Hey, I am Bruce Weinstein and this is the Podcast Cooking with Bruce and Mark. And I'm Mark Scarborough. And together with Bruce, we have written three dozen plus one cookbooks. Our latest cookbook, cold Canning, is coming out in only a matter of weeks at this point. Hmm. Small batch canning, no pressure or steam. Canner needed two to three jars of say, Blackberry Preserves or Chili Crisp. Oh my gosh. You should see this Chili Crisp Bruce created that is made with Nori the. Seaweed wrapper. Mm-hmm. It's dried seaweed. Mm-hmm. It has a very, uh, umami flavor, but there's also traditional chili crisps. There's dessert sauces, ketchups, mustards, barbecue sauces. What, what all is in there? Triple sack LORs. Liqueurs. And. Sane book. Anything you can put in a jar and shove in your refrigerator or a freezer is in that book, check that out wherever you can find cookbooks. But in this episode of the podcast, we're not necessarily talking about gold canning. In fact, we're not at all. We're talking about, uh, one minute cooking dip, as we always do. We. We've got our middle segment on our summer ice cream. We tend to do a summer ice cream segment every year, and this is our big one about what's big this year in ice cream. And we'll tell you what's making us happy in food this week. So let's get started.

Our one minute cooking tip. Get a second cutting board if you're cooking with someone else in the kitchen. You know what, I'm gonna expand this. Get a second chef knife, get a second pairing knife. Don't try and share your basic tools. You only need one blender. You only need one food processor, but you should have multiple knives and multiple cutting boards. Now, let's

say, I'm gonna back up. See, I I, I have been accused by people of always correcting you, but I'm still gonna back up and say, I vindicated. I'm always being vindicated. A second knife is a matter of economic privilege. So let's just say that it is easier to get a second cutting board mm-hmm. Than it is to get a second knife.

I will say that is true, except you can't even get a knife at your local supermarket. They sell them and they're inexpensive. You don't have to get the most expensive $400 knives

you can, but we must acknowledge that even a $40 or a $30 knife is sometimes a budget buster. For some people it can be. So a cutting board can be a $10 expenditure, which is more in the realm of feasibility, and it does keep you fighting in the kitchen if you cook with someone on a regular basis. Okay, that's our one minute cooking tip for this week, including, I guess my correction. I have, it has been pointed out to me that I do that frequently. Mm-hmm. Have I pointed it out? Um, before we turn to the big central segment of this podcast, our summer ice cream segment for 2025, let me say, it would be great if you could subscribe to this podcast, if you could rate it and give it a review, even a review, like a great podcast or fun podcast. Even that kinda review keeps it fresh in the analytics and it helps. Us keep this podcast away from advertisers, which is our main goal. So just doing so helps us along and it is the way that, in fact, you can help us out. So let's get on to the big central segment of this podcast, our 2025 summer ice cream segment.

I am gonna start this with a quote from my favorite photographer and good friend Eric Medsker, who has shot a lot of our books. Know Why, according to Eric Medsker. Even bad ice cream is good ice cream.

And then what he means by that is even the cut rate store brand ice cream is still good ice cream. 'cause

ice cream is a food group, a category and necessary for life itself. Clearly right. So

Eric, as he says, even bad ice cream is good ice cream. So, um, there you go. But we wanna talk about some of the trends that are out there this summer. And you may know some of these, and some of these are actually predictive of next summer, if you can believe it or not. Mm-hmm. So the first big trend is vegan ice creams. And these are ice creams made with. Oat milk, almond milk, cashew milk. These have become what a huge component of the supermarket shelves.

They really have. It used to be that the only kind of milk alternative that was in vegan ice creams was soy milk and coconut milk. Right? Then Oatley came out with oat ice cream a few years ago, and cashew milk, but a combination of these nuts and grains is what's. Improving the texture and the flavor, these ice creams across the board.

Yeah, I, I, I can honestly tell you that although I love ice cream and agree with Eric that no ice cream is a bad ice cream, I can actually say that I actually elect and choose the cashew almond, the cashew mix ice creams mm-hmm. In the supermarket, even over the dairy ice creams. I, I don't have any problem with dairy, but I. I choose it because I actually love the texture of them. Yeah, I do too.

