Old Missoula

 

The article below by Donna Syvertson appeared in The Missoulian on October 10, 2005.

 

 

 

Whither witchy ice cream?

 

 

 

Question: My girlfriend and I grew up in Missoula and lived near Hansen’s Ice Cream. Spent a LOT of time there! Every Halloween, they came out with their “Witches Twist” flavor made with licorice and marshmallow cream that was awesome (and I don’t like licorice!). We’ve never found anything like it since. Is the recipe still around? Would the family part with it or let you publish it? There must be a bunch of us oldies who would love to taste it again, introduce it to a new generation and maybe sample the memories it brought back.

 

Answer: Well, I was making no progress until a group of knowledgeable historians suggested I call Stella Hansen.

 

Stella and her husband, Doug, owned and operated the Hansen Ice Cream Co. and restaurant from 1945 to 1980 on South Higgins Avenue where the Jeannette Rankin Peace Center is now.

 

“We were pretty inventive,” Stella said. “We had 30 to 40 flavors.”

 

The Hansens used to manufacture ice cream. They sold that part of the business in 1979 and, in 1980, sold the building to a woman who kept it for only a few months. She then sold it to the McMahons, Jane and Mike, who ran the restaurant until they, too, sold the building.

 

That’s when the Jeannette Rankin center moved in.

 

Stella said people could try to make the “Witches Twist” ice cream. At Hansen’s, they added the flavors as the mix was coming out of a machine that had three feeders (nozzles). Pumpkin ice cream was in one, licorice ice cream in another and marshmallow cream in the third. The three flavors were individually swirled into the mix, which was stored in 10-gallon cans.

 

Hansen’s made not only the pumpkin ice cream, but also the licorice and the marshmallow cream, according to Stella’s son, Mike. “I made everything down there hundreds of times,” he said.

 

The marshmallow, Mike explained, was made by running sugar and egg whites through the ice cream machine and whipping up the mixture. “We would make up 15 or 20 gallons of marshmallows at a time,” he said.

 

“The marshmallow was much more flavorful and had a nice texture when you put it in an ice cream container,” he added. “We put in a fair amount of vanilla flavoring. It was good. I was making it and Icould eat plenty of it,” he said.

 

“That’s how we did it. We never tried any other way, but I don’t see how it wouldn’t work,” Stella said, adding “We never had an exclusive on that flavor.”

 

Mike said people could try making the mix at home using their own ice cream makers. Buy pumpkin puree for pies and make pumpkin ice cream, he said. The licorice could be a challenge finding the ingredients. After some thought, he suggested buying vanilla ice cream and mixing licorice (flavor) into it. Use the marshmallow cream that comes in jars.

 

Using a glass loaf pan, like the kind fruitcake is made in, spoon in a 1-inch layer of the pumpkin, then the marshmallow, then the licorice. Repeat until the ice creams are used up. Freeze. Then when you scoop it out, you’ll have the mixture.

 

Stella said they never mixed the three flavors together. “It would come out a terrible color.”

 

Stella suggested that Big Dipper ice cream, right down Higgins Avenue from the old Hansen’s place, might want to try making “Witches Twist.” “If they have a freezer with those attachments, they could do that. They might need a couple of people to help.”

 

“It probably would be a good seller,” Stella said. “We sold tons of ice cream.”

 

Curious about something in Missoula or western Montana? Harness the power of the Missoulian’s newsroom. Each week in this space, Donna Syvertson will answer questions submitted by readers.

 

 

 

 

 

It seemed that all of the girls in my neighborhood worked at Hansen’s Ice cream at one time or another. It reflected what Missoula used to be. It was a bonanza ice cream parlor, but it was more than that.

 

If you were fortunate enough to walk through the back portal of the eating section you entered the strange and fascinating world of serious chess play. A friend, Aaron Hitchcock – who taught me to play and occasionally allowed me to win – introduced me to the back of Hansen’s. It reflected the Hansen family’s warmth and generosity where anyone seemed to be welcomed. The Hansen’s were great people.

 

Several boards were set up under glass and the pieces were larger than any I had seen. You quickly realized that the level of play there was not average neighborhood chess. Although my abilities were far below the other people playing there, I was made to feel welcome. It was a friendly place all around. The ice cream was fantastic and so were the sloppy Joes.

 

Probably the best chess player ever to play at Hansen’s was Dr. Peter Lapiken. Lapiken played Bobby Fisher in 1956. See article below from chess.com. Also below is a link to a nice article about Dr. Peter Lapiken’s days at Hansen’s. If you have trouble with links just google Dr. Peter Lapiken for articles about this interesting man.

 

Fischer’s First Published Game

 

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In July, 1956, Bobby Fischer, age 13, played in the 57th US Open in Oklahoma City (101 players in the event).  He was the youngest player in the event.  As a publicity stunt, he was paired with the oldest player in the event, 78 year old A. Shank.  Fischer easily won the game.  His next two games were drawn.

 

In the 4th round, he was paired with Dr. Peter Lapiken, a master from Montana and California.

 

Peter Petrovich Lapiken (1907-1983) was born in Riga, Latvia and later moved to China.  In the 1930s, he was chess champion of Manchuria, China.   He came to the United States in 1939.  During World War II, he was a translator and a language instructor for the US Army.  In 1953, he tied for 1st place in the California Open and won the brilliancy prize.  In 1958, he won the Idaho Open. He won the Montana Open in 1958, 1959, 1963, 1965, 1967, 1969, and 1971.  He played in 12 US Opens from 1955 to 1973.  He was president of the Montana Chess Association in the 1960s.  He received a PhD in Slavic Languages from UC Berkeley and taught for several years at UCLA and the University of Montana.  In the 1955 US Open in Long Beach, Lapiken drew with Reshevsky, missing a win.

 

Fischer won the game against Lapiken and ended the tournament with 5 wins and 7 draws, for an 8.5-3.5 score and good enough for 4th through 8th place.  After the event, his rating was 2349, putting him around #30 in the nation.  The event was won by Arthur Bisguier.  A few weeks earlier, Fischer won the 11th US Junior Championship held in Philadelphia.  After that event, his rating was 2321, making him the youngest master up to that time at the age of 13 years, 3 months, 29 days.   In this game, Fischer plays his favorite opening up to that time, a King’s Indian Attack (also known as Zukertort’s opening or the Reti).  This was Fischer’s first published chess game.  It appeared in the Aug 5, 1956 issue of Chess Life in a column written by John Collins.  The game also appeared in the September, 1956 issue of Chess Review.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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