Fudgesicle glory and the old time ice cream treats

Or is it pronounced..’fudge-icle? Maybe it depends on the age of the person you ask. I say ‘Fugde-sicle’ but my 3-yr old nephew Joey calls it a ‘Fudge-icle’ or sometimes ‘the brown popsicle’

I absolutely LOVE a fudgesicle. Almost nothing else can compare except maybe a homemade pudding pop. There is nothing like the chocolate-y good, creamy and delicious taste of one on a HOT day. (and trust me, in MN lately, it’s pretty darn HOT). Heaven on a stick, the blinding, ding-batty, fall down from joy crazy love from one little cold treat on a piece of wood. What is it about this simple thing that makes me SO nuts??

It used to be that you could find a Fudgesicle in any chest freezer in any convenient store on any street corner of any city. Right there next to the Bomb Pops, the Klondike Bar (what would YOU do for a Klondike bar??) the Eskimo Pie, Ice Cream Sandwich, Drumstick and the neon colored popsicles that turned your tongue all sorts of interesting colors. I remember Bomb Pops were impossible to eat before they melted down your arm in streaks of red and blue that never washed away. An Ice Cream Sandwich could be counted on to stick to your fingers like glue; the only way to get off that chocolate-y ’sandwich’ part was to scrape your finger over your bottom teeth to pry it off. Or maybe rub your finger over the roof of your mouth to release it. And the ice cream had all the flavor of air. There really wasn’t much too it. But you were a kid, and those treats were the epitomy of summer. You and your friends and your quarter in your pocket (or 50 cents if it was a Bomb Pop) and you would arrive at the store breathless from your furious bike ride, your face flushed with sweat, your head pounding in the heat. Into the store you would go, toss back the door on the chest freezer and stick your head into the cold and frosty air that poured out. Eyes searching out the prize….what will it be today?

For me, it was always the Fudgesicle. Sometimes it was so cold that my tongue would stick to it, as I simply couldn’t wait for a bit of condensation to form to prevent it. You would need to lick and lick, again and again to permeate the frosty outer layer, and begin to unleash the rich, creamy, dreamy fudgey taste. It was like eating frozen chocolate milk, or your most favorite chocolate ice cream, but it was creamier and richer and more fudgey than that. Chunks would break off in my mouth and I swirled them around with my tongue, pressing them into my cheeks to send the flavor over all corners of my mouth. It never seemed like it was enough, and the closer you got to the stick the more you could taste it’s woody, cardboard flavor mingling with the yummy chocolate tango on your tongue. I often would suck on the stick just to get out the last figments of flavor, the remaining chocolate sensation. My mouth was happy, my tongue, overjoyed. I couldn’t wait for the next one.

Every time I go into a convenience store I open the ice cream freezer and see what is inside. I search in vain for the Fudgesicles, pushing aside the Dove Bars, Snickers Ice Cream bars, Black Cows, Crunch Bars, those HUGE freezies that just make my brain hurt to look at, and all manner of modern ice cream delights. But never, ever a fudgesicle. I can’t believe that little kids aren’t going to experience the joy of eating them, but you can still buy them in a box for your home freezer. They are smaller, and taste a little bit more like the inside of a tin can, but there is still that creamy, dreamy, mind boggling, fall down from joy kinda love that is evoked from a smooth chunk of it being dredged around your tongue. I just had one tonight, with Joey, and Griffin, while the heat danced outside the windows and shimmered through the trees. All we had to do was open Joey’s freezer.