The Ben and Jerry's vegan ice cream, some of them made with coconut, some are made with oats, some are made with cashew. And I look for the ones made with cashew. 'cause for me, those are the chewies and I love chewy ice cream. I just think, to me, that's what makes a good vegan ice cream is there'd be chewy.

Okay, so get this, there's a Swedish company and I know I'm gonna. Butcher the name DUG, and I'm sure it's pronounced Duke or Duke, but I'm just gonna say Doug. Doug drinks. Oh, Doug. Who? Doug drinks. His name

is a sentence. Maybe it is

DUG. Uh, and spelled that as initials in Swedish. Anyway, this Swedish company has patented this year, uh, processed for potato based vegan ice creams. Oh, super

carbs. It's like french frying ice cream. Yes. Finally

french fries and ice cream together. I have no idea what that means. I doubt it means french fries, but they have catch of ice cream because potato base, oh, stop. They have created a potato base and a lot of marketers are right now claiming that potato and sweet potato, they're not the same thing. It's a whole question of one's a

tuber. One's a rhizome. Yeah. It's a

whole botanical question, but for now it's just. Say that many marketers claim that potato and sweet potato ice creams will be the big thing next year

when you boil it down and just take the starch out of it. They both do a similar kind of thing, although sweet potato starch is more gummy Yes and sticky, which actually probably would make an amazing ice cream, and I think that's probably what they're talking about. And not using the whole sweet potato with that sweet potato flavor profile. No, no, no. They're talking

about the starch. There already are. Sweet potato. Mm-hmm. Ice Thanksgiving ice creams on the market. But this is talking about using potatoes and sweet potatoes to create a base for a billion other flavors. Yeah. I think there are potato ice creams that Duke drinks have developed already. Or you know, eat chocolate chip and you know, standard flavors. Mint chocolate chip and stuff like that. Well, if

you're doing a potato based ice cream, a standard flavor, better be butter and scallions. Oh, stop and sweet potato. Oh, stop.

Okay. Stop. Why wish you always make fun of what I bring up. I'm not making fun of it.

I think that would be good. See

if I correct you. It's because you make fun of me there. I've justified. I'm done. Okay. So sweet potato ice cream. Sounds amazing. The next big, uh, category here, uh, in this year are probiotic ice creams, and I actually can tell you that I have not tried any of these. I don't know much about them except I do know that they're sales. Are jumping over and over again. And let me just say before, Bruce weighs in here that there are two basic companies. There is a company called Culture Republic that sells ice cream at Kroger's stores across the United States, and there's. Alex ice cream and they make a line called the Culture Cup. And all of these are probiotic ice creams. So I'm

assuming these are just a natural progression from frozen yogurt because frozen yogurt, I'm think so, has probiotics in it, but yogurt has very specific probiotics. And I'm assuming these are different probiotics. They are. They're, and these are more varied and. Offer different things for your gut health. Y

Yeah. It's not just keefer or cultured buttermilk or yogurt. While those things are in fact out there with their probiotics included in them, these are, uh, ice creams that include various kind of dietary supplemental probiotics. But there is a problem here, right? There is a problem with these, and that is you should really check on the claims of the probiotics in these ice creams. Yeah,

you need to see what their. Active cultures are right, and of course, once you put it in the freezer, they, probiotics don't die in the freezer. They slow down, they stop being active, but then when they're thawed, many of these bacteria come back to life and can still work inside your system. So you have to make sure that during the. Cooking process for the ice cream, if the ice cream was heated to a pasteurized level, that the probiotics were not killed so that they were added afterwards. Yeah. So that

they're still active. If you go out to the Culture Republic and the Alex, a LEC apostrophes, the Alex Ice Cream, uh, websites that look at Alex Ice Cream's, culture Cups, or the Culture of Republic Wine, you'll see that they detail their manufacturing process, and you might want to investigate that a little. If probiotics are really important to you, you, I mean, Alex Ice Cream in their Culture Cup series. Makes flavors like chocolate covered strawberry and dark chocolate honeycomb crunch. Lots of really wild and delicious flavors. But again, you just wanna investigate how they get the probiotics into the ice cream. Mm-hmm. Like, do they add it after they create the cost? Do they add it during the process? Mm-hmm. You know, it's a whole question.

