The Joy Of Horizontal Ice Cream Cones

When I was a kid, there were vertical ice cream cones and there were horizontal ice cream cones.

The vertical cones were sold by ice cream shops.  The horizontal cones were made by Borden’s which called them Mello Rolls.  They were sold at the seaside by the state government of New York, and I liked the horizontal cones better than vertical cones.

The first reason to like a horizontal Mello Roll is that it signified an occasion.

It meant that my parents had decided that it would be a special day, and our family would go to Jones Beach State Park.  

This meant that I got to swim in the ocean and fine tune my body surfing skills.  Once I got tired of swimming in the ocean, I would ask my father for some money and head to the big swimming pool pavilion, where they sold Mello Rolls.

The second reason to like a Mello Roll is that I got to participate in making my cone. 

The ice cream guy would sit an empty Mello Roll cone on the counter.  No need to worry --- the cone had such a large conical base that it could stand on its own.  Then he plopped a cylinder of ice cream sideways in the rectangular opening at the top of the cone.  The cylinder fit snugly and was wrapped in paper around its circumference.  I had to carefully unroll the ice cream in my cone.

I also liked Mello Rolls because the cones were engineered so that melting ice cream did not drip on me.

Mello Rolls were not hand scooped; they were all exactly the same size --- so, I never had to check to see if my brother got more ice cream than I did.

Thinking back on those times, I realized that the state government of New York must have also liked Mello Rolls because the ice cream was not scooped – the uniform portion size meant better inventory control.  Because Mello Rolls were wrapped in paper, the state government didn’t have to worry about employees touching ice cream.

But the best part of a Mello Roll was the slight tinge of sea salt mingling with ice cream.  The salt came from my lips because I had just been swimming in the Atlantic Ocean.  That tinge reminded me that my parents had decided that the day would be a special day.

I live far from the ocean now, and Borden’s has stopped making Mello Rolls.  It looks like all ice cream cones are vertical these days.

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Maria Campanella, with her wonderful Long Island accent, interviews a Korean War Veteran on Jones Beach.  Maria asks him to describe a Mello Roll.  1 minute YouTube video.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oWbx48dMbSU

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NOTE: Doug's best stories have been collected into a book: Puppy Out Of Breath.  Price = $11.  Send an email to ParadiseDouglas at gmail.com to find out how to purchase a copy by mail.