Hi again and welcome back.

So what's the weather like in your city？Has it been raining,very humid, or just suffocatingly hot? Right now we are experiencing the height of summer.And if I ask you on a typical summer day like this,what is that one treat you absolutely crave? Something you fell in love with when you were a child; something cold,sweet,creamy and just tastes like a little piece of heaven.I'm sure for a lot of you,the answer will be ice cream.

In English there's a popular line of lyrics says I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream,which pretty much shows that love of ice cream is shared across the globe. But do you actually know your ice cream？

In today's episode,we're going to explore the world of ice cream and all the other relevant summer treats. We're gonna take a look at different types of ice cream or frozen desserts, how to order ice cream and many interesting expressions and facts you probably didn't know before.

So if you have a sweet tooth,this episode is definitely for you.

If you go into any supermarket or convenience store,there are so many choices when it comes to frozen desserts.

But if you ask someone to use English to describe it,most people only know the word ice cream.However,ice cream just doesn't really cover the wide variety of all these frozen treats.

First of all,let's take a look at some of the most popular types of frozen desserts and I put them into two categories.

The first category is those with more cream.If you like a creamier taste, this category is more for you.So we start with the basics in this category, ice cream bar.

Frozen dessert on a stick, usually with chocolate coating.So the ice cream is wrapped within a thin layer of chocolate, it's to prevent the ice cream from melting.

One typical example that comes to mind is Magnum, by the way, they are now getting really expensive.If ice cream bar is not enough for you, why not try ice cream sandwich？

As the name suggests, this is a dessert that sandwich has a layer of ice cream between two cookies or two thin cake-like layers.

I see it quite often in the UK, somehow in Beijing they are not as popular.And for a special occasion many people would also order ice cream cake.They are great but they don't really keep that well.

Going into a restaurant, cafe or just a fast food joint, many people would order sundae, Sundae.It's a direct translation.It basically is just scoops of ice cream topped with sauce, syrup or whipped cream. In terms of calories, it is an absolute nightmare.But that doesn't stop it from being one of the most popular ice cream treats.

And wanna make it more simple, why not make it a hot fudge sundae？This is a sundae with a hot chocolate sauce.So you can experience the very unique texture and taste of the hot, cold and creamy.

And for those of you who prefer to have a little bit more liquid, you obviously can order milkshake, which is basically ice cream with milk and syrup.

And another quite popular ice cream treat is called ice cream float.This literally means you put one or a few scoops of ice cream into a soft drink, for example, a coke or sprite. You put the ice cream in, they will float.

With ice cream float, you can even make it with beer or other alcoholic drink, even though I'm not entirely sure about a beer float.

So far we have been focusing on things that are really creamy, for me that would be a little bit too much.So if you're like me, if you prefer an icier and lighter taste, let's look at the other category.First of all, we have ice pop or ice lolly.

So Americans would call it ice pop and British usually would say ice lolly. This is more just flavored ice on a stick.

In American English, people sometimes also call it popsicle, which is technically a brand.For me I have to say when it's really hot, I would much prefer an ice pop to ice cream to quench my thirst.

Another one of my favorites is shaved ice, basically just ice and you use a machine to shave it into smaller pieces, and you put different sauce or syrup on top, shaved ice.

Perhaps shaved ice is more to describe the type you see in Asia.In English speaking countries, sometimes you also see something called a Snowcone, which is crushed ice in a paper cone.

And for people who prefer a frozen drink, Slush or Slushie is a good choice.This is basically crushed ice with sugar flavoring and food colouring. That's why they always look rainbow colored.

You can usually see a big machine making those, a lot of the times they just add sweeteners or syrup in it, so it's not actual fruit.It's not healthy, but on a summer's day especially if you're just going to convenience store, going to a cinema, they are still a very popular choice.

And then for a slightly healthier choices, you can have Sorbet. If you have listened to our Italian culture episode, we talked about Sorbet with Andrea.It's not exactly an ice cream, it's more fruit based with ice.

It has a very smooth texture. In Chinese, we just translated it into, for example, you can have lemon sorbet or strawberry sorbet.They use real fruit in it and they don't really use cream.You can have it as dessert or you may have it between two courses to cleanse your palette.

lemon sorbet to clean the taste out, so that your taste buds are ready for the next course.

