Your local gourmet gelato store will serve you up a delicious cone, a cup of double chocolate fudge, or if it’s really daring, goat milk lavender macchiato. The experience of ice cream itself is delightful but common and familiar. The ice cream’s texture is the same, the cone is the same, the process is the same.

But there are some great minds and cultures out there that see ice cream differently. From ancient snow recipes to new scientific innovations from culinary giants, these novel ice creams are undeniably fascinating.

10 Spaghettieis

Dario Fontanella is an Italian German and third-generation ice cream restaurateur. He is also the proud creator of Spaghettieis, stranded ice cream.

In the 1960s, Fontanella was thinking about his Italian past and how he could apply it to the German culinary style. This gave him a curious urge to put vanilla ice cream into a meat grinder to see what would happen.

The result: stranded ice cream that has become wildly popular all over Germany, Fontanella’s home country. Spaghettieis is typically covered with strawberry sauce to resemble tomato sauce and grated white chocolate or coconut to mimic Parmesan.

It is served at only a few ice cream stores outside of mainland Europe, which is unfortunate because the change in texture and eating process is said to be satisfying and a must-try.

9 Alternative Cones

Where did the first ice cream cone come from? Why was it made of a waffle?

Here’s the story. Ernest A. Hamwi, a Syrian immigrant, was selling zalabia, a crispy, waffle-like dessert at the 1904 St. Louis World’s Fair. The popular ice cream booth next to him ran out of cups, and Ernest, noticing the dilemma, shaped his zalabia into a cone and offered it as an alternative cup. The rest is history.

However, the idea that an ice cream cone must be a waffle was narrow-minded. People started challenging the status quo.

The Cone Guys Company based in Pennsylvania has been selling pretzel-based cones since 1986. The salty flavor and crunchy texture complements a nice scoop of chocolate. The company also has chocolate cookie cones.

Another company challenging the waffle cone tradition is Chimneys, the Torontonian food truck. Their delicious doughnut cone is warm to the touch and has a light coating of sugar and cinnamon. Swirls of ice cream land right on a cone-shaped doughnut. Simply delectable!

8 Powdered Ice Cream

Most people can’t conceive of ice cream as anything beyond a frozen block of cream, but Seiji Yamamoto, the creator of powdered ice cream, has a new point of view. He is the leading molecular gastronome of Japan and owner of the 3-Michelin-star restaurant, RyuGin.

RyuGin’s signature dessert is the “Minus 196 Degrees Celsius Candy Apple.” It is a hollowed-out, hardened toffee apple filled with powdered apple ice cream. The ice cream is made by pumping nitrous oxide into an ice cream mixture to turn it into whip cream.

The ice cream is frozen in liquid nitrogen, and then all the brittle pieces are put into a food processor and chopped into powder. The final product is so fine that sneezing would wisp it away into a swirling cloud.

Considering that Yamamoto is a Michelin-star chef, it’s no surprise that the texture and taste are heavenly.

7 Stir-Fried Ice Cream

Stir-fried ice cream (aka ice cream rolls) is a delicious concoction that you eat with your hands like a taquito or chocolate cigar. It is made by pouring ice cream mix onto a below-freezing metal plate and then finely chopping fruit into the ice cream before it freezes.

The incredibly cold temperatures result in finer ice crystal structures and smoother ice cream. Unlike regular ice cream, each serving must be made on the spot. This creates a unique experience where you see your server make the ice cream in real time with the flavors you picked. You can mix in red bean, pomegranate, dragon fruit, and more.

Stir-fried ice cream is a common street vendor food in Thailand, but it is a new and novel creation for the Western world. New York City just opened its first stir-fried ice cream store, 10Below, in 2015. Hopefully, this treat will pick up more momentum because it is worth a try.

6 Deep-Freeze Ice Cream

Traditional ice cream making requires churning air into a cream mixture while freezing takes place. The process takes minutes, which allows many ice crystals to grow large and roughen the texture.

A few specialty ice cream stores have tried to improve ice cream with liquid nitrogen. Unlike traditional freezing methods, liquid nitrogen will freeze the cream mixture in 1.5 seconds!

It produces finer, less grainy ice cream. Like stir-fried ice cream, the final product is made and customized on the spot. In addition, the liquid nitrogen turns into a gas and gives off an effect called dragon breath. You can blow fog out of your nose like a fire-breathing dragon.

Carbonated ice cream is another newer creation. Although no ice cream parlor is known to sell it, many chefs, including Cutthroat Kitchen’s Alton Brown, have ventured to make it. It is commonly made by mixing powdered dry ice into an ice cream mix. Like nitrogen ice cream, it has a finer texture. You can easily make it at home, and it also gives you dragon breath.

