Ice Cream: making the world a nicer place

By Joseph L. Garcia, Reporter

ICE CREAM inevitably leads to sweet experiences: mostly because it helps to make you sweeter (in disposition, and through the perception of others, mind you) as a person. Five studies from The Journal of Personality and Social Psychology found that “people believed strangers who liked sweet foods… were also higher in agreeableness.”

Two of the studies showed “that individual differences in the preference for sweet foods predicted prosocial personalities, prosocial intentions, and prosocial behaviors.” Two others “showed that momentarily savoring a sweet food (vs. a non-sweet food or no food) increased participants’ self-reports of agreeableness and helping behavior.”

����ý went out to meet two people who make ice cream, and thus, in a way, make the world a little bit nicer.

During a rainstorm earlier this week, we sat down with Sigrid Perez, the wife of Paul Perez, founder of Papa Diddi’s Handcrafted Ice Cream at their Maginhawa branch. Mrs. Perez told ����ý that her husband isn’t Papa Diddi’s — that is her father-in-law.

The elder Mr. Perez served as a pro-bono lawyer for indigent farmers, and made ice cream in his spare time to destress, using the produce paid him by farmers after they’d won a case. The Perez family, working with an old-fashioned ice cream maker, would use the time-consuming process to bond. “That’s what shaped his memory,” said Mrs. Perez of her husband, who works in advertising and marketing. Ice cream serves as another one of his creative outlets. “He’s a creative person. He really looks at what he can do with things.”

����ý also sat down with Ian Carandang, founder and, as he calls himself, Sorbetero (ice cream vendor), for Sebastian’s Ice Cream at his branch in the Podium in the Ortigas Center. Mr. Carandang once worked in animation, in a creative field just like Mr. Perez. Speaking about how creative types like him move to the kitchen, Mr. Carandang said, “It’s more about making stuff.”

Papa Diddi’s was founded in 2015, while Sebastian’s started in 2004.

Mrs. Perez said that one of the reasons why they started their ice cream business was because one of their children had been diagnosed with cancer, prompting the family to change their diet and look for healthier options. When it came to desserts, it was about making other options. Mr. Perez bought an ice cream-maker, and tested the product with family and friends. Mrs. Perez urged him to make more and start selling, and in response, Mr. Perez studied ice cream-making at the University of Pennsylvania.

Mr. Carandang, meanwhile, taught himself how to make ice cream through recipe books, starting with one by American ice cream brand Ben & Jerry’s (he has since moved on to other literature). “Honestly, the basics aren’t that hard,” he said.

What sets these two apart from the other ice cream companies out there is their frequent experimentation with flavors: Papa Diddi’s makes ice cream out of carabao’s milk, flavored with ingredients as diverse as basil to squash flower. Sebastian’s meanwhile, makes flavors such as blue cheese, sapin-sapin (a colorful rice cake), and champorrado (chocolate rice pudding). Mr. Carandang said that he doesn’t go out of his way to make weird flavors: it’s just that he wants to capture an experience that way. “I make leche flan ice cream, I want it to taste like leche �ڱ�����.”

For her part, Mrs. Perez said, “I guess it allows you to see ingredients from another perspective.”

Mr. Carandang sells his ice cream out of three branches: in Vertis North, The Podium, and the Regis center in Katipunan. Papa Diddi’s, meanwhile, operates in Quezon City’s Maginhawa St., has co-locations in Libis and Intramuros, and a depot in Ortigas which handles the deliveries and subscriptions. Mr. Carandang is currently in talks to sell Sebastian’s in supermarkets.

����ý tucked into Papa Diddi’s Chocolate Lovin’, mixed in with chunks of chocolate. “Wow” is the only thing written in this reporter’s notes. A cheese-flavored ice cream brought back memories of cheese I used to sneak out from the family’s refrigerator, and the forbidden rice flavor had somehow transported me to a valley somewhere. “It’s a happy product to begin with. No matter how bad you feel, when you get a scoop of ice cream, it just gets you,” said Mrs. Perez.

As for Sebastian’s, it was a little bit more sophisticated: the Once in a Blue Moon sundae, made with blue cheese ice cream, walnuts, and honey, somehow brought me to a lobby of a hotel — I could almost here the jazz music from the hotel’s piano. Meanwhile, the champorrado ice cream, sprinkled with dilis (dried anchovy), made me feel like I was nine again, in an orange-tiled kitchen, waiting for my mother to finish dressing.

“Ice cream is one of the first foods that you’re given as a kid. It’s easy to eat… it’s a treat. It’s nostalgia. It really occupies something inside a person. Every person has enjoyed ice cream as a kid. A good ice cream can bring a person back to that.”