Ice cream flavors are created by a "flavor chemist" who is responsible for engineering tastes to suit popular opinion. Flavors are created in "flavor development laboratories" by white-coated food scientists who combine chemicals in precise proportions.

Ice-cream manufacturers create a blend of milk fats, milk solids, sweeteners, stabilizers and emulsifiers. They simply add the mix to a "flavor vat" which contains the chemicals, purees and extracts blended by scientists. The taste is tested - by the dollar-generating capacity of that blend.

Is it possible to find a flavor of ice-cream that becomes the individual taste buds of a certain tongue? The origin of ice-cream was all about taste personalities. Pharaohs of Egypt would ship ice from the mountains, which they would combine with honey, fruit and nuts - creating a truly natural flavored ice-cream. Ancient Greeks added honey and nectar to snow, the Chinese added syrup and the Indians made fruit sorbets with ice.

Today, ice-cream is a billion dollar enterprise, where flavors are created for marketing. Ice-cream companies develop catchy names that don't necessarily describe the taste - its all about packaging, branding and selling. Chunky Monkey, Turtle Soup, Kama Sutra - all my favorite ice-cream flavors.

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