Emma Zuckerman digs to the bottom of her blueberry Ice-Planet snoball while her dad, David, enjoys his daughter’s determination.
Written By Kimberly Liddick-Byrnes, Photos by: Phil Grout
Stacey pulls into the Baugher’s parking lot and drives to the back corner. Her mouth is watering in anticipation. She lifts herself out of the car and waddles to the “order here” window at the Aloha snoball stand. The baby in her belly flutters.
“Large strawberry with marshmallow in the middle please,” she says with a smile. The girl working at the window has recognized Stacey, it is her fourth Ôlarge strawberry with marshmallow in the middle’ this week.
Westminster resident Stacey Schaefer said that she has always enjoyed snoballs, but she has craved them especially during her six months of pregnancy.
“Since being pregnant, snoballs are all I crave, I probably get them three to four times a week,” she laughed.
Stacey is not alone in her love of snoballs. They are as much a part of Maryland’s summer landscape as crabs and the Oriole’s. And they have been a popular treat in Carroll County for quite some time.
Husband and wife Carl and Barbara Reed remember a snoball truck that drove through the streets of downtown Westminster during the 1950s.
“I was a country boy,” said Carl, “And when I would come in to the city (Westminster) to visit my aunt and uncle, that snoball truck would drive around ringing its bell. I remember getting snoballs from that truck on occasion.”
Barbara, who worked at the Carroll County Bank and Trust in the 1960s remembers a snoball stand at the corner of Bond and Main Streets.
Today there are snoball stands peppered throughout the county, and one never really knows if their local stand will open up again when spring comes.
Bryan Callahan, co-owner of Ice Planet in Eldersburg, said that he does not have to make any announcements to let the community know when they will open for the season.
“We just open for business in mid-April and within five minutes we have our first customer,” said Callahan.
Located at the corner of Georgetown Blvd. and Liberty Road, Ice Planet has been operating since 1998, and according to Callahan, business is good.
“We have become a part of the community over here,” he said. “Business people stop in on their lunch breaks to get a cool treat. Teams come in to wind down after their baseball games and families come over after a long day in the sun. We have a very loyal customer base.”
Eileen Redden owned both of Westminster’s Aloha snoball stands (at Baugher’s and in the Carroll Plaza shopping center) for eight years. Two years ago she sold the stands to her sister-in-law, Deborah Katz. Redden continues to manage the stands as Katz “learns the ropes” of running the business. They also have two snoball trucks that service neighborhoods in the Westminster area.
Redden agreed that it is the loyal customers who make the business both successful and enjoyable. She said that she sees the same faces throughout the summer and enjoys interacting with them.
Snoballs are not just popular in Maryland. In fact, several regions consider themselves the “home of the snoball.” Richard Weiss is the owner of Baltimore-based Kold Kiss, a company that manufactures and sells all things related to snoballs, including flavors, cups, spoons, signage, ice shavers, and anything else you can think of. Kold Kiss has been in the snoball business for more than 40 years and Weiss said that although it’s impossible to really know where the first snoball originated (it is believed to have originated in New Orleans), there are definitely several hot spots for the confection in the U.S.
“There are three main places where snoballs are a hot item: Baltimore, New Orleans, and a few little places in Hawaii,” he said.
Weiss, whose company ships products world wide, believes that snoballs have probably been popular in the Baltimore region since the turn of the 19th century, when ice started to become more available. He said that in the late 1800s ice houses started to pop up in cities, and that is probably when people started experimenting with it.
According to Weiss, Egg Custard with marshmallow is the most popular flavor combo in this area. He added that outside of the Baltimore area, people turn their noses up at the Egg Custard flavor because they just do not know what it is or what it would taste like. Each region, he said, has its own favorites. For example, his clients in Texas tell him the favorite there is Blue Bubblegum and Blue Coconut.
Each snoball stand has some little niche which makes it slightly different from the competition. Callahan at Ice Planet prides himself in being different because their more than 65 flavors are all hand mixed using “secret ingredients,” and their ice is shaved to a different consistency.
“Our ice is more like what you would find at Rita’s than what you get in a typical chunky snoball,” said Callahan. “And we use homemade syrups. Compared to some others, our snoball is like the difference between coffee from Starbucks and coffee from a gas station,” Callahan said.
The Aloha stands in Westminster offer a variety of sugar-free flavor options, which Redden said allows them to accommodate people with diabetes and other medical issues.
“We take the sugar free option very seriously because we realize we are dealing with people’s health. Of course it’s always funny when someone orders a sugar free flavor with a lot of marshmallow on top,” said Redden.
The list of flavors is endless and sometimes amusing. They range from the usual cherry and watermelon to the unusual Almond Joy and Grasshopper. The toppings are gooey and add texture to the cold ice.
But what really makes snoballs so scrumptious is what they represent. Snoballs come at the time of year when days are hot and long, when vacations are often around the corner, when family time is more prevalent and clothes are lighter. Snoballs provide a yummy and cold break in the day, or an after dinner treat as the sun heads down over the hills.
Stacey takes her large cup with strawberry red ice piled on top. She pays $2.75. She settles onto a wooden bench and dives into her scrumptious snoball, digging down to get her first bite of the marshmallow from the middle. And when she gets that perfect bite of strawberry flavor, ice and marshmallowÉit is bliss.
