From Cow to Cone

On the Trail of Maryland's Best Ice Cream

by Joyce Heid
Nothing says summer like the taste of cold ice cream on a hot day. And though the ice cream man may deliver to your neighborhood, the Maryland Department of Agriculture (MDOA) would like your family to consider getting the sweet treat right from some of our state’s local dairy farms via Maryland’s Best Ice Cream Trail, which consists of seven dairy farms that make and serve their own ice cream on site.
Maryland’s dairy farms produce milk, our state beverage. (Did you know that? I didn't even know we had a state beverage!) Much of this milk is used to make fresh ice cream. The MDOA has set up the ice cream trail to promote Maryland’s dairy industry. "The Ice Cream trail helps us recognize the important contributions of Maryland’s 495 dairy farms to our state economy,” says Secretary of the MDOA, Earl Hance “We also want to increase the public’s general understanding of what dairy farming is really all about by encouraging them to visit a farm, talk to the farmers, and taste ice cream that goes from cow to cone in a matter of hours. It is a delicious, fresh taste like no other.”
Families who wish to participate will want to get an Ice Cream Trailblazer Passport and have it  “stamped” at each of the seven participating locations.  If your family has all seven stamps by September 7^th, you can submit it to the MDOA department to be entered in a drawing to win prizes such as a $50 creamery gift certificate, a documentary DVD on "The Maryland Harvest," and a "Dishing Up Maryland" cookbook. Best of all you could win the bragging rights to say you are Maryland’s Best Ice Cream Trailblazer!
The Maryland Ice Cream Trail consists of these seven creameries:
•  Rocky Point Creamery in Tuscarora
•  Prigel Family Creamery in Baltimore County
•  Broom's Bloom Dairy in Harford County
•  Kilby Cream in Cecil County
•  South Mountain Creamery in Middletown
•  Misty Meadows Farm Creamery in Washington County
•  Chesapeake Bay Farms in Worcester County
According to the state, the Trail is the first in the nation to feature dairy farms that produce fresh ice cream and sell it directly to consumers on the farm. For more adventurous families, a geocaching version of the trail is also available on the MDOA website.
For more information or to download and print out an Ice Cream Trailblazer Passport visit http://marylandsbest.net.
©Baltimore's Child – August 2012