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 your favorite flavor of sno-cone?
-Hogan