Back in 2011, I wrote a piece titled “What San Miguel de Allende is screaming about”. It was about ice cream, more specifically about what San Miguelenses thought was the town’s best ice cream.

I first did an online survey to select the favorite brand. The results bordered on the ridiculous. One company’s ice cream totally dominated the survey. The brand was Santa Clara and, after a few paragraphs about the online survey, I wrote this:

All I got was the same two words: Santa Clara. Then more Santa Clara. And still more Santa Clara. I knew the Santa Clara ice cream shop would get some votes but, the problem was, it was getting almost all of them.

Should I cancel my plans for an ice cream blog? No. There was still something else to determine. Despite an almost 100% unanimosity (I don’t care if it’s not a word, I’m using it) for Helados Santa Clara ice cream, there was still the all important need to determine why it was so good and which of Santa Clara’s many flavors was San Miguel’s favorite.

First, I thought I’d dig up some cold hard facts on Santa Clara. Their website told me that the company was founded in 1924 in the town of Pachuca, with a herd of 17 dairy cows. In 1957, they began to replace native cattle with Canadian cows (the earliest snowbirds?) and, today, they have a herd of over 2000 pampered stock to produce their milk, cheeses and a wide range of other dairy products.

What I couldn’t find was any details on the ingredients that might explain why Santa Clara ice cream was being praised by so many.

Next stop was the Helados Santa Clara store on Ancha de San Antonio to see what I could learn. Nothing much. All I got from the senorita serving was that the ice cream was better because it contained no vegetable oils. Problem was, I didn’t even know that ice cream contained vegetable oils. To my knowledge, there are only four ingredients necessary for ice cream: Milk, cream, sugar and flavoring.

The creamiest ice creams generally have a higher fat content and a lower air content (yes, air is an essential and can make up to 50% of the total composition). Also adding to the texture of ice cream are emulsifiers with unappetizing names such as monoglyceride glycerol monostearate, lecithin and polysorbate 80 (one better than polysorbate 79?). The emusifiers keep the milk fat in suspension and inhibit the growth of ice crystals. Gums also are used to prevent ice crystals forming; you’ll find the gums with fascinating names like guar, locust bean, xanthan and carageenan and not so fascinating names like methyl cellulose.

But what exactly is in Santa Clara ice cream, for now at least, will have to remain a mystery. The experts would have to determine what makes it so good with their eyes and their palate. I headed back over to San Antonio and made the flavor selections. I eliminated what I’d call the kiddy flavors like bubble gum, cotton candy and marshmallow. I avoided the gimmicky flavors like tequila. I didn’t purchase one of my traditional favorites, butter pecan, because Santa Clara doesn’t make it (darn). I didn’t get any maple walnut because they were out of stock. And, to save money (Santa Clara may be good but it ain’t cheap), I eliminated flavors like neopolitan that I didn’t think had much of a chance of winning.

I assembled a tasting panel of nine people (including me), only three of which had ever tried Santa Clara ice cream before. We came up with some results that, even though they might not be scientifically and statistically valid, were certainly emphatic. The favorite of four of the judges was pistachio; the favorite of three of the judges was triple chocolate; the favorite of the other two was (a surprise to me) butterscotch.

I then tried to determine the reason for the victories. It turned out to be not so difficult. It wasn’t about the creaminess. It wasn’t about the sweetness. It was all about the flavoring. I heard words like, “I’ve never even seen half as many pistachios in any other pistachio ice cream.” “When I want chocolate, I want a lot of chocolate; this is like eating a frozen bar of the very best chocolate.” “The chunks of crispy butterscotch mixed with the creamy texture of the ice cream is heaven.” Not one flavor we tried seemed artificial and there was always lots and lots of it.

I served Helados Santa Clara for dessert that night. I called the dish “ten tastes”. I took the top three ice creams along with two also-rans, mango with chile, and capuccino and combined them with five different fruits, strawberries, blackberries, bananas, papayas and zapote negro. One guest mentioned that, on our blue plates, the dessert resembled perro desayuno (they won’t be invited back even though they were right) and all agreed that Helados Santa Clara is the perfect accompaniment for fruit.

Remember, life is like ice cream; enjoy it before it melts.

Cut now, to last week. After a three hour lunch with one of those nine judges, with six courses bulging over our belts, I’m walking down Calle Correo with my friend Jack Jacobs when he says to me, “Do you know what ever happened to Santa Clara?”

I said, “Sure I do. They disappeared. Thin air. Must be close to ten years.”

“Not quite”, said Jack. “You know that street that no one ever remembers the name of, the one that runs between Correo and San Francisco, not the corner that El Pegaso is on, the other end, they’re there on that corner.

“That street, it’s name has something to do with never getting it’s name right, at this next corner”, I answered. “Want to get some pistachio.?”

“The world’s best pistachio?, said Jack. “With twice as many pistachios than any other ever? Are you kidding. Let’s do it.”

Helados Santa Clara is located at the corner of Calle San Francisco and Calle Corregidora in San Miguel de Allende and virtually every other reasonably size town in Mexico. Opening times vary.