5 Doughball Ice Cream

Fried ice cream has become a rare but sought-after novelty because it feels as though you are eating ice cream right out of the oven. Despite the name, the ice cream itself is not fried.

Instead, a ball of ice cream is frozen at a temperature that is well below zero. Then the ice cream is coated in batter or breadcrumbs. The ball is briefly fried in hot cooking oil. If done properly, the ice cream will stay frozen. The warm dough and pie-like aroma combined with the sweetness of ice cream is beyond words.

Another dough-surrounded treat is mochi ice cream. Mochi is sweetened rice that has been mashed into dough and then steamed. It is white, tastes mildly like marshmallow, and has the consistency of Play-Doh.

The mochi is wrapped around an ice cream ball to create an ice cream dumpling. The rice dough adds a lot of flavor and turns the ice cream into finger food. The treat has become trendy in parts of the US, resulting in a few mochi boutiques selling the confection in flavors of green tea, red bean, strawberry, and more.

4 Shaved Ice Cream

Patbingsu is a Korean dessert made by taking shaved ice and topping it with sweets, fruit, syrups, or a combination of the three. It is wildly popular in Asia and is sold in most fast-food restaurants and bakeries in Korea.

Snowdays is a New York–based ice cream store that has gained notoriety through its adaptation of patbingsu. The store takes a round brick of ice cream and shaves it into a cup using a professional ice shaver. This results in a stringy, layered texture (resembling pulled pork) that dissolves quickly in your mouth.

The store serves NY Cheesecake or Green Tea Matcha flavors, among others, in regular, large, or Yeti (huge) sizes. The concept has been promising. As of 2016, Snowdays has five stores and plans on expanding.

3 Snow Ice Cream

Alexander the Great was known to eat snow that was flavored with honey and nectar, and Nero of Rome often sent men into the mountains to fetch snow for his ice treats.

Flavored ice became the basis for ice cream. Today, few, if any, places use snow as the main ingredient in their frozen snacks, but there are modernized recipes that allow you to reach back into ice cream’s history.

According to the notorious Paula Dean, a bit of flavoring, some condensed milk, and a lot of snow is enough to make your own snow cream. There is something a bit romantic about eating the same food as the great kings and emperors of the past.

Maybe even add some clover honey for a bit of a floral taste that really gives the feeling that you’re eating nature’s gift.

2 Reactive Ice Cream

Lick Me I’m Delicious is a UK company that provides molecular gastronomy booths for corporate events that include liquid nitrogen ice cream and edible vapor. In 2013, the company created a new product with a glow that is sure to light up any social gathering.

The company partnered with Chinese biologists to make glow-in-the-dark ice cream. Unlike a glow stick, this ice cream does not dimly glow when the lights are off. Its special feature is that it starts glowing when you lick it and more brightly with each slurp.

The ice cream is made using bioluminescent jellyfish proteins that glow in the presence of the acid from saliva. Despite having the intense color of nuclear waste, the product is completely safe. But it will cost you a whopping $225 per cone because jellyfish proteins are expensive.

1 Stretchy Ice Cream

Dondurma is a Turkish ice cream that stretches like mozzarella cheese, sticks like toffee, and is commonly served in Turkey by street vendors. The concoction is so malleable that it cannot be served with a regular ice cream scooper. Instead, the vendors use special paddles that can chop up the ice cream into smaller pieces.

The secret to this ice cream’s magnificent stretchiness is salep orchid flour and mastic tree gum. Both ingredients come from Mediterranean plants that are expensive and difficult to cultivate, making dondurma a rare treat outside the Middle East.

If you ever go to Turkey, you’ll be in for a surprise. The vendors enjoy joking around with tourists when serving a cone. Some will juggle cones, and some will do sleight-of-hand tricks with the ice cream. It all results in quite good fun.

Brian is a full-time student who has a fascination for science and food. It always has irked him that there are so many brilliant culinary concoctions out there that few people know of. This writing is a way for him to open the minds of people everywhere that never knew of how different food can be.

When it comes to food, what is a staple in one country may be considered bizarre in another. One country’s classic is another country’s exotic novelty treat. One’s hot trend is another’s time-honored tradition.

For example, American classics like peanut butter and root beer are considered odd and even disgusting outside the US. On the other hand, ice cream is one food that seems to enjoy worldwide popularity. Yet, so endless are its variations that there is always some new ingredient or flavor to discover.