And do you know whether these are all dairy ice creams or are these some

alternatives? Yes. They're all dairy, as far as I know. These are a cow dairy. These are all D Yes. Utter ice creams. Well, but udders come from other animals too. Well, I know, but they're all utter ice creams in their own way. Okay. So that's the second big trend is probiotic ice creams. The third one, uh, has to do with global flavors. Mm-hmm.

I love global flavors, and some of the ones that we're talking about are chili laced blood orange ice cream. Mm-hmm. Black sesame ice cream, which is huge matcha. Leechy. Now, to be fair, I was able to get Leechy ice cream even down in Chinatown In New York. Yeah. In the seventies and eighties. Yeah. So that, but it is becoming more mainstream. Especially

matcha. Yeah. And, uh, black Sesame, which is a favorite ice cream flavor across many Asian cultures Yeah. Is now making a huge inroad into US

culture. All sorts of Asian fruits and spiced flavors are really big in the trends right now.

They are. So, he is a question for you, Bruce. Mm-hmm. Who's the chef in our duo? We've written three ice cream books. We wrote the Ultimate Ice Cream book. We wrote the Ultimate Frozen Dessert book, and we wrote this book, ALA Mode, in which we paired ice cream at a dessert in every single recipe. And my question to you is those books were written, I don't know, 10, 20 years ago at this point. So how would this trend affect what we did in those books?

That's a really great question. I'm gonna go backwards in those books because ALA mode is the most recent of them. That book was probably the most expected flavors of ice cream in any of our books. It's the chocolates, the vanillas, the lemons things paired to go with pies and crisps and other desserts. The ultimate frozen dessert book wasn't about ice creams, but about gelatos and semi fredos, right? So I had a little more fun with flavors. I think there is a lemon poppy seed in there and some interesting things. But if you go 20 years back to our first. Book The Ultimate Ice Cream book, which is actually our bestselling book to date, sold more copies than the Insta Pop Bible. We tried to really go over the edge a little bit. We have a corn ice cream, and I have yet to see a recipe for me too, for corn ice cream anywhere else. Me too. There is sweet potato. There is a sesame ice cream. So we did try and push it a little bit, but I can tell you that I didn't. Go over the top.

I have to tell a story about that, please. So Bruce was on the Today Show with the Ultimate Ice Cream book, uh, when it came out. Mm-hmm. And he was on with Bobby Flay. They weren't on together, but they were on the same, uh, episode of The Today Show. And Bobby Flay was quizzing Bruce about ice creams in the green room before they went on. And Bruce brought up this corn ice cream, I believe you were even demoing it. On air that day. Mm-hmm. John Segan thrower was gonna taste it. Right. Okay. So, um, Bobby Fla wanted to know all about corn ice cream and what that was like, and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And it wasn't two weeks later that corn ice cream showed up on the menu of his restaurant. Mm-hmm. I got a. Big splash from reviewers mm-hmm. Of oh, this great thing. Corn ice cream, who could have imagined such a crazy thing except for Bobby Flay. And I have to say, it sounds bitter, but uh, I know where he got that idea. Mm-hmm. I know exactly where he got that idea. Didn't even

offer us a come dinner. Man, that's Bobby Fla for you. Yeah,

I, well, I don't know if that's Bobby Flay for you, but at least that's what happened then. Okay. So we've talked about vegan ice cream's, probiotic ice cream's, global flavors, and the big single biggest story about ice cream in 2025 is salt. Mm-hmm. It is the big thing. Not only salt caramel, I know you know, already know that. Mm-hmm. But there are. Salt chocolate ice creams. There's, I even saw in researching around for this episode, I saw a manufacturer making salt, strawberry ice cream, salt, strawberry shortcake, ice cream salt crystals, whether they're pink himalaya or black Hawaiian, or just regular salt. It is the single biggest thing in 2025 to have happened to ice cream.

I'm wondering now about just a salt ice cream without another flavor behind it. Oh, no. What? You just had like a sweet cream, ice cream with chunks of black salt or pink salt.

Wow. I don't know. I think my, my nephrologist and endocrinologist would have a question about those things. Okay. What if, what if we

went real crazy and did. Garlic salt ice cream. Oh no. Or celery salt ice cream.

