Angela Lim
IRL
Posted on Jun 27, 2023Updated on Jun 27, 2023, 2:23 pm CDT
Butter pecan ice cream originated out of necessity.
Many Black families have passed down accounts saying that they could not eat and purchase vanilla ice cream in the Jim Crow South when racial segregation was legal.
Nikki (@nikki.mov), who incorporates history lessons in her food content, recently shared the ice cream lore in a viral TikTok video.
“It was a privilege that some white Southerners didn’t believe Black people deserved to have,” Nikki said in the video, which by Tuesday had garnered over 2.5 million views.
Nikki explained that Antoine, an enslaved man from Louisiana, found a way to cultivate pecan trees in the mid-1800s. Pecans were native to the South and therefore easily accessible ingredients, which helped butter pecan become a favorite ice cream flavor among Black people.
“My grandma from Alabama told me this and it was the only ice cream we ate growing up,” user @mariahmichellebr commented. (Nikki did not immediately respond to the Daily Dot’s request for comment.)
While restricting Black people from obtaining vanilla ice cream was never explicitly law, it was the status quo in the Jim Crow South. Christopher Carter, an assistant professor of theology and religious studies at the University of San Diego, told the Daily Dot that “vanilla” and “whiteness” are words associated with purity.
Vanilla ice cream was thus a privilege that not everyone could publicly enjoy.
“It’s all about what you can and cannot do in front of white people,” Carter said. “Because when you are a person of color and you’re enjoying yourself, you’re having fun, you’re smiling, that’s not really—at that time especially—what they [white people] would have wanted to see.”
Darryl Goodner, co-owner of Louisville Cream in Kentucky, said he started the Butter Pecan Podcast with a friend from the ice cream shop in 2020 after noticing that a lot of their Black customers would order their bourbon pecan flavor. Many of their podcast episodes dove into historically racist tropes in food.
“There is always an undercurrent of racism even in the most seemingly benign issues like ice cream,” Goodner told the Daily Dot. “Butter pecan is indicative of a lot of things about Black people as a culture: When you don’t have this option, you figure out the other one.”
Butter pecan ice cream’s origins reflect just a fraction of food made and propagated by Black Americans. Some foods brought to America from Africa include watermelon, okra, and coffee. Carter said that Black people were enslaved because of their agricultural and animal husbandry skills, and their African American cuisine—popularly known as “soul food”—represents their collective stories over time.
“This food is reflective of the experiential wisdom our people have, and it has enabled us to survive systemic oppression,” Carter said. “Soul food has always been a way of maintaining a sense of identity and self-determination. It has, within it, a story of survival.”
Goodner encouraged more people to learn about food history and its intersections with race and social justice. He said that food can create a shared avenue for these discussions.
“That way, you can understand people, why we do things, why we want things, and why we behave this way,” Goodner said. “When you start to look at the minutiae of those things, you start to see that we’re very similar. And if we’re not, there’s an institution causing that.”
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*First Published: Jun 27, 2023, 2:21 pm CDT
Angela Lim is a general assignment intern for the Daily Dot. She is a third-year journalism and Asian American studies student at the University of Texas at Austin. Her work has appeared in the Daily Texan, the Austin Chronicle, and Community Impact.
FAQs
Augustus Jackson (April 16, 1808 – January 11, 1852), was an African American businessperson, chef, ice cream maker, and confectioner from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. He is credited as inventing a modern method of manufacturing ice cream and for new flavor development.
Why is it called butter pecan ice cream? ›
So, why is it called butter pecan? A key component to the butter pecan cooking process is actually roasting the pecans in butter before incorporating into your recipe, which is most likely going to be homemade butter pecan ice cream.
Is butter pecan ice cream a southern thing? ›
In fact, some say it started in the Jim Crow-era southern United States and was a response to racism.
Does butter pecan ice cream have real butter in it? ›
Cream, Milk, Sugar, Skim Milk, Buttered Pecans (Pecans, Cottonseed Oil, Butter, Salt), Corn Syrup, Whey, Stabilizer (Mono and Diglycerides, Carob Bean Gum, Cellulose Gum, Carrageenan), Natural Flavor, Salt, Annatto (color).
