At Culture Cream, A “Culinary Witch” Conjures Fermented Ice Creams In Inventive Flavors
In a town like Hudson, overflowing with creativity, it can be hard for a new business to stand out. Culture Cream doesn’t have that problem. Using fermented ingredients like kombucha and kefir, as well as bold, herbaceous flavors, owner Katiushka Melo’s new parlor is offering up ice cream and sorbets like nothing you’ve tasted before.
Opened on July 3 at 318 Warren Street, the vibrantly colored store front, filled with Melo’s artistic design, is a mix of the owner’s traditionally Chilean and contemporary art influences.
Melo is many things — an artist, performer, dancer, designer, cook, mother, entrepreneur and, she says, an “ice cream bruja” (Spanish for witch). In her cold cauldron she mixes flavors that are delicious but also have ingredients often used as health aids — the ferments for their digestive help; and herbs, classically used as all kinds of remedies.
“I imagine being a culinary witch of sorts,” Melo said. “My ice cream not only tastes good but it has these ferments that are good for you. I combine it like a potion.”
Melo grew up first in New York, then moved back to her family’s native Chile. Working in the arts took her around the world to live in Mexico, Taiwan, and China before moving back to New York City. No matter where she was, she was always cooking. Her culinary interests turned into a successful supper club that always ended the night with Culture Cream. After moving up to Germantown, she made connections and had the opportunity to open Culture Cream as an outdoor stand at Back Bar in Hudson. The success there showed her she could make a go of it with a brick and mortar.
“I’ve always felt cooking was performative,” Melo said. “I performed a piece where I chopped onions in the audience, making everyone cry. Ice cream is my blank canvas. It has been my way to express myself artistically.”
Fermented ice cream might at first sound like a bit of a turnoff until you realize everyone’s been eating frozen yogurt for decades now. The kombucha or kefir isn’t overpowering in any way. The uncommon ingredients just bring a slight tang on the back of the tongue and impart lightness. There’s a quality that’s hard to articulate at play here — a sort of ghostly effervescence.
For the uninitiated, kefir is essentially a sour yogurt-like drink made with a yeast and bacteria culture, and kombucha is a fermented tea made with a SCOBY (symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast). That gnarly jellyfish looking wad at the bottom of the kombucha jar — the SCOBY — is made using a unique fermentation process of lactic acid bacteria, acetic acid bacteria, and yeast. (Don’t be uptight. It’s really good.)
All the offerings at Culture Cream are delicious but Melo isn’t afraid of strong flavors and there are a few cold treats that aren’t for wimps. Chocolate kefir, lacto fermented strawberry, or coffee kombucha are great ice creams to start with for the newbie. The sage honey kefir starts to get more adventurous but has a taste that develops and feels natural and summery.
The sorbets on the menu are refreshing but they’re not palate cleansers. They’re palate exploders. Every option is a fruit paired with a fresh herb from Melo's home garden that feels like it was picked and smashed fresh into the mixture a second before you eat it. You taste the plant, its greenness, its balminess, its bite. The blackberry lavender and cherry rosemary are earthy with almost savory notes; the raspberry hibiscus is puck inducing. Melon mint is less aggressive but a standout for its playful balance.
Melo’s confidence with impactful flavors is the linchpin to the whole endeavor. The atmosphere reflects her artistry and inventiveness but it’s her ability to trust that these flavors work and that peope will get it that makes Culture Cream special. Not every flavor here is for everyone and that’s okay because there is going to be a flavor for everyone.
The mango merquen kefir ice cream might be the most challenging on the menu, tasting the most like the bruja’s potion but it is also the most entrancing. Merquen is a traditional smoked chili sourced from a indigenous Chilean cultural group. Smoky deep, the bit of spicy flavor is round and fills your mouth. Balanced but not tamed by the mango sweetness, the merquen has a flavor profile totally its own. It is rare in these modern culinary adventurous times to find a flavor that truly tastes new. This ice cream does that. Melo says it’s her favorite and she’s proud of it, proud of how good it is but also the story it tells.
“There are definitely people who are more hesitant to try it,” Melo said. “ But it’s fun to introduce people to something new.”
A single scoop is $5, Make it a double or a float in the kombucha cold brew of sage lemonade for $9. A take-home pint is $12. Melo also has a shelf and fridge filled with fermented products made by local farms and businesses. Supporting other makers, both of food and art, is important to Melo.
Outside Culture Cream, Melo has an art box with a rotating display of work by great artist friends she feels are under represented. Melo will participate in Upstate Art Weekend August 27-29, co-curating Big Paradise with Dina Bizri and Casey Burry, and take part in NADA x Foreland in Catskill. Visit Upstate Art Weekend online for more information.
Culture Cream
318 Warren Street, Hudson
Open Sunday-Thursday, noon-8 p.m.
Friday and Saturday, noon-10 p.m.
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