Another healthier choice when it comes to frozen desserts.It's something that I really got into lately.This is Froyo, short for Frozen Yogurt.

It has been quite popular in China in the past few years as well. You do see stores everywhere.It's more like a combination of yogurt and ice cream.So it's less fatty and less sweet, great blend of sweet and sour.

Interestingly, a lot of people choose Froyo because they think it's healthier.But then they top it up with all these sauces and syrups, which really defeats the whole purpose.

Some of you might ask, you've talked about all these, but what about the actual ice cream？The more traditional type of ice cream that you see in a cone or you see in little scoops?

Now let's take a look at those type of ice creams.First of all, when you talk about the actual ice cream, there are two types.

You have soft ice or soft serve ice and “hard” ice cream. With soft serve or soft ice, think the ice cream you get at Mcdonalds.They use this machine and the cone and you can see a swirl of ice cream. soft serve ice cream because it's really soft.

The other type of ice cream would be considered “hard” ice cream.This is the type of ice cream you can scoop.

So let's see how do we order ice cream？You go to an ice cream shop or ice cream parlor, first of all you would choose the flavor.The most popular flavors around the world as you might guess are chocolate and vanilla.

After that, you have chocolate chip, strawberry or something called butter pecan. After choosing the flavor, you decide the size.

Starting with kitty size for little kids, small, single scoop so one ball or double scoop, triple scoop and then so on and so forth.

And then you can decide whether you want it in a cup or a cone.The great thing about cone is you get to eat the cone. Now with many ice cream shops, you can actually choose what type of cone you want.You can have a regular cone or a waffle cone.

It's harder, crispier and just tastes nicer.To be honest, I prefer a cup, because for me, I want to actually savor the ice cream, and with a cone I always feel like the ice cream is going to melt and it's going to go everywhere.

After choosing all this, now comes a great part, choosing the toppings, things that you can add on top of the ice cream.The typical ones would be chocolate sauce, syrup, whipped cream, nuts or sprinkles.

Sprinkles are these really colorful little bits, little flakes that you can see. They usually just different types of candies and you put it on top.

Crushed Oreo also seems to be very popular.And for those of you who are really greedy, you can choose as many toppings as you wish.

So these are the basics about ice cream and other types of frozen desserts.But if you travel the world, you will see that apart from the conventional American style ice cream, another very popular type of ice cream is the Italian Gelato.

Gelato, they're getting more and more popular in China as well. For Italians, Gelato is pretty much their national dessert. These are mainly handmade productions, and they're sold usually in shops that are called Gelataria .

So what is the difference between Gelato and say American ice cream？Well Gelato contains a lot less fat, but it tastes creamier, denser, smoothier and silkier.

Gelato is served at higher temperature to enhance the flavor. So you would notice that Gelato is usually a lot softer than the conventional ice cream.If you ever travel to Italy don't miss out on the experience of going around the different Gelatarias and just enjoy all these wonderful flavors.

I remember the first time I was in Venice, one evening I decided to try over 10 Gelatarias trying to find the perfect flavor.I ended up getting a bit of a stomach problem, but it was totally worth it.

And once or twice, I also enjoyed my guilty pleasure of having a big tub of Gelato for breakfast.

As we are approaching the end of today's episode, actually there are still a lot more fun facts about ice cream, for example, Turkish ice cream and Turkish ice cream sellers.They have their own fun tricks.And for that, don't forget to tune in for our next Global Village Episode. Deniz and I are going to be talking about Turkish ice cream as well.

Global Village.

Now you know more about these wonderful summer treats, next time you want to order something, you will be able to say a lot more than just ice cream.

Now I know ice cream is not the healthiest food in the world, and eating a lot of it will give you a lot of problems because it contains a lot of sugar and fat.But once in a while, why not indulge yourself and live a little.

But be careful because if you eat ice cream too quickly, you might get brain freeze or ice cream headache, other than that, enjoy your summer treats.

And let us know in the comments section, which one is your favorite？I'll see you next time.Bye.

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