We Scream

The ‘Privilege’ of the Toasted Almond Bar vs. the ‘Affordable Luxury’ of Artisanal Ice Cream

Photo: Courtesy of Van Leeuwen

We have no idea why The Wall Street Journal let photographer Mustafah Abdulaziz Ralph Gardner pen what amounts to a 1,000-word love letter to Good Humor’s Toasted Almond Bar. But dammit, it has inspired us to confess that for a brief spell in our life we grabbed one of these out of the bodega freezer during our postprandial walk home on a pretty much nightly basis — and this was in the winter. Do we agree it would hold its own on the dessert menu at Jean Georges? We’d sooner liken it to the guilty pleasure of biting into a slice of Kraft American. But we can at least agree that “biting into a Toasted Almond Bar is a mind/body experience. It doesn’t just taste great, it makes you feel privileged.” Take it from us, at $2.50 a pop, a Toasted Almond Bar habit can drain your bank account almost as quickly as daily visits to the Van Leeuwen truck. Today the Times takes a look at ever more expensive “artisanal” ice creams and gelatos, and reveals that Van Leeuwen is turning a $2.50 profit on a $3.60 serving. Meanwhile, owing to the cost of shipping and raw materials, Grom claims it actually loses money on some flavors (“The strawberries for our granita are grown only on twelve hectares in the entire earth,” says a manger). Okay, so how much is Unilever making on these Good Humor bars?

An Unappreciated Culinary Delight [WSJ]
You Scream, I Scream … at the Price of Ice Cream [NYT]

The ‘Privilege’ of the Toasted Almond Bar vs. the ‘Affordable