For me, the only Icee is the one that Kon Ping Young — Mr. Young to me — used to make at the Crack Seed Store in Honolulu, where I grew up, in what people in Hawaii call small-kid time. The base was always strawberry, the rosy slush whorling down into the cup. Halfway through, Mr. Young would stop the machine and spoon in the liquid skimmed off a jar of li hing mui, a local snack of preserved plums soused on a brew of sugar and licorice. (“Crack seed” is the catchall term for any fruit treated thus.) He’d sneak in one of the whole plums, which he’d cover with more slush. I’d find it buried deep, a shriveled prize, so tangy that when I sucked on it, the world condensed to that one flavor, a tiny neutron star of sweet-sour-salt.
Lusher than sorbet, more ethereal than ice cream.
Neale Asato loved that li hing Icee, too. It was the inspiration for his li hing float, a meld of strawberry sherbet and vanilla ice cream with hidden seams of li hing sauce, one of the best sellers at Asato Family Shop in downtown Honolulu. I first heard about Asato and his sherbet in 2018 from a friend who spoke in something between a whisper and a hiss: “You must never write about this.” At the time, Asato was making sherbet in his home kitchen and selling it online, by subscription — a side gig from his day job at a pizzeria. Now he has a proper storefront just off the Pali Highway, although it’s open only two days a week, and a scoop truck in Waikiki. Flavors are ever in rotation, including a homage to another local snack, gummy bears dusted with pulverized pickled lemon peel, and Green River, a lime soft drink concocted in Iowa and popularized during the Prohibition era that somehow became a staple of drive-ins in Hawaii.
Sherbet is lusher than sorbet, more ethereal than ice cream. For people in Hawaii, Asato’s take is a nostalgic callback to guri-guri, the nearly century-old specialty at Tasaka Guri-Guri, a cash-only, counter-service spot on Maui. Jokichi and Rise Tasaka, immigrants from Japan, opened the first iteration of the shop in the early 20th century — the exact date is unknown — and their son, Gunji, reportedly came up with what he originally called goodie-goodie (say the name fast) in the 1920s.
The recipe is a secret. (Could any sentence make you want a recipe more?) So is Asato’s. But he has an easy home version that he’s willing to share, with no ice-cream maker required. Bring strawberry soda to a boil — you can do it in the microwave — add a packet of gelatin as a stabilizer, stir in condensed milk and spike with vanilla extract. Freeze to a slush, then whip on high speed, letting in the air until it expands, a pink cloud rising. Mix in more strawberry soda (and evaporated milk, if you have it on hand, to temper some of the sweetness; and if you’re curious, li hing sauce, for a puckering finish), then freeze again. Break out an ice-cream scoop. Shiver.