My Mother’s Snow Cream

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In my childhood, I loved waking up on winter mornings to see the world sparkling white with snowflakes swirling. It was a magical sight.

On those snowy days, the kids in my McDowell County, North Carolina, neighborhood congregated to slide down our icy street on makeshift sleds and splatter each other in snowball free-for-alls. Sometimes our parents joined in the fun. But besides playing in the snow, I looked forward to a treat that came with the wintry weather: my mother’s snow cream. 

After a deep snowfall, my mother would say, “Go get me a pan of snow.”

Bundled up in hooded sweater, rubber boots, and gloves, I took off with a dishpan to our backyard, where pure, untouched billows waited; and with a large spoon I skimmed swaths of snow into the pan, packing it to the brim.

Once back inside the warm kitchen, my snow garb shed, I set the pan on the counter beside the sink, where my mother had already gathered a can of Carnation evaporated milk, a bag of granulated sugar, and a bottle of vanilla extract. 

“Get me my mixer,” she said.

Happily, I retrieved the Sunbeam hand mixer, inserted the beaters, and plugged it in for her.

Into a large bowl, she spooned mounds of snow, poured creamy evaporated milk on it, and began beating.  As she whipped the mixture, she added more snow, sugar, and a slosh of vanilla until the bowl teemed with a smooth, crystalline confection.

“I can make it chocolate,” she offered and glanced toward the Hershey’s Cocoa tin in the cupboard.

“No, that’s OK,” I said, preferring to leave it vanilla.

We filled two dessert bowls and stuck teaspoons in them for me to carry to my father and older brother who watched television in the front room. I hurried back to the kitchen to fill my bowl.

“I wouldn’t eat too much,” my mother cautioned. “It might give you a sore throat.” She always issued this warning when she made snow cream for us.

Our family didn’t seem to worry about eating snow from the first snowfall, as some people did. And I don’t recall getting a sore throat from eating snow—either in my mother’s snow cream or in the handfuls I’d scoop from the yard to sample.

The last snow cream I remember my mother making was in mid-March 1993, after a blizzard dumped 18 inches of snow on Marion and kept us trapped inside our houses for a week. My husband Steve and I lived in a rural community near the mountains, and during the power outage that week, we depended on the creek for water, a fireplace for heat, and oil lamps for light.

When the highway was passable, Steve drove me in his Dodge Dakota to my parents’ house, where I had grown up. The power in their area, closer to town than ours, had been restored, and I looked forward to getting to their house and the comfort it promised.

My mother’s dining room was warm and pungent with the scent of burning oak from her wood stove.  While I sat at her table, she brought me a tall glass filled with snow cream and an iced tea spoon to eat it with.

“I hoped you’d make some snow cream,” I said. I believe she made it especially for me.

It was the tastiest snow cream I’d ever eaten on one of the most memorable days of my life. I had missed seeing my parents, now in their 70s, and had worried about their safety during the blizzard. And frankly, I felt like I’d been released from captivity after a week of isolation.

“This is so good,” I said as I spooned the icy treat into my mouth and savored the sweet vanilla flavor.

“I hope it don’t give you a sore throat,” my mother said.

“It won’t,” I assured her, intending to eat every bite.

And that’s exactly what I did that March day, as I’d always done all those magical snowy days of my childhood.