Memories of 'Ais Krim Potong'

Here are some present day versions of 'ais krim potong' or sliced ice cream.  The pink colored ones are red bean flavor with bits of red beans in them.  The yellow colored ones are sweet corn flavor with bits of sweet corn in them. These are and were the most popular flavors that I remembered. The sliced ice creams of my younger days were cylindrical in shape and with a cylindrical shape stick as well. The iced part was covered with a piece of  wax paper and removing the paper revealed the sweet delight beneath it.

It was called sliced ice cream in those days most probaby due to the way it was produced.  I undersood that it was made in length and as it came out of the machine in the factory it was sliced or cut.  In the Malay language the equivalent word was 'potong'. Hence sliced ice cream.

It was more of an ice lolly rather than an ice cream. I remembered that it contained more red bean flavor or whatever flavor and ice rather than cream. However, it was delicious and a pretty good treat at the price.

The ice cream man who came round on his bicycle carried the sliced ice cream and flavored ice lollies of various colors (usually red, green, orange and yellow)  in a squarish metal container which was also a mini freezer. I think it contained dry ice so that it could keep the ice lollies and the sliced ice cream cold.  If my memory served me correctly, he did not sell any other type of ice cream. There was another ice cream seller  who came round on his bicycle also who sold ice cream to be served in cones. Much later as time passed was the ice cream seller who sold both sliced ice cream, ice lollies and ice cream cones on his tricycle and later in his motor tricycle, that is if my memory is right.

The ice cream vendor who sold sliced ice crream usually had a small wooden 'wheel of fortune' attached to the back of the container. It marked the number of pieces of sliced ice cream or ice lollies that a participant hoped to get. The odds were of course in favor of the seller but there was always hope that one could get more than the usual one.

I hope to get  a photo of the sliced ice cream that I tasted in those days.  So far none yet. Of the ice cream seller of that time I have him in my memory. He was a suntanned man. Invariably slim because of the exercise in cycling around. Invariably friendly. He announced his arrival with the ringing of his brass bell. Invariably the kids will come out of their houses to crowd round him like he was a pied piper. I think I can't  find him any more except in my imagination. To just think it was an ordinary slice of life back then.

Fortunately, the sliced ice cream  I can still continue to enjoy. Its still being made but the taste is slightly different.

My 'ais krim potong' .

Memories of past 'ais krim potong'.