Debbie Byrom

I don’t often eat ice cream. Especially the fat-laden sugary behemoth that is a Memphis Meltdown – I’m afraid I may be afraid of big nuts as the advertising suggested. There was however a moment of weakness on an unseasonably sunny day last weekend and I found myself leaning over the ice cream cabinet in the local gas station. I got suckered by a ‘new’ sticker.

There are two kinds of people on this earth – those who like their ice cream plain (vanilla, hokey pokey etc) and those who think the more bits and pieces you add the better. I’m firmly in the second camp. Or at least I was. Enter the Rocky Road Memphis Meltdown. The description on the pack goes something like “A mountain of jelly rippled chocolate ice cream dunked in marshmallow and smothered in choc, nuts and coconut”. The mother in law, who also got suckered in, described it as being like eating a jandle.

It wasn’t that there was anything wrong with it as such. The individual components were fine (excluding the marshmallow which was like cloudy tough jelly) but the ultimate combination was wrong – too much other stuff, not enough ice cream, the whole thing was barely even cold.

I feel the need to add in a disclaimer at this point in the defence of Tip Top. Other people might love the product, it just didn’t do it for me.

Anyway, I was so disappointed that I got halfway through, gave up and put the thing bag in the bag, dropped it in the nearest bin and proceeded to sulk. For some reason food has an astounding ability to upset me; I feel cheated and let down in a way that is neither reasonable nor rational. It’s been happening a bit recently – Pak’ n Save steak that tasted not quite right and my first tasting of Collective Dairy yoghurt which just couldn’t match up to Piako.

Surely I am not alone in being lured in by the look of something to find that the reality is far less fulfilling. Anyone got any good examples?

Method