This week, the temperature has dropped to near freezing, so why don’t we talk about our favorite novelty treats.
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Stephen Schleicher began his career writing for the Digital Media Online community of sites, including Digital Producer and Creative Mac covering all aspects of the digital content creation industry. He then moved on to consumer technology, and began the Coolness Roundup podcast. A writing fool, Stephen has freelanced for Sci-Fi Channel's Technology Blog, and Gizmodo. Still longing for the good ol' days, Stephen launched Major Spoilers in July 2006, because he is a glutton for punishment. You can follow him on Twitter @MajorSpoilers and tell him your darkest secrets...
6 Comments
I’m not the kind of person who comments on Podcasts. However, here I am, so I suppose I’m contradicting myself with my very first statement. Rest assured The remainder of my diatribe is mostly not bullshit, invoked by your reflections on frozen novelties and in no small part by frenzied travel boredom.
I will save the belaborment over unmentioned yet list-worthy delights – the Heath Klondike, the Scooter Crunch, the deceivingly simple Twin Pop – to instead focus on the on Single greatest achievement and tragedy in the sordid world of ice cream novelties.
In 1978, New Yorker Richard LaMotta ( no relation to Jake) Executed the average work of a verifiable genius: taking a simple and common concept, and improving it beyond the scope of any reasonable human foresight or understanding.
The concept was a simple chocolate chip ice cream cookie sandwich. The genius was in its execution. Two actual, honest to God cookies were baked to crunchy, chewy perfection, with exactly the right amount of chocolate chips, brown sugar, and love. These cookies cradled a pillow of Rich, creamy, vanilla smoothness that was never frozen too hard, nor melted too quickly. In a crowning flourish of inspiration, the almost finished product was then rolled in miniature chocolate chips, which clung to the outside edge of the sandwich like shimmering, chocolatey sequins. He dubbed it: Chipwich.
Mr. LaMotta marketed his hand sized perfection through a grassroots campaign of New York grit and determination, selling them through street vendors. I have few fond recollections of New York City in the 1980s, but that first Chipwich was one. I liken the Chipwich experience to my wife: smooth, creamy, full bodied, Just sweet enough, with a present but fragile hard shell and more than enough bittersweet morsels to always keep it interesting.
As mankind became aware of this perfection, Chipwich spread. No longer limited to New York streets, it was now available at grocery stores, minimarts, and elsewhere. While working at Penn State, I could always celebrate a difficult server rebuild (or comfort an expensive rebuild a failure) by schlepping down to the local Turkey Hill and trading a single dollar bill for that tiny, frozen miracle.
It was perhaps the first and only product I ever felt strongly enough about to contact the company. One day, while avoiding work I really should’ve been doing instead, I penned a four page testimony of accolade to Chipwich. Chipwich responded with a letter of thanks from Mr. LaMotta himself, a T-shirt I still own to this day, and a poster, which I sadly havent.
The heart and pride which went into this company, however, didn’t fit with the cutthroat modern business practices that would have kept it afloat. In the economic downturn of the early 2000’s, Chipwich was sold to faceless conglomerate CoolBrands, who messed with the recipe to save a buck. Itself a struggling company, the Chipwich name was soon sold again to International food megalomaniacs, Nestlé.
Then, perhaps predictably, a transgression so unthinkable, so unforgivable, so unredeemable occurred, that I implore you to reconsider any and all associations with that heartless, deceitful bastard of a company: Nestlé killed the Chipwich.
Nestlé, you see, didn’t feel the need to support a product which “competed” directly with their pointless, atrocious, half hearted Tollhouse ice cream cookie sandwich. Obviously, I use quotations around “competed“ because anyone who has ever had a Tollhouse ice cream cookie sandwich knows it as an uninspired, shelf-space-filler product wrought of chemists, accountants, and lawyers. It is an amorphous, sticky, sickly-sweet, tasteless, and substance-free formulaic mess of corn syrup, cynicism, oblivious hypocrisy, and resignation. It is a modern late night comedy monologue in frozen novelty format.
In a short bit of research, I see that, this year, the Chipwich name was sold again to a smaller company. It’s been over 15 years without a proper Chipwich in the world. I don’t know if what re-emerges will be the true product, or a re-engineered pretender, or where or even if it will be available. As always, I’ll remain suspicious, and naively hopeful. For the good of humanity, I hope we will see the real Chipwich again.
GREAT POST! I have never had a chipwich…
Apparently, they are now sold at Wegmans grocery stores, at least for a short time in some locations. I haven’t tried to re-issue yet, so I can’t vouch for it. It’s on my list, though.
Interesting correction: Richard LaMotta actually IS related to “raging bull” Jake LaMotta. He apparently also had an awesome white guy fro. Thank you, Internet
Further down the rabbit hole:
https://www.nj.com/entertainment/index.ssf/2018/06/chipwich_returns_ice_cream_sandwich_new_jersey.html
Unnecessary update:
Finally did get to try the Chipwich reboot. It is everything its memory was, and more.
Former and Current #1 Frozen novelty.
Cool!