Ice Cream,Sugar Cones and Other Remembrances

A Story by justa335

... a remembrance from my youth... (image from Wikifilipino)

I can still see him 'Manong Lucio' the ice cream vendor who was only allowed to enter the school grounds twice each day, 11 in the morning and half past three every afternoon. The times coincided with lunch at and dismissal from the all-girls school where I studied. Manong Lucio had the kindest smile and his skin was burnt to an even brown by a lifetime of pushing his ice cream cart and selling the treats we thought were the nearest thing to heaven then; cold sweet delights that tickled the palate and went down our throats so smoothly that we could never have enough, we spent half of our daily allowances on them! And that was quite the sin back then, since most of us had packed lunches made by loving mothers, who made sure that our lunch boxes included healthy snacks and desserts like bananas and dalanghitas (the native oranges.)

We were devoted to Manong Lucio and the seemingly endless selection of ice-cream flavors in his cart. He had chocolate and vanilla, of course, (what ice cream cart would not) after all, we thought ourselves very American back then and it just wasn't done to not include these in any ice cream menu. However, it was the more native offerings we were after: the queso ice cream Manong Lucio sold had huge chunks of cheese mixed in and after finishing off two scoops of this, there simply was no room left for a healthy dessert or lunch, for that matter, I usually had my ice cream before anything else! He also had the 'sorbetes de ube' a creamy violet colored sorbet made from the purple yam, and an ice sherbet of sugar apple which was so sweet that my grandfather once used it to flavor his coffee! Then there was the mango ice cream which, in true Filipino fashion, had bits of the fruit swimming within the frozen creamy swirls. There are no words to describe the taste of the Philippine mango, and I don't mean the dried variety that my country exports; it is - quite simply - the best mango…. ever.

After deciding on the flavors came the choosing of the vehicle which would hold the ice cream and transport it to our impatient palates and Manong Lucio had a variety of those, too. Aside from the usual wafer cups, he had the sugar cones which, though smaller, were crunchier. It also took longer for these to turn soggy under the ice cream and we tried to keep from biting into these crunchy cones until we had licked all the ice cream off. Why? Because, kind-hearted Manong Lucio was never averse to giving an extra scoop as a free refill. And on really special days, we could splurge on the pan de sal, small baked bread buns, which, when filled with ice cream, was a meal by itself. My mother never quite believed my explanations when I came home with an un-touched lunch, but neither did she stop giving me pocket money, although she knew that most of it would end up in Manong Lucio's ice cream cart.

I am far removed from that time now, those days when my friends and I counted ice cream money instead of calories, and it has been decades since I last saw and had queso ice cream and sorbetes de ube from an ice cream cart. But on the occasions when I throw caution to the wind and allow myself a cone, I still hold off from biting into it, keeping the crunchy treat whole until that last final lick, not because I expect a refill, but more in tribute to Manong Lucio, whose kindness was, perhaps, the best of all the treats he offered.