Cohen Ben - Homemade Ben & Jerry s! 10 Classic Flavors

By BEN COHEN and JERRY GREENFIELD
with NANCY J. STEVENS

Illustration by LYN SEVERANCE

WORKMAN PUBLISHING NEW YORK

Copyright 1987 by Ben Cohen, Jerry Greenfield, and Nancy J. Stevens
Illustrations copyright 1987 by Lyn Severance

All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproducedmechanically, electronically, or by any other means, including photocopyingwithout written permission of the publisher. Published simultaneously in Canada by Thomas Allen & Son Limited.

Homemade Ben & Jerrys! 10 Classic Flavors features listings previously published in Ben & Jerrys Homemade Ice Cream & Dessert Book

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225 Varick Street, New York, NY 10014
www.workman.com

The names of the following ingredients used in certain Ben & Jerrys recipes are registered trademarks of other companies:

5th Avenue is made by the confectionary division of Ludens, Inc.

Heath is a registered trademark of L.S. Heath & Sons, Inc.

Kit Kat is manufactured by H.B. Reese Candy Company, a division of Hershey Foods Corporations.

M&Ms is distributed by M&M Mars, a division of Mars, Inc.

Mystic Mint is a registered trademark of Nabisco Brands, Inc.

Oreo is a registered trademark of Nabisco Brands, Inc.

Post Grape-Nuts is manufactured by General Foods Corporation.

Reeses Peanut Butter Cups are manufactured by H.B. Reese Candy Company, a division of Hershey Foods Corporation.

Rolo Cups are manufactured by Hershey Chocolate Company, a division of Hershey Foods Corporation.

You couldnt really say we started out small

since wed been shopping in the chubby department from the age of six. When Jerry and I first met in seventh grade gym class, we were already the two widest kids on the field and the only ones who couldnt run a mile in seven minutes.

We became best friends. We shared many interests, but most of all, a deep and sincere appreciation of good food and lots of it. One summer, I got a job driving an ice cream truck on Long Island for which I earned $100 a week and as much free ice cream as I could eat. I thought this was a great deal and convinced Jerry to sign up for a neighboring route, but he quit after one day. He didnt think he had much of a future in ice cream. He set his sights instead on the medical profession.

After high school, we went our separate ways. Jerry headed west to Oberlin College to study pre-med, and I went north to Colgate. I didnt really want to go to college, and, after a year and a half, I dropped out and traveled around the country. I visited Jerry in Ohio and got a night job selling sandwiches in the dorms. Jerry had just finished a half-credit course in Carnival Techniques and had distinguished himself in fire-eating and cinder-block smashing. Because he was so eager to demonstrate his prowess, I volunteered to be the smashee. I wrapped myself up in a sheet, swami-style, mumbled some metabolic mantras, and ventured out on campus where Jerry and his sledgehammer calmly waited. I lay down; he placed the cinder block on my bare belly and then, in one smash, pulverized it to smithereens. Thus was born Habeeni Ben Coheeni, Indian mystic madman, willing and able to withstand the merciless sledgehammer.

After a while, I decided to go back to college and enrolled in Skidmore College, where I studied such unorthodox subjects as pottery and organic gardening. Eventually, I dropped out for good and took up a series of odd jobs ranging from night mopper at Friendlys, taxi driver in Manhattan, kitchen assistant at Mrs. Londons Bake Shop (I separated the eggs), and Pinkerton night guard at the Saratoga Race Track (I stood by a shack in the middle of the track guarding an empty canoe with a covered holster, but no gun). None of these jobs ever lasted more than a few months. Finally, I ended up in a small town in upstate New York called Paradox, working with emotionally disturbed children.

Meanwhile, Jerry had graduated but didnt get into medical school. He took a job as a lab technician in North Carolina and reapplied, only to be turned down again. By this time, we had both realized we really werent getting where we wanted to go. So we decided to change our courses and head there together. We werent interested in making a lot of money; we just wanted to do something that would be fun. Our business goals were modest, but specific: We wanted to be our own bosses and work exactly when, where, and how we wanted.

At that time, my two favorite foods were bagels and ice cream, so I thought it would be great to open a little restaurant that would sell either one. We considered starting a delivery service called U.B.S., short for United Bagel Service, and looked into buying a bagel machine. After one telephone call to price the equipment, we decided we were in the ice cream business.

We soon understood that in order to do this right, we needed to know how to make ice cream. We also needed to find a nice small town that lacked a homemade ice cream parlor. So the research began.

We wanted to settle in a rural college town, preferably one that was warm, so everyone would want to eat a lot of ice cream all year round. We decided to choose our location based on three key factors: a healthy student population, a good-size town population, and a moderate climate.

We considered a few towns in Massachusetts but decided they were too seasonal for our needs. At a friends suggestion, we took a look at Burlington, Vermont. It had the right number of students, and its population was growing at a good rate. It didnt already have an ice cream parlor. What it did have was an average of 161 days a year when the temperature plunged below freezing and a total winter snow accumulation of five feet (not counting a spring accumulation of 13 inches). That bothered us until I came up with the Internal-External Temperature Differential and Equalization Theory (later to become Coheenis First Law of Ice-Cream-Eating Dynamics). Herein I explained that the apparent cold that the body feels in cold climates is based on the difference between the internal body temperature and the external temperature. By lowering the internal temperature (through eating cold things in the winter), the internal temperature drops and the body feels comparative warmth. We discovered that a healthy, daily intake of cold ice cream not only helped to reduce that difference, but it also helped to make the frigid winter months much more bearable, if not downright pleasant.

So Burlington it was. We moved there in the early fall, which is never a bad time in New England, with its incredible colors, partially sunny skies, and crisp, clean (did I say cold?) air. We found an old abandoned gasoline station that was literally falling apart. You could see daylight through the roof; there were six inches of ice on the floor, hardly any walls, no ceiling, and whatever was left standing was badly water damaged. But it was a great location. We saw its potential and signed a lease for the first home of Ben & Jerrys. We agreed that it sounded better than Jerry & Bens. Since my name came first, Jerry became president and I became vice president.