courtesy of flickr user StudioGabe

It’s time for another item on the DC Omnivore 100 list of the top one hundred foods every good omnivore should try at least once in their lives.

I’m a pistachio ice cream lover, but I haven’t always been. As a kid I was a Mint Chocolate Chip (MCC) ice cream party hack.  I subscribed to the theories that MCC had to have a vibrant green hue, was it the only green ice cream allowed, that pistachio was simply some sort of mutant flavored only eaten by weirdo adults and that I would never dare to taste pistachio ice cream because that would have been the ultimate slap in the face to MCC. I also had no idea what a pistachio nut was, because what 7 year old  has a distinguished enough palate to explore beyond peanuts–more likely peanut butter. As far as I was concerned almonds were pushing the nut frontier. However, now at the ripe age of 28, pistachio has become a regular to go at the ice cream parlor and lucky for me, it’s a regular offering at most establishments.

According to the interwebz, the creation of pistachio ice cream is attributed to James W. Parkinson of Philadelphia, who was the son of George and Eleanor Parkinson, a couple that made Philadelphia ice cream famous in  the nineteenth century. As a professionally trained chef, Mr. Parkinson was exposed to a widening variety of cooking techniques and international spices, from which he probably developed the idea to make a pistachio nut flavored ice cream.  And what a fantastic idea it was. Continue reading →