by: Anna Frost
Eddie Murphy said it best – a phrase, by the way, I never thought I would commit to paper – when the ice cream man came around when you were a kid, “no matter what you was doin’, you would stop and lose your f****n’ mind.”
As a child though, my parents were firmly against most forms of junk food and instead of getting ninja turtle ice cream bars from the questionable white vans that drove through our neighborhoods, I spent my childhood eating soy ice cream bars from the local health food store.
Despite my lack of ice cream truck chasing as a kid, the latent urge to indulge in any available ice cream fully emerged in my adult life, especially when I lived in New York City and discovered Mister Softie cones. On my drive from California to Martha’s Vineyard, I ended up behind a Mister Softie truck on an upstate New York bridge and, without thinking, went into an Eddie Murphy-level freak out, to the extreme confusion of my driving companion. In that moment, all I wanted was a swirl cone dipped in rainbow sprinkles, and jumping out of my car and hopping onto the back of the ice cream truck like an old west train robber was not out of the question.
So then, naturally one of the first things I noticed about Martha’s Vineyard was the abundance of homemade ice cream shops. I saw Mad Martha’s, closed at the time, in Vineyard Haven when I drove to my house for the first time and immediately wondered when I would have fresh ice cream within walking distance of my residence – a dually exciting and dangerous prospect. I then saw that there were a couple other shops touting homemade ice cream as well on the same Main Street. On my first day off from work, I wandered around Edgartown and picked up a cone of butter brickle crunch – a flavor I had never encountered before – from Scoops, and then quickly counted at least 6 other shops in the area with homemade ice cream, including another Mad Martha’s. Oak Bluffs is the same story.
I have two theories on this phenomena. The first of which is along the same vein of my housemate’s theory about how people on the east coast tend to buy fudge when they are on vacation, but rarely in regular daily life. Something about being on holiday makes people feel separated from their everyday calorie-counting life and stock up on candy. This would make a lot of sense, considering that fresh fudge also heavily populates the island. The second would point to a gusto for the sweet frozen treat that is inexplicably not eaten in the cold, winter months out here, which, as a southern California who grew up with year-round ice cream shops, I cannot understand. Since no one seems to go near ice cream until April or May, beach areas and vacation spots like Martha’s Vineyard are a place where people can eat as much as they can before the winter comes again and all the stores close up – like bears preparing for hibernation. A local business owner I chatted with today noted that the majority of the people she sees passing her establishment are carrying ice cream cones, at all hours of the day.
Maybe it’s a little bit of both. All I know is I have had ice cream about five times in the four weeks I have been here, and I’m sure I will eat many more scoops from the various shops – every time we pass one the little kid inside me tries to run in.
