Judith Rios Duarte and my Old Man conduct important research in downtown Zamora.

BACK WHEN I WAS LIVING very near downtown Albuquerque, New Mexico, there was only one decent ice cream shop in a ten minute walking radius. Between my Zamora house and the central market, a ten minute walk along Hidalgo Street, there are five.

One of those five, Tocumbo Paleteria y Neveria, a typical Zamora ice cream shop located on the central plaza a little north of Hidalgo’s bust, is the subject of this week’s food science experiment.

Tocumbo’s offerings are about 500 percent better than the average American counterpart. And I’m not saying this because I have all kinds of nostalgic memories looking up at the stars from a cast iron plaza bench, one arm wrapped around the girlfriend and the other wrapped around a waffle cone with a scoop of vanilla mixed with succulent pieces of dried fruit, nicely complimented by the crisp evening air. The simple fact is that Mexican ice cream stores offers wider variety, more interesting flavors, and an almost overwhelming volume of places to purchase the goods.

And it’s not something you rip out of a machine at McDonalds. This is serious busines.

I’ve been wanting to write about Mexican ice cream ever since I got here a year ago, but how could I tell loyal readers the full story without doing adequate, ahem, research. So, as a public service, and because my Old Man gave me $30 to spend on some kind of cultural experience, I present a full review of Tocumbo Paleteria y Neveria flavors. With the help of friends Judith, Sandra, and the aforementioned Old Man, I tried all 28 of them.

 

THE NEW AND DIFFERENT

Cereza (cherry): The maraschino flavor takes you back to many banana splits gone by. Still, at the back of your mind is the thought that these cherries are so coked up with preservatives that they will take as long to decompose as Styrofoam. Appearance: white and red with lots of cherry bits.

Uva con crema (grape with cream): The grape is a very subtle flavor, hearkening back to grape soda, but the cream is a pleasant addition. Appearance: a cream and purple cloud.

Vainilla con cajeta (vanilla with cajeta): Cajeta is a local kind of caramel. It’s sweet and a bit chunky, just a little sticky on the tongue.

Piña con coco (pineapple with coconut): White ice cream with the kind of pineapple chunks you get in salad bars. Strong piñacolada flavor, but alas, no buzz.

Limon natural (natural lime): Intense lime flavor, not overly sweet, like excellent and somewhat creamy lemonade.

Chongos (chongos): A real winner. Bits of rubbery caramelish candy mixed in with flavorful ice cream. Chongos are a Zamora specialty, but are more typically sold in little plastic cups with spoons.

Fresa con chantiyyi (strawberry with some sort of cake flavor): It’s strawberry, but with the kind of thicker cream you would find in a cake. Appearance: White with light pink. Somehow reminds one of a wedding.

Fresa con crema (strawberry with cream): Not actually bad, but rather dull. We’d prefer straight strawberry. There seems to be a bit of coconut, a redeeming feature, and in general it looks pretty, with it’s white and dark red combination.

Nuez (pecan): How do you make ice cream annoyingly dry? Put little pieces of pecan in there. They resemble cysts in the ice cream skin, and are just as appetizing.

Pistache (Pistachio): In contrast to the pecan, the pistachios are enough to convince skeptics that nuts do belong in ice cream after all. The green ice cream with brown specks almost reminds one of mint (the one really good American flavor you can’t get here), and comes off just as refreshing.

Mamey (yam): Eat this and you’re going to have flashbacks to Thanksgiving dinner. Light orange with dark orange specks, this yam flavor is better than real yams.

Frutas secas (dried fruit): A vanilla base supports a symphony of prunes, apples, apricots, and pineapple. Thing of your favorite trail mix, but with ice cream instead of those obnoxious nuts. Best of all, the fruit is not frozen solid.

Pastel de moka (chocolate cake): Very smooth and not at all chunky, this cream features pecans, chocolate and strawberry with vanilla. Appearance: Indistinct swirls of chocolate, vanilla, strawberry, and the occasional piece of nut peeking out.

Capucchino con almendras (cappuccino with almonds): Appearance: light brown with nuts. It features a strong coffee flavor, with chocolate influences, so we found it best to pawn off on someone who can handle the caffeine.

Fresa con leche (strawberry with milk): A mild, not necessarily ripe, strawberry flavor, heavy on the milk. We thought we tasted strawberry seeds, evidence that it is indeed the genuine article.

Pay de limon (key lime pie): Appearance: white with cracker like things sticking out. Think key lime flavor but with a crustish thing thrown in for good measure. That fresh sweet and simple taste is capitalizing on this underused fruit.

THE OLD FAVORITES

Napolitano (Neapolitan): Like conventional Neapolitan, but milkier and with small areas of each flavor, rather than big ones. Appearance: brown, red, white stripes.

Galleta (cookie): Decent vanilla ice cream with large sections of crumbly cookie and flat crunchy chunks of chocolate.

Choco chip (chocolate chip): Everything chocolate chip should be. Thick, creamy, with chips so thin they can melt on your tongue before saying goodbye. Appearance: very light yellow with dark speckled chips.

Chocolate (chocolate): The Bill Gates and Carlos Slim of chocolates, it’s really rich. Milky, and the chocolate flavor somehow seems more chocolaty – almost fudge like – than other ice creams we’ve tried.

Vainilla (vanilla): Slightly yellow is Mexico’s take on this tradition. But behind the color and different spelling, this boring and predictable ice cream is still boring and predictable.

Chickle (bubblegum): The flavor is bubblegum but instead of actual pieces of gum, as we’ve had in some American brands, you instead get gummy bears. If you’re into gummy bears, you’ll like it, but not otherwise. Appearance: white with colored gummy bears.

THE NOT EVEN ICE CREAM

Tequila con limon (tequila with lime): This is more of an ice than an ice cream, but the taste is light and refreshing. It’s almost pure white, like snow.

Fresa natural (plain strawberry): It’s not ice cream, it’s just a thick and creamy puree of frozen strawberries. How they are kept from freezing solid as a rock I don’t know, but whoever figured it out should be knighted. If you’ve every had a ripe strawberry, you know the flavor, but frozen! Easily one of the top five.

THE YOGURT

Yogurth con durazno (peach yogurt): Delightfully sour, light orange frozen yogurt mixed with sharp peach flavor and not quite frozen chunks of peach. Where has this flavor been all my life?

Yogurth natural con frutas (plain yogurt with fruit): This sour tast is probably only for those who explicitly enjoy sour. (Buttermilk drinkers, I’m talking to you.) Mixed in with the white yogurt are pieces of cherry, peach, and pineapple.

Yogurth natural (plain yogurt): Just like yogurth natural con frutas menos las frutas. The white cream makes for a nice smooth mouth feel. Again, those wimps who can’t handle sour (and I consider you worse than the chickens who can’t handle a roasted jalapeño pepper) should avoid it, thereby leaving more for the rest of us.

Yogurth con fresa (strawberry yogurt): Sour frozen yogurt with strawberry flavor and strawberry chunks. A great example of Mexican minimalist culinary excellence.

 

Anyway, ya’all should hit up Tocumbo if you’re ever in town. Not only does it have a good selection of cream, but it also stocks a variety of paletas, which are Popsicles worthy of a whole other article. The atmosphere is relaxed, and the staffers are cool. They barely batted an eye when a couple of Americans basically moved in to the joint for a week, insisting on trying everything.