Snackrilege!

Neon Memes • Perhaps only expressing an affection for Richard Serra's droll Twain over Eero Saarinen's Gateway Arch could top the umbrage likely produced by this admission: I'd rather snack on a Dairy Queen vanilla soft-serve ice-milk cone than a concrete from Ted Drewes Frozen Custard (4224 S. Grand Boulevard, 314.352.7376; 6726 Chippewa, 314.481.2652). Now, certainly, the Drewes family has been tantalizing St. Louis taste buds for almost eight decades, and just as certainly, Ted Drewes Jr. himself occupies a grandfatherly position in society here. Sad to say, though, the average custard from one of his South Side stands does nothing for me, especially compared to some of the exquisite rock-salt-and-hand-crank homemade ice cream of my boyhood. The cashier's brief inversion of the custard cup, meanwhile, strikes me as a mere parlor trick, of genuine appeal only to sweet-toothed astronauts speeding into zero g. Even worse, the allure of Ted Drewes Frozen Custard concretes dispensed off-site at many local corporate events wholly escapes me; apparently chilled by dry ice or maybe lox, their consistency makes real concrete look like tapioca. Instead of a tiny plastic or wooden spoon, the inedible things should come equipped with a miniature jackhammer. Thank you, no. ―Bryan A. Hollerbach, Managing Editor