Snow Cream & Other Rare Treats!

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Do you have something you eat, use, or drink only when Nature provides it? I have a few, chief among them wild blackberries, &, most wonderful of all, snow cream! My maternal grandparents had a farm in NW Louisiana on which the world's sweetest & biggest blackberries grew. Every Summer, "Mama," my grandmother, & I would take 2 buckets each into those wild thickets, & gather so many they were heavy to return to our big old kitchen, where I'd gobble up some with whole milk (butter scraped off the top), or try not to go crazy from the smell of her backing blackberry cobbler or pie. Oh, YUM! But blackberries--except when there was a drought--were an annual joy, whereas, in Louisiana, snow happened maybe twice when I was a girl, & only once did it actually stick for more than a couple of hours. Most times, though, it nearly all melted before it even hit the ground. But those rare times, my grandmother would collect the snow (away from the road or the eaves, so it would be pure), & turn it into that rarest of treats: snow cream. It was simple enough to make, but you must have snow. Crushed ice just doesn't taste the same! If all we had was milk, we'd use that, but pure cream was best. Then you just stir in some sugar & a flavor, vanilla or banana, or lemon, say...maybe add a bit of fruit, & voila! Magic! I'm convinced snow fairies & unicorns live on the stuff! And yes, I had some snow cream today. Elic gathered the snow, the pure white, sparkly snow, & handed me the rest of the makings. It only snows here in Austin, Texas about every 12 years or so, so I'm--as the Brits say--chuffed! Maggiepie "You can observe a lot just by watching." ~ Yogi Berra