10 Ice Cream Myths That Fool Floridians
Think you can’t be fooled about ice cream?
We beg to differ.
In honor of National Ice Cream Day tomorrow, here’s a fun two truths and a lie game for you.
Each round below hands you three statements, two of them true and one of them a lie. You tap the fake.
How well do you score?
1. Presidential Scoop
Eating ice cream in America isn’t just yummy; it’s federal policy.
Can you spot the lie?
2. What Counts as Ice Cream
The freezer case at your Publix is full of tubs that aren’t allowed to say the words “ice cream” on the front, and most Floridians have never noticed.
The words on the front of the carton are a legal statement, not a slogan, and the government decides which words a company is allowed to use.
Can you spot the lie?
3. Air in the Carton
You’re buying air, and you always have been. The only question is how much of it a you’re paying for.
Pick up a cheap half-gallon of ice cream in one hand and a pint of the good stuff in the other, and you’ll feel the difference before you read a word.
Can you spot the lie?
4. Fake Danish
Nothing about Häagen-Dazs is Scandinavian, and Floridians have been mispronouncing a made-up word since the Carter administration.
The couple behind it were selling ice cream off a horse-drawn wagon in New York long before anybody put an umlaut on anything.
Can you spot the lie?
5. Baskin-Robbins 31
Every Floridian who grew up on a pink spoon knows the number, and almost none of them know what it’s counting.
The chain has run through more than a thousand flavors since the fifties, and the sign out front has never changed the number.
Can you spot the lie?
6. Sherbet or Sorbet
Every Florida beach shack sells both, half of them spell it wrong on the board, and the difference is written into federal rules.
Order the wrong one on a hot afternoon in Naples, and you’ll get something creamier or sharper than you were picturing.
Can you spot the lie?
7. Brain Freeze
A Floridian eating an ice cream cone too fast in a 95-degree parking lot will grab their forehead in pain.
Can you spot the lie?
8. Cone Story
The story everybody tells about the ice cream cone has a hero, a heat wave, and a happy accident, and it’s mostly wrong.
A vendor ran out of dishes, a waffle seller next door rolled up a waffle, and America has been repeating that story for over a century.
Can you spot the lie?
9. America’s Favorite
Ask a Floridian which ice cream flavor sells the most in this country. Watch how fast they answer, and watch how sure they sound.
The dairy industry surveys America’s favorite ice cream flavor every year.
Can you spot the lie?
10. How Much We Eat
Floridians assume they eat more ice cream than the rest of the country because of the heat, and the national number is high enough to embarrass everybody.
Work out how many half gallons that is, and then look at your own freezer, and the arithmetic gets uncomfortable fast.
Can you spot the lie?
Tomorrow’s the Day
National Ice Cream Day falls on Sunday, July 19 this year, which means you have roughly 24 hours to go out and buy yourself some ice cream.
Read the tub first.
If the front of the carton says frozen dairy dessert, you’re buying something the federal government wouldn’t let the company call ice cream, but you’re paying ice cream money for it.
Pick up two cartons at your Publix and weigh them in your hands.
The heavy one is the one with less air in it, and that’s the one worth buying.
Two Truths and a Lie About Florida Beaches: Can You Spot the Fake?
Can you tell a real Florida beach fact from a convincing fake?
Every round gives you three statements, and one of them is lying to your face.
Two Truths and a Lie About Florida Beaches: Can You Spot the Fake?
9 Things Floridians Refuse to Do in July No Matter What
Florida in July runs on refusals.
Not laziness, not fear, just thirty summers’ worth of lessons about what this state does to the unprepared.
