Pumphouse Creamery - Dill Pickle

Dill Pickle - Dill Pickle Ice Cream

Today I try a new flavor from the Pumphouse Creamery in south Minneapolis called Dill Pickle.  Yes, you read that correctly!  Dill Pickle!  Pumphouse has had some unusual and creative flavors this winter including Corn Masa and Black Garlic (now with chocolate chips).  They seem to have topped themselves here.  Pickles? Pickles and Cream?

Pickles (pickled cucumbers) have been around for a few thousand years.  Pickling something in vinegar and brine is a great way of preserving food -- before supermarkets, you had to have a good way of eating things when they were not in season.  I found some interesting articles online on the history of pickles here, here and here.  Dill is a fragrant herb of the Apiaceae family which is a very large family known mostly for celery carrots and parsley but also for fragrant herbs such as cumin, coriander, anise and fennel.  Dill has long been used as a flavoring agent for pickles.  Reading these articles, I see a frequent mention of pickles and ice cream as one of the cravings that pregnant women might get.  There was a write-up about this on Slate.com a while back.  I hadn't thought about that.  Perhaps that is one of the motivations of creating this flavor?

On to the ice cream!  Opening the lid, the ice cream is a bright yellowish white color.  There are hints of a few specks in there -- I am not sure if they are pickles or dill.  I brace myself as I dig in.  Yup, I taste the pickles right away!  It is sweeter than just the pickles themselves.  Reminded me a bit of a relish at first.  Interestingly, I taste the creaminess of the ice cream as a 'finish' (what you taste after you swallow).  With their recently black garlic flavor, it was the garlic that was the finish.  That creaminess does seem to allow me to eat more than one spoonful at a time.  I am surprised at how palatable this was made to be.  I was actually able to finish the entire pint in one sitting, although I would probably recommend a smaller service.  Like the garlic pint that I had last month, I was craving a palate-cleansing stick of gum about a half an hour after finishing.

This is a fun experimental flavor from Pumphouse Creamery!  I will admit that it is probably not for everyone, but it is very entertaining to try something completely different.  If you're a pickle fan or if you are pregnant, you should definitely try it.  You might want to limit yourself to a scoop at first -- a full pint was a lot.  I just checked the Pumphouse website and they do mention that they are open from 12-6 daily for take-home pints and quarts.  I've also seen them at some local Kowalski's.