What is your favorite sno-cone flavor?
It’s a simple question, really. Until you really start
thinking about it, at which point it has the potential to become a real
head-scratcher. For instance, when I was growing up, the choice was pretty
simple – red. It didn’t matter so much whether “red” meant strawberry, cherry,
tiger’s blood (a flavor which brings to the surface so many questions that I
cant possibly begin to go into them here), or tutti frutti (again, too many
questions…). So long as it was red and stained my teeth I was a happy camper. I
would even go so far as to mix them, the “reds,” because ultimately, they
always just tasted the same by the time you got to the bottom.
I had a friend who swore up and down about the power of
“Blue Bubble Gum,” but I could never bring myself to do it. For one thing, I
was leery of anything with a gum flavor that didn’t have a gum texture (I
learned this the hard way when a friend of mine [different friend] let me try
his Hubba Bubba Soda, a snack he had every day after school along with a bag of
Funyuns [[sub question – have you ever tried to chew a liquid?]]), and I
suspected that the only true reason he always ordered the “Blue Bubble Gum” was
that he had discovered that the day after eating the cone his, ahem, bathroom
leavings would be colored blue, a fact that brought him great joy. But then
again I suspect that every 8-year-old boy is infatuated by bathroom humor, so
the flavor is still up for debate. Needless to say, it scared me.
Anyhow, I grew older as did my palette. I grew to enjoy
other types of sno-cones (your Pina Coladas, your Silver Fox’s, your lime–infused
varieties…). But I never mixed colors… it just wasn’t right. And I always
stayed away from “Blue.”
As of a couple of days ago, it’s officially HOT in Texas.
Whenever it gets HOT, a little trailer appears down the road from my house,
painted a bright yellow, and with a sign spelling out the name of stand,
“Penguin Pete’s Sno-Cones.” The sign also claims that its wares are in the
“authentic New Orleans” style, but I don’t know what that means. So I stopped
by today, and I almost fell into my old habits of ordering something “red,” but
at the last minute decided against it. Instead, I went for something I never
would have done as a kid, which was “Rainbow.” I don’t know, I just saw it, and
without thinking I pulled the trigger. And you know what? It was awesome, even
though it had “Green” AND “Blue” flavors.
Probably because by the time I got the bottom, it all ended
up tasting like “red” anyways, proving that I knew the game even as a little
kid. We’ll see what happens with that “Blue”, though… (Note – there WILL NOT be
an update.)
But the whole thing left me wondering, now that summer is
here…
What is you favorite flavor of sno-cone?
-Hogan