Crab ice cream

Crab ice cream

A crab ice cream sundae.
Type	Frozen dessert
Main ingredients	Ice cream, crab

Crab ice cream is a sweet flavour of ice cream with crab. It is offered in some food establishments, particularly ice cream parlours, such as Heston Blumenthal's The Fat Duck restaurant, and the Venezuelan Coromoto.

History and production

Crab ice cream is a Japanese creation.^[1] The island of Hokkaido, Japan, is known for manufacturing crab ice cream.^[2]

Preparation and description

Heston Blumenthal's recipe for crab ice cream involves freezing for half an hour a mixture of stock made mainly from crab (or prawns as an alternative) and a little milk powder (skimmed), a dozen yolks of egg, and some sugar.^[3] Crab ice cream is described to be sweet in flavour to the majority of people, although some may taste otherwise as it has been proven that taste is affected by the brain's expectations.^[4] Blumenthal has compared crab ice cream to "frozen crab bisque".^[3]

Notable uses

Crab ice cream is made by Heston Blumenthal, a renowned chef and owner of the Fat Duck, in Berkshire, England, as a dessert item on his restaurant's food menu,^[5] although he admits that it is difficult to convince customers to try it.^[6] He also made it once for testing by food scientists in June 2011,^[4] and for an ice cream occasion at the Royal Institution in June 2001.^[7] Heladería Coromoto,^[8] a Mérida-based ice cream shop, which has the biggest variety of ice cream sold in the world, offers "Cream of Crab" as one of its ice cream flavours. In its country of origin, Japan, crab ice cream is marketed in Japanese as Kani aisu. A Delaware-based ice cream parlor once attempted to make their own crab ice cream, but the end product was deemed a failure.^[9]

See also

• List of ice cream flavors
• List of crab dishes
• List of seafood dishes

References

1. McCullough, Fran (2003). The Good Fat Cookbook. Simon and Schuster. pp. 120–. ISBN 9780743238588.
2. Wilson, Lindsay Cameron (2005). Ice Cream!: Delicious Ice Creams for All Occasions. New Holland Publishers. pp. 6–. ISBN 9781843309796.
3. Blumenthal, Heston (February 1, 2003). "Mind over matter". Guardian. London. Retrieved June 18, 2003.
4. Derbyshire, David (June 11, 2011). "Crab ice cream is simply a matter of taste". Telegraph. London.
5. O'Connell, Sanjida (July 5, 2001). "Anyone for crab ice cream?". Guardian. London.
6. "Inspirations" (PDF). MargaretRiver.com. December 2012. Archived from the original (PDF) on May 27, 2013. Retrieved June 18, 2013.
7. "UK: Crab ice cream for sweet treat aficionados". Just-food. June 11, 2001. Archived from the original on August 14, 2019. Retrieved June 18, 2013.
8. Grant, Will (January 16, 2010). "The Venezuelan ice-cream parlour with 860 different flavours". BBC News. The selection includes chilli, tomato, gherkin, onion, mushrooms in wine, garlic, and cream of crab.
9. Colbert, Judy (2011). Chesapeake Bay Crabs. Pelican. pp. 257–. ISBN 9781455615049.