When I first saw stretchy ice cream in my Instagram feed, I knew I needed it immediately. I'm an ice cream fiend and always go out of my way to taste different cones as much as possible (this pickle ice cream was DILL-ICIOUS). But I really just wanted to play with it—the stuff looks (and feels) like frozen Play-Doh.
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After hitting up Republic of Booza in NYC, I learned the most interesting thing about stretchy ice cream is its backstory. I was glad that the ice cream wasn't just a spectacle created by Brooklyn hipsters for social media. Stretchy ice cream, which co-owner Michael Sadler will quickly correct you is called "booza", isn't a fad at all: It's basically been around forever. It originated in the Eastern Mediterranean and is still the ice cream of choice across Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Jordan, Israel, and Palestine.
Booza is new to the U.S.—probably because its crazy-elastic texture comes from two very rare ingredients: mastic, a tree bark resin that only grows on ONE Greek Island, and salep, ground Orchid root, from Lebanon.
When I visited the ice cream shop we made Salted Caramel booza and the whole experience was mesmerizing—you forget it's even ice cream when stretching it! Now we can all only hope more ice cream shops follow suit and start strechin'.