Internet lists abound featuring weird, attention-grabbing, and faddish ice cream flavors like lobster, squid ink, or horseradish. In contrast, this list presents weird and unique ice cream flavors that are decidedly not strange in their countries of origin. Here are 10 of the most popular ice cream flavors you’ve probably never heard of.

10 Lucuma

Lucuma is a subtropical fruit which originated in the Andes and is now grown primarily in Peru and Chile. Depictions of lucuma on pottery date back to pre-Inca times. Lucuma has thin, brownish-green or yellowish-green skin and bright yellow flesh with one to five large, brown seeds that resemble the pit of an avocado.

It is sometimes called eggfruit^[1] because the flesh has the color of a raw egg yolk and the texture of a hard-boiled egg yolk. Rather than tasting fruity, its flavor is likened to maple or butterscotch.

While lucuma can be used in a number of ways, it is commonly found as an ice cream flavor in Peru. Though actual figures don’t exist, some claim that it is the most popular ice cream flavor of all in Peru, surpassing standbys like chocolate and vanilla.

It can also be found Neapolitan style, joined with vanilla and chocolate or vanilla and strawberry. Due to its soft flesh and tendency to lose water quickly, it is generally considered unfit for export.

9 Mastic

Mastic is an ancient Greek ingredient, a plant resin that is sold in the form of small crystals. These crystals can be crushed into a powder and used to flavor pastries, puddings, ice cream, and more.

Like pretty much every other item on this list, it can be used in both savory and sweet dishes. The powder is mixed with salt for savory dishes and sugar for sweet dishes. Mastic is said to be an acquired taste that is similar to pine needles—something most people (at least Americans) associate more with car air fresheners than with food.

In Greece, mastic crystals are also referred to as “tears of Chios.” On the island of Chios where the trees are cultivated, farmers make cuts in the trees, allowing the sap to seep out and harden into droplets before falling to the ground.^[2]

According to legend, when the Roman navy had a fleet moored at Chios in AD 251, an officer named Isidore confessed his Christian faith to his commander. When Isidore refused to renounce his faith, he was executed and all the trees on the south side of the island were said to weep at once.

8 Kinako

Kinako means “yellow flour” in Japanese, but this unassuming name belies a uniquely delicious ingredient. Kinako is a fine, sand-colored powder made from roasted soybeans and used primarily in Japan to give a toasty, nutty flavor to pastries and sweets.

Sometimes, it is used throughout a confection. Other times, it is simply dusted on top as a finishing touch, as is often the case with ice cream^[3] and sometimes shaved ice. Kinako pairs well with vanilla, banana, brown sugar, and nuts.

Kinako isn’t the least bit strange in Japan, where it is said to have preceded sugar. Anyone who knows of Japan’s love of Kit Kats and their insane array of flavors won’t be surprised to learn that kinako has been featured in numerous varieties of the candy as well.

If you aren’t familiar with this phenomenon, here’s the gist: The name “Kit Kat” sounds very similar to the Japanese phrase kitto katsu which translates to “you will surely win.” This coincidence has contributed to Kit Kat’s popularity in Japan, especially as a gift to schoolchildren during exam time.

7 Rosewater

Floral flavors are not very popular in the US these days, where flowers generally conjure thoughts of perfume rather than delicious treats. It hasn’t always been that way, though.

In the very first American cookbook, Amelia Simmons’s American Cookery (1796), rosewater appears in recipes for pound cake, gingerbread, and apple pie. It was a popular flavoring before vanilla was king.

Rosewater is exactly what it sounds like—a liquid made by distilling rose petals with steam. Abroad, it is an exceedingly common flavoring to this day and can be found in countless international sweets, from Turkish baklava to Indian lassi to Persian ice cream.

Bastani sonnati, meaning “classical ice cream,” is a Persian (or Iranian) ice cream flavored with rosewater and often saffron, vanilla, and/or pistachios. Most remarkable about this ice cream is its chewiness and stretchiness, which is the result of the addition of salaab, a thickening agent extracted from a wild orchid.

Another interesting feature of Persian ice cream is the addition of frozen chunks of cream. Perhaps most unusual of all, sometimes bastani sonnati is served scooped into a glass of fresh carrot juice.^[4]

6 Ube

Ube is a root vegetable (aka yam or sweet potato) that is vibrant purple in color and sweet in flavor. In the Philippines, ube is used in all manner of desserts, including cakes, cookies, and ice cream. Like lucuma, it imparts both flavor and color as an ingredient.

Ube also makes frequent appearances in another frozen treat, the traditional Filipino shaved ice dessert known as halo-halo. Halo-halo is a mixture of ice, evaporated milk, and a rainbow of toppings.

