Edible Columbus Summer 2010 : Page 34
ARTISAN FOOD The marriage of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams & Snowville Creamery By Seth Borgen ams We used to live in neighborhoods. We used to know who our neighbors were. In the summertime, we drank iced tea on front porches and waved to friends as they passed by. We threw open our windows and doors and filled our homes with real air, with the smells of fresh-cut grass, with the sounds of children’s games and the tinny song of the ice cream truck as it made its way down the street. Central air changed all that. Video killed the radio star and A/C killed the neighborhood. Overnight, our neighbors became strangers. We don’t screen our doors and windows anymore. We screen our calls instead. Technology was supposed to simplify our lives. All too often, what it has done instead—from how we think to how we feel, right down to how we eat—is provide us with a homogenized, sterilized imitation of life. Our hearts are now as cool as our homes in August. Cellular phones, the Internet, text messaging, the self-perpetuating line of i-gadgets have replaced genuine human interaction just as chemicals, additives and hormones have replaced actual food. We’re always connected, but connected to what? To whom? Non-sequiturs and blips of light on a screen? “Food comes from one of two places,” says Jeni Britton Bauer, owner and creative force behind Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. “It comes from the dirt or it comes from the factory.” For Jeni, it’s always been about the dirt. From day one, when Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams first set up shop in the North Market in 2002, all she wanted to do was “…make ice cream with ingredients that 34 Summer 2010 edible columbus make us feel good. With a human ” And from day one, The marriage of Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams & Snowville Creamery By Seth Borgen ams We used to live in neighborhoods. We used to know who our neighbors were. In the summertime, we drank iced tea on front porches and waved to friends as they passed by. We threw open our windows and doors and filled our homes with real air, with the smells of fresh-cut grass, with the sounds of children’s games and the tinny song of the ice cream truck as it made its way down the street. Central air changed all that. Video killed the radio star and A/C killed the neighborhood. Overnight, our neighbors became strangers. We don’t screen our doors and windows anymore. We screen our calls instead. Technology was supposed to simplify our lives. All too often, what it has done instead—from how we think to how we feel, right down to how we eat—is provide us with a homogenized, sterilized imitation of life. Our hearts are now as cool as our homes in August. Cellular phones, the Internet, text messaging, the self-perpetuating line of i-gadgets have replaced genuine human interaction just as chemicals, additives and hormones have replaced actual food. We’re always connected, but connected to what? To whom? Non-sequiturs and blips of light on a screen? “Food comes from one of two places,” says Jeni Britton Bauer, owner and creative force behind Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams. “It comes from the dirt or it comes from the factory.” For Jeni, it’s always been about the dirt. From day one, when Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams first set up shop in the North Market in 2002, all she wanted to do was “…make ice cream with ingredients that 34 Summer 2010 edible columbus make us feel good. With a human ” And from day one, connection.” connection.” And from dayone, getting those ingredients proved easier said than done. You’d think it’d be easy, getting your hands on ingredients grown in soil and not spat from a machine. Or dairy products from cows that aren’t shot with so many chemicals they could bat cleanup for the San Francisco Giants. The problem was—still is, really—finding a cost-effective means of ensuring distribution and consistency; of getting those ingredients from farm to table, or cow to cone. To make it work over the years, farms and restaurants and people like Jeni— everyone and anyone invested in the Columbus community eating and living better—had no choice but to grow (and grow up) together. “Buying local is about the partnership you create with farmers,” Jeni says. “It takes a long time to develop those partnerships.” One of those partnerships is with Warren Taylor, owner of Snowville Creamery out of Pomeroy, Ohio. In March, Snowville Creamery became Jeni’s Splendid Ice Creams’ soul supplier of milk and cream. High praise from a company whose product is mostly milk and cream. “We only ever want to work with him,” says Jeni. “He’s a little bit crazy, which is awesome. We’re a little bit crazy, but he takes the cake.”
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