We don’t have an ice-cream van coming around here anymore. It used to come just once a week, on a Sunday afternoon. But when I was growing up an ice-cream van came every night about 7 o’clock and I was often sent out to get whatever people wanted.
Sometimes I was sent out with a jug, and the ice-cream man who was Italian and just recently arrived from Naples would fill the jug with vanilla ice-cream. That was easy, but it wasn’t so good when family members all wanted different things.
In Scotland an ice-cream cone is called a pokey hat. It’s obvious why – turn it upside down and it looks like a pointed hat. It was fine if everybody wanted pokey hats but things got precarious when it was a combination of pokey hats and sliders, which is what ice-cream wafers are called. It wasn’t so easy to cross the road with a whole load of different shaped ice-creams.
In those days Cadbury’s sold cream eggs the whole year round, none of this modern nonsense of them only being available between Christmas and Easter. They used to come wrapped in all different coloured foil too – pink, green, blue, yellow, and for some reason it was important to get the colour which you really fancied at the time, as if the cream egg was going to taste any different in a pink wrapping. The van man was not happy about that!
Those were the days when the most dangerous thing in the ice-cream van was the calories but nowadays, in the less salubrious areas, they sell drugs – allegedly!
‘Pokey hat’, I like that! Very descriptive. We have an ice cream truck that comes around the neighborhood. I think ice cream trucks are sinister (and I love the word ‘sinister’), I believe because of the hypnotic tunes they play over and over and over! Makes me crazy! (Crazier?)
Joan,
I know what you mean, they are a bit sinister. I think it’s because of the child-catcher who would lure kids away with sweeties. On the BBC the radio traffic bulletins always mention a place near London and I thought it was called Sinister Island, I loved the sound of it! Sadly I recently learned that it’s actually Simister Island, or something like that. What a disappointment! I hope crazier, in a good way!!
My grandson Keir has just finished an ice cream cone tonight and now knows that it is a pokey hat, like the one I used to have on a Friday night (just once a week) in the 1940s. My favourite had raspberry on it. Hope he remembers this old Scottish name for sixty years ahead.
Robin,
A pokey hat was just once a week for me in the 1960s. It’s great to know that at least some of the younger generation will be keeping the name going. I used to get a ‘McCallum’ when we went to a cafe in Glasgow, which was a mound of vanilla ice cream on a tea plate, and loads of raspberry sauce on the top. I don’t know how it ever came to be called a McCallum though, do you?
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
It might have something to to with this http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hokey_pokey_(ice_cream)
Alex Dempsey,
I can imagine that the folks in New Zealand came up with the term ‘hokey pokey’ because they knew that that was the word for an ice cream cone in Scotland. So many people in NZ are more Scottish than the Scots and we have been using ‘pokey hat’ for several generations.
Thanks for taking the time to comment.
Does anybody remember a oyster?
Stephen Bell,
I certainly do remember oysters although I didn’t often have one. I seem to remember my mum had those. They were two round shells, hence the name and the ice cream was put on one half but I seem to remember that the other half had a sort of marshmallow stuff inside it.
Thanks for dropping by and taking the time to comment.
What is the Scottish name for an icecream slider?
Willy,
As far as I know there isn’t a Scottish word for an ice cream slider. We just call them wafers – which isn’t exactly Scottish.
Katrina
As I remember, in Scotland, we had a pokey hat, a wafer, an oyster, a single nugget or a double nugget then different size tubs , oh and a 99 cone. Lol my gran would always remind me to get micalim on it I have spelt that properly but she meant raspberry. Never asked about Micalm. Lol
Marion m,
Every now and again I was sent out to the van with a bowl to get it filled with ice cream for everyone in the family, usually on a Sunday. I suppose it was easier to carry than a whole load of pokey hats or wafers. McCallum! very tasty.
Thanks for dropping by.
Katrina
We would rin oot tae the Tally Man fir oor Pokey Hats with Raspberry Please !
Howard Currie,
That was us too, usually from Naples. But if it was in a cafe the ice cream and raspberry sauce was called a MacCallum, in Glasgow anyway. I did try asking for that in an old cafe in Byres Road a few years ago but I just got a blank look!
Thanks for dropping by and taking the time to comment.
Katrina