying to expand our horizons -- and our waistlines -- with flavors like salted caramel and cake batter ice cream.
And now for something completely different: Meet Ken Lo and Paul Kim. They're part of a new generation of ice cream makers for whom vanilla is just a little too vanilla.
"Today we are making American Beauty," said Lo. "It's a crème fraiche ice cream with a rose petal jam."
And Shade: "A smoked dark chocolate ice cream with a caramelized white chocolate ganache swirled in."
They opened their shop, called Ice and Vice, this summer, selling smooth ice cream on New York's gritty Lower East Side. It all started with a cart at local farmers markets.
Also on the menu: Butter popcorn ice cream with toasted raisins and chocolate chips. "We love it when flavors just really punch you in the face," said Lo.
One of their strongest punches is delivered by a not-so-secret ingredient: Meat.
"We love bacon, as the rest of America does," said Lo.
Giles sampled their Bacon ice cream. "Oh, my God. That's crazy. Oh, snap! That is crazy!"
Bacon ice cream actually seems to be going over pretty well. But what hasn't gone over?
"We actually tried to make a smoked salmon ice cream," said Lo.
"Okay, that's a little out-there," said Giles.
"The first trial didn't really quite go as intended, but we're still working."
One thing their ice cream isn't, frankly, is healthy. After all, the shop IS called Ice and Vice. Surveys find that about 70 percent of Americans prefer premium ice cream, which is typically higher in fat.
But one man is on a mission to change all that.
Michael Shoretz grew up eating ice cream. (Who didn't?) But after he saw his father contract diabetes, he studied health policy, and got seriously into fitness.
"When you're a personal trainer, all your clients really want to talk with you about is food -- what they can eat, what they can't eat, what they shouldn't have eaten, what they wish they could be eating," said Shoretz. "And ice cream, of course, was the most talked-about food item."
Shoretz spent two years at his kitchen counter tinkering with ingredients, then went into mass-production. His brand of ice cream, called Enlightened, is marketed as "good for you."
"Our ice cream is low in fat, low in sugar, high in protein, high in fiber, and made with all natural ingredients," he explained.
Enlightened now sells in more than 6,000 stores across the country.
So how does it taste? To be honest, maybe not be quite as sinfully good as some others. But still pretty good.
Giles asked, "So, the whole thing is, we want this to taste decadently so good it can't be good for you?"
"Exactly," said Shoretz.
Chew on that, while you're trying to squeeze into that bikini for a summer at the shore.
- We all scream for the ice cream truck ("Sunday Morning," 07/13/14)
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