How do you know when hot weather has come to South Mississippi (besides the obvious)? When snoball stands start popping up like toadstools after a rain. What coffee stands are to the Pacific Northwest, the snoball stand is to the Deep South.
Whether you call them snow cones or snoballs, whether your preference tends toward the crushed ice or the shaved ice popularized by Hansen's Sno Blitz in New Orleans, there is no more refreshing treat on a hot sticky summer night.
Today's snoball stand menus are a gourmand's delight offering a head-swimming variety of flavors like Bridal Cake, Fuzzy Navel and Strawberry Shortcake. You can get them plain (one flavor), rainbow (multi-flavors) or topped with condensed milk (heaven).
Like my mother, I tend toward simplicity. Nothing beats a nice refreshing spearmint snoball. It is the perfect antidote to humidity.
For years, the most popular snoball stand in Biloxi was Mille's at the foot of the old Back Bay Bridge on Caillavet Street. People would drive from all over town to stand in line (which would often wrap around itself 3 times) and wait nearly an hour just for a snoball.
Yeah they were that good.
I don't have a recipe for this post. And with cheap snoball stands on every street corner this time of year who needs one? Part of the thrill -- dare I say even the majority of it -- comes from the expedition itself.
Assembling the household (or the neighborhood) into a vehicle. The backseat debate over the merits of various flavors. The hum of the well-used commercial ice shaver. Sitting on the sun-warmed car hood letting the cold, cold flavored ice slide down your throat while counting the stars. The sticking out of tongues to compare colors afterward. It all makes the treat taste better (really). You can't replicate that at home.
I must have a spearmint snoball (and green tongue). Now.
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