What ethnicity invented ice cream? ›
The origins of ice cream, sorbet and other chilled dairy treats are difficult to pin down—but span back to antiquity. According to popular legend, ice cream was invented by the ancient Chinese, brought to Italy by Marco Polo, to France by Catherine de Medici, and thence to America by Thomas Jefferson.
Did a man invent ice cream? ›
Augustus Jackson was dubbed the Father of Ice Cream because he revolutionized the ice cream making process. He was the first one who used salt to make the ice melt slower. His ice cream making process and recipes revolutionized ice cream in Philadelphia.
What does butter pecan ice cream say about you? ›
Butter Pecan
You're a little old fashioned and maybe a little conservative. You're a hard worker who is detail-oriented at work and in your social life. (And very respectful to your date.) So while you are kind of conservative, you also are a decadent person.
What age group eats butter pecan ice cream? ›
Those aged 55 and up are significantly more likely to prefer butter pecan (17%) and vanilla (16%).
Does butter pecan ice cream taste like butterscotch? ›
Butterscotch and butter pecan are wildly different, and it comes down to how they're made. In fact, butter is really the only ingredient they share (other than the basic ice cream components), and the only point of flavor overlap between the two. Beyond that, there's little they have in common.
How do Southern people say pecan? ›
Many people believe Southerners say “pee-can” while Northerners say “puh-kahn.” According to the National Pecan Shellers Association (which, we assume, is the foremost authority on all things pecan), only 45 percent of Southerners are Team Pee-can—unlike 70 percent of people in the Northeast.
Butter pecan ice cream is smooth vanilla ice cream with a slight buttery flavor, with pecans added. It is manufactured by many major ice cream brands. A variant of the recipe is butter almond, which replaces the pecans with almonds.
Is snow cream just a Southern thing? ›
While snow cream can be made anywhere it snows, and is also quite popular in Canada, it has a passionate fanbase in the South. In her book You're Cookin' It Country, singer Loretta Lynn recalls her mother making snow cream in her home state of Kentucky.
What is the history of buttered pecan ice cream? ›
Originally vanilla was for White people only, because it was considered pure. An enslaved man named Antoine (no last name) figured out how to harvest pecans quickly, and eventually butter pecan ice cream was born, a flavor that Black people were allowed to partake in.
Can butter pecan ice cream go bad? ›
Yes, ice cream can go bad. Ice cream, despite the fact that it lives in the freezer, a place where no food can seemingly go bad ever, has a finite shelf life. It's totally fair if it never occurred to you to look before, but your favorite dairy-based dessert does have an expiration date.
Does Breyers make butter pecan ice cream? ›
Our Breyers® Butter Pecan is made with 100% Grade A milk and cream that comes from cows not treated with artificial growth hormones*. We use flavors and colors from natural sources* and 100% sustainable vanilla.
What did Augustus Jackson invent? ›
Augustus Jackson invented a way of making ice cream that is still used today. He used salt. Salt lowered the temperature of the ice cream. It also made the flavors taste better.
Who brought ice cream to America? ›
Ice cream's origins
But it was British confectioner Philip Lenzi who introduced ice cream to America. In 1774, Lenzi put an ad in the New York Gazette announcing that he would make ice cream available to the masses.
Who first thought of ice cream? ›
It has often been said that the Chinese invented ice cream and that marco polo brought the idea to Europe in the thirteenth century. This is more myth than historical fact backed by evidence but it can be sated with some confidence that ice cream was invented in China in the first milenium.
Where does the ice cream man come from? ›
So, how did the tradition of the ice cream truck and its driver—the ice cream man—begin? No one knows for sure who the first ice cream truck driver was, but they may have been an employee of Harry Burt from Youngstown, Ohio. In 1920, Mr. Burt developed frozen ice cream on a stick and called it the Good Humor® bar.