Though ube ice cream is becoming more popular—and even, unfortunately, “hipster”—due to its eye-catching and Instagrammable appearance, it’s nothing new in the Philippines. Its unique flavor has been described as an “earthy” white chocolate^[5] or a combination of vanilla and pistachio. Fresh ube is difficult to find in the US, but it can be bought as a powder, an extract, or a paste.

5 Tamarind

Tamarind may not be considered the prettiest of fruits, but what it lacks in appearance, it makes up for in flavor. It grows in long, lumpy pods and bears a sticky brown pulp.^[6] However, that pulp has a delicious sweet-and-sour flavor that is used in cuisine all around the world in dishes both sweet and savory.

One well-known application in US households is as an ingredient in Lea & Perrins Worcestershire Sauce. It’s also a fairly common ingredient in barbecue sauces.

Tamarind can be bought fresh and as a paste, powder, or syrup. Tamarind was brought from Asia to Mexico in the 16th or 17th century by the Spaniards and now is a popular and beloved flavoring for beverages, candy, ice cream, and paletas (ice pops).

4 Black Sesame

Black sesame ice cream is to Asia what vanilla ice cream is to the United States. When ground, the sesame seeds become creamy. They add a charcoal color and a rich, nutty flavor to ice cream and other dishes. The depth and complexity of black sesame seeds can also be compared to dark chocolate or coffee, flavors which are enlivened by toasting the seeds before using them.

In Japan, black sesame seeds are ground and combined with honey to make a paste called nuri goma. This paste can be found in some international markets or specialty stores.

The appearance it gives to ice cream is less like the trendy “goth” ice cream made of charcoal and squid ink and more like cookies and cream. Despite its appeal, black sesame ice cream doesn’t seem to have caught on in the US yet, at least not as well as other Asian ice cream flavors like green tea, red bean, and ginger.^[7]

3 Brown Bread

Bread may not sound like an appetizing ice cream flavor, but keep reading. Irish brown bread is known as a quick bread because it is risen with a combination of baking soda and buttermilk instead of yeast. Rather than waiting for the bread to rise or “proof,” it can be quickly assembled and baked.

Quick breads have a dense texture. The addition of baking soda is why Irish brown bread is commonly known as soda bread. It is often eaten with butter or cheese.

Brown bread, called “wheaten bread” in Northern Ireland, is a simple but hearty staple, historically associated with the Irish poor. Now it’s not uncommon to find it presented in more decadent and indulgent ways.

Brown bread ice cream can be found all over Ireland (and other parts of the UK). Toasty, crunchy crumbs of the bread are swirled into ice cream and sometimes paired with complementary flavors like butterscotch. Supposedly, this use of brown bread in frozen treats dates back to Victorian times.^[8]

2 Cardamom

Cardamom, like tamarind, grows in pods. The pods may be used whole or ground, or the seeds may be extracted and then ground. Green cardamom is suitable for use in sweet and savory dishes, while black cardamom is considered too overwhelming and smoky for desserts. In the US, it may be best known as one of the warming spices featured in chai tea, famously sold in latte form by Starbucks.

India is the largest producer of cardamom, the so-called “Queen of Spices.” It is frequently used to flavor Indian ice cream called kulfi. Pistachio, saffron, and rosewater are also used. Much of kulfi’s flavor comes from simmering the milk for hours before freezing it to create notes of caramelization.^[9]

Cardamom has also enjoyed great popularity in Scandinavia ever since the Vikings brought it back from their expeditions abroad. More cardamom is consumed in Scandinavia than anywhere in the world aside from India and the Middle East.

1 Salmonberry

Salmonberry is the least interesting thing about akutaq, sometimes spelled akutuq, a frozen treat from Alaska. Akutaq is a native Alaskan word that simply means “to stir.”

Generally, it’s made by whipping animal fats by hand and adding sea mammal oil and snow or water until the mixture achieves a silky, fluffy texture. The fat is often from caribou, bear, or musk ox, while the oil is from seals or whales. (Modern versions use Crisco and olive oil.)

Non-natives have referred to it as Eskimo ice cream. Blood, meat, and fish eggs have all been added to akutaq. When it comes to sweet additions, two favorites are blueberry and salmonberry.^[10]

Salmonberry was commonly eaten with salmon by the native peoples of the northwest coast in the area now known as Alaska. The berries do not, however, taste like fish, though their flavor can vary greatly from bush to bush and even from year to year. Though fairly common, salmonberries have not attained widespread popularity, possibly because they are described as watery and mushy.

Hannah lives in Seattle with her husband and dogs. She enjoys researching and writing.