Oh, what do y celery soda ice cream. Um, if you can have a salt bagel, why can't you have sweet cream, salt ice cream? Uh, 'cause of the sugar content. That's why. But I do think that salt presents problems with the freezing and texture. Right.

Well, it's going to change. The freezing point it's gonna have means you're gonna have to go. Colder before it freezes, which means the ice cream is going to have a softer consistency right, than other ice cream, which is kind of a nice thing. Adding a little salt gives you a softer, more delicate, more gushy consistency.

There's a, there's an ice cream, a local little small ice cream maker buy us in New England and they make salt, caramel ice cream, and it doesn't have ribbons of caramel to it. It's just all homogenous. So it's as if it's all been blended into one base, the salt, caramel ice cream. And I love it because no matter where you put it in your freezer and how long it sits in your freezer is always slightly soft when you pull it out. It's the salt. It's that thought. It's just the salt. Yeah. Okay, here's the fifth big trend for 2025. And this may shock you, but the bulk. Of ice cream sold in North America, that would be in the United States and Canada. Not counting Mexico. I don't know what happens in Mexico, but I can tell you in the United States and Canada, the bulk in ice cream shops is now sold in the smallest. Size available. Now we're not talking about just about the tasting spoon. I don't think they

sell those. Whatever

the location claims is, it's small, is now the number one seller at most locations. About 10 years ago we saw that over the counter ice cream sales dropped from large to medium. This is now the big trend. It is dropped fully to the small. Does

it surprise you? It doesn't surprise me. No, it doesn't because here's why. Because sizes have gotten so big. Yes. That people are afraid to order anything bigger than a small Yeah. Because smalls have gotten so big. Okay. Tell

Tell the Carville story. Tell it. Tell it. So

my sister was visiting from California and she and I grew up. In New York, and we grew up with carve ice cream and she doesn't get it very often where she lives in California. But

if at all

they were out here, we had gone out to dinner, she and her husband, and Mark and me, and we had gone out for a Peruvian dinner, right. We'd eaten so much fried fish and so much stir fry with french fries in the stir fry, right? As the Peruvians will do, right? We were stuffed beyond stuff and on the drive home we passed a carve. Well, of course we stopped it. They're known for their soft serve ice cream. And Mark has never had it. Nope. And we said to Julia, what size do you get? And she said, oh, get the medium. So we got the cones and the person started to pump the soft serve into the cone. Yep. He pumped about a foot and a half. It

was bigger than my head. It was bigger than my head. And I was, that was the medium. Stuffed and I got in the car and yes, to my discredit, I ate the whole thing and I spent the rest of the car ride back to our house in rural New England saying, I'm gonna roll down the window and vomit. I'm gonna roll down the window and vomit the

three of you did you, Julie and Mike were all like, let's see who could vomit first? It was

disgusting. The medium was so giant.

Doesn't surprise me. No, it doesn't. That doesn't, people are ordering smalls now

and in fact, when I think about stopping in at our local ice cream stops and there's lots of them around us in New England, I always think about stopping in and getting one scoop and if anything stops me, it's the thought of, oh, what if I get two scoops and I don't need to get two scoops? I know that sounds funny, but I can totally get the idea of the small being the. Currently best selling size in any ice cream shop. Okay, and our final trend. Is eco packaging. Mm-hmm. And you may be surprised to know that this is a trend, but it is showing huge growth. And what we're talking about, uh, are compostable. Compostable, how do you say that? Compostable, compostable, compostable, compostable compost containers. I should know, right? PhD in English. Anyway, compostable. It's been a long time. Contain. It has. It has been a long time since then. Anyway, compostable containers. Containers made from bamboo from a product called Bogas, which is a product, a byproduct of the sugar refining process. Believe it or not, consumers are looking for eco packaging.

Yeah, I think. People are looking for eco packaging in everything, not just in ice cream. So I'm glad it's coming to ice cream. But look, landfills are getting too full, right? Right. So if I can finish my container of ice cream and throw that container in the compost pile along with my vegetable scraps and my leftovers, and not in the garbage for landfill, I am. Going to do that. I would like to see that with a lot more products.

