While picking wild blueberries, all I could think about was cooking them down and eating them with ice cream. And that time has come. Sort of. Although ‘warm wild blueberry compote on home-made vanilla ice cream’ would likely be my first choice, it somehow seemed…safe and predictable. Although now that I write it down, it does sound pretty dang good. But then I thought: how about ‘Wild Blueberry Gelato’? Sounded cool, but I’ve found that mixing fruit ingredients into the gelato base compromises texture. Fruit freezes hard, which makes the end product more crystalline and hard. And I like my gelato creamy. It also seems to take a lot of ‘flavor element’ to make the finished product ‘pop’ with that flavor. Then it came to me: ‘the swirl’. You can taste strong blueberry by scooping your spoon into the swirl, but the gelato will retain its creaminess. Or so I thought.

I find it noteworthy how yellow the custard is, thanks to the farm eggs being so rich. There must have been a time when ‘vanilla’ ice cream was not white. It was probably just before the development of white wonder bread, the microwave, and cheese whiz. What I don’t get is that the post-war seniors I know have a strong farm-based, grass-roots foodie culture – but was it not them that buggered things up by demanding a glut of processed and convenience foods in the 50s and 60s? I digress.

My warm compote idea would have been better. The gelato tastes wonderfully of blueberry, but the texture is too crystalline – exactly what I didn’t want. Makes for a subpar photo too!! But don’t worry, we’ll eat the whole bucket of gelato anyway.