Move Over Soft Serve, There’s a New Ice Cream in Town
A new shop in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, serves traditional Middle Eastern ice cream, known for its elastic properties.
Traditional ice cream in the Middle East and Turkey has a very particular texture, with an elasticity similar to fresh mozzarella, the result of being made with the ground roots of orchids (known as salep or sahlab) and the pounding technique used for freezing it. The ice cream is “booza” in Arabic, and Michael Sadler, a former Oxford scholar, who is opening a booza shop on Monday in Brooklyn with several partners, contends that it’s the ur-ice cream. Perhaps. There are shops selling booza elsewhere in the United States, but what sets Mr. Sadler’s version apart is the variety of nontraditional flavors. So instead of just pistachio or qashta (candied cream), you may be tempted by rich swirls of strawberry, black walnut, salted caramel, or even saffron-peppercorn.
Cups or cones $5.25, pints $10, Republic of Booza, 76 North Fourth Street (Berry Street), Williamsburg, Brooklyn, 718-302-5000, republicofbooza.com.
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Florence Fabricant is a food and wine writer. She writes the weekly Front BurnerNewand Off the Menu columns, as well as the Pairings column, which appears alongside the monthly wine reviews. She has also written 12 cookbooks.