Boston Ice Cream Factory

Exotic ice cream has been a constant at the Boston Ice Cream Factory in Boston’s Dorchester neighborhood.
 
Owner Steve Cirame, a Boston ice-cream pioneer, says vanilla is still most popular. But he often makes unusual flavors like Guinness (with Irish stout), mud slide (Kahlua and Bailey’s) and, in a nod to Asian neighbors, the wildly popular durian. Durian is a tasty, spiked-surface Southeast Asian fruit with, when not frozen, a pungent aroma.

Others prefer more gentle flavors like Rosewater ice cream, which he first made for a Greek-church festival in Watertown.

But the most controversial is his Fourth of July tradition -- New England clam-chowder ice cream.

Cirame brought his ice cream to Cambridge more than 25 years ago when he opened the original Christina's ice cream in Inman Square. He is sticking with tradition in Dorchester, again churning out gallons of chowder ice cream. That's at his unassuming store in Lambert’s shopping plaza, 777A Morrissey Blvd., some two miles south of the waterfront UMass Boston campus.

“It’s weird, but it’s the quintessential New England flavor,” Cirame said. "It tastes like clam chowder, but cold and sweet.

"I’ll make it a little weaker this year, so it doesn't taste that bad. This is the only place that makes it.

"I make a batch of vanilla ice cream and then, when it's almost done, I put in a quart of real clam chowder. I get this really good chowder next door at Lambert's," he said.

Exotic-ice-cream lovers can taste actual clams and bits of potato in the ice cream. It will go on sale the Thursday before July 4, and will be available only through July.

For himself? He samples the chowder ice cream while making it, but then leaves it for customers. He says he prefers banana.

- by Dan Sheridan, Boston Reporter for HelloMetro  (Click to leave a message)