Yeah. I, I, I think if you're surprised at eco packaging as actually a factor in the purchase of ice cream in a supermarket, I think it shows, just to say that you're probably not a millennial or a Gen Z, you're probably older than that. And this is a huge trend, particularly in people. Under the age of 40, they're looking for eco packaging and they will buy based on that packaging. It is an interesting trend. I don't think any of us at my age could have predicted it, but it's still sitting out there. Yeah.

In fact, Ben and Jerry's has switched to plant-based. Postal containers in their scoop shops. Yeah. Yeah. Which is great. It'll make me go into a Ben and Jerry's, as will their vegan cherries, Garcia ice

cream, and I, I should also say that Ben and Jerry's has switched out from the wax coated paper that they hand you a conant now to just. Pure paper, and that's because that wax coating is harder on the landfill. It doesn't degrade as quickly. So they've switched to fully 100% recycled paper products. Yay.

Ben and Jerry's.

Yeah. So this is all part of the growing trends in ice cream, vegan ice creams, probiotic ice creams, global flavors, salt, small sizes in eco packaging. That's what's happening in the ice cream world in 2025. Before we get to the last segment of this podcast, let me say it. Is just great that you're along with us. We thank you very much for choosing us in the podcast landscape and it is really important that you're with us because we like you to be with us. Thank you so much for that. Alright. As is traditional, the last segment of this podcast, what's making us happy in food this week?

I made kimchi. I made kimchi. You did. Yesterday I went to the store and got a big head of Napa cabbage and I didn't find daon, so I just got plain old red radishes and I shredded those up. You did? And scallions and garlic and fish sauce and gochugaru. The Korean chili flakes And I made my paste with glutenous rice flour. And I put it all together and it is packed in a jar. It is fermenting in the refrigerator, as is the recipe in our book called Canning, and I can't wait for another week to have kimchi.

Yeah, you made the recipe that's in the book called Canning. But if you're interested in the kind of kimchi Bruce made, you can go out to our YouTube channel, also called Clicking Bruce and Mark, and there is a video of Bruce making. A vat, not a small batch, but a vat of kimchi. Mm-hmm. This is back in the day when we would do it in the vats. This he made, uh, based on two course a similar recipe from Cold County except way cut down in its proportions and I can't wait. It takes how long about, it takes about a

week to really start to begin to get a little sour. Right. And about three weeks, it'll be beautiful. The thing is. You can eat kimchi fresh, right? Like as soon as you make it, it's just like dressed salad. Spicy and

spicy. Spicy dressed salad.

Yeah. Very spicy there. And in the two quarts of kimchi, there is one whole cup of go jugar

flakes. Oh, that's the red hot Korean chili flakes. Uh, it'll be nice and spicy, but again, you can ferment in the fridge. It just takes longer. It does. And you have to be more patient. Okay. What's making me happy in food this week? Uh, is dinner we had last night. And I had a smash burger for dinner. Bruce made burgers and I had smash burgers. And I generally, you know, if you listen to this podcast, you know I'm the blood red raw guy, but in fact, a smash burger is totally well done and I like it because I can put cheese on it. You really can't put cheese on a blood red raw burger because it doesn't melt. Appropriately. So with a smash burger, you put cheese on it, and I had it the old fashioned way. And if you listen to this podcast, you know, I like burgers raw with, with, uh, kimchi and mayonnaise. These were smash burgers with lettuce, tomato, mustard, and mayonnaise. This is how I grew up. Eating burgers. In fact, if you dared to put ketchup on a burger when I was a child, my mother would look askance at you and say, I raised you better than that. So I avoided ketchup. I had mustard and mayonnaise, lettuce, tomato, cheese, smash burgers. It was really quite good. It reminded me of my childhood. What can I tell you? I, I was very happy with it. Okay, so that's the podcast. For this week, thanks for being a part of this podcast. As I said before, we appreciate your being with us.

Mark mentioned our YouTube channel, cook Me with Bruce and Mark. We also have a TikTok channel, also cooking with Bruce and Mark. Lots and lots of videos there of me cooking of Mark cooking, of doing stuff from our new book, cold Canning Us talking about our lives. So check that out and find out more about us and what's going on in our lives here at Cooking with Bruce and Mark.