The best summer snacks (according to you)

There’s plenty to love about summer: Summer music, summer road trips, summer movies. But to enjoy all those things, you have to sustain yourself with summer snacks. But what are the best summer treats of all? We asked our listeners, and we are revealing the results in a game all about summer snacks. (Today’s episode originally ran as a bonus episode for NPR Plus supporters.) For other episodes where we unpack your votes, check out: Top 5 Pixar movies, ranked by listeners https://www.npr.org/2026/06/22/nx-s1-5861804/top-5-pixar-movies-ranked-by-listeners Top 10 Muppets, as voted by listeners https://www.npr.org/2023/03/27/1166310391/top-10-muppets-as-voted-by-listeners Connect with Pop Culture Happy Hour: Letterboxd https://letterboxd.com/nprpopculture/ / Facebook https://www.facebook.com/pchh Our weekly newsletter https://www.npr.org/newsletter/pop-culture Support Pop Culture Happy Hour+ https://plus.npr.org/happy See pcm.adswizz.com https://pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences. NPR Privacy Policy https://www.npr.org/about-npr/179878450/privacy-policy

• 0:00Speaker 00

  This message comes from Capella University. That spark you feel, that's your drive for more. Capella University's FlexPath learning format lets you earn your degree at your pace without putting life on pause. Learn more at capella.edu.

• 0:19Speaker 01

  There's plenty to love about summer. Summer music, summer road trips, summer movies. But to enjoy all those things, you have to sustain yourself somehow. And that means summer snacks. But what are the best summer treats of all? It's an important question, so to make sure that we were getting the real, true answers to what the best snacks are, we didn't want to just rely on ourselves. We wanted to let the people decide. And we are revealing the results in a game all about summer snacks. I'm Linda Holmes, and in this episode of NPR's Pop Culture Happy Hour, we're featuring an episode you might not have heard before. It first ran as a bonus episode, which we publish every month for our NPR+ supporters.

• 1:00Speaker 01

  To get access to these bonus episodes and support shows like ours, sign up for NPR+ by visiting the link in our episode description. Now, on to the show. Here with me today are my Pop Culture Happy Hour co-hosts, Stephen Thompson. Hey, Stephen.

• 1:13Speaker 02

  Hello, Lynda.

• 1:15Speaker 01

  And Glen Weldon. Hi, Glenn.

• 1:16Speaker 03

  Hey, pal.

• 1:17Speaker 01

  And also here is my dear pal, Aisha Harris. Hey, Ayesha.

• 1:20Speaker 04

  Hey, hey, Lynda.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  So, we paired up summer treats, and we put the question of which is better to Pop Culture Happy Hour listeners. Now, our brilliant producers have crunched the numbers. They were in there with their abacus and their slide rule. And I have the answers in front of me about which our listeners picked. My co-hosts do not, so I'm going to ask them to guess what was more popular with our listeners. They will get a point every time they guess correctly how the community voted.

• 1:52Speaker 02

  It's going to be very hard to separate what I suspect listeners' opinion will be with the immutable truth of whatever I think the correct answer is.

• 2:02Speaker 04

  But that is our job, Stephen. That's what we're supposed to do, so.

• 2:05Speaker 03

  I think I have the edge here because I am famously a man of the people. I have the common touch. But my well-known status is Joe Lunchpail. Won't necessarily serve me well because this is a subset of the population. This is the NPR audience, so I think I need to be more Joe Quinowa, right?

• 2:19Speaker 01

  All right. So, before we get started, by the way, I do want to make a note, some of these things may not be things that you consider snacks. That's OK.

• 2:28Speaker 03

  Oh, didn't we hear from people, Lynda?

• 2:30Speaker 01

  If you eat enough of anything, it's a meal. So, these are always questions of specific application. Don't worry about it. First up, we have one of my very favorite things, fried dough. So, we asked our listeners, which is better, churro or funnel cake? I'm going to start with you, Ayesha. What do you think our listeners preferred?

• 2:50Speaker 04

  OK. I know what I would pick, of course. I feel like a lot of people will not consider churro to necessarily be a summer snack. You can eat it pretty much all year round, especially.

• 3:00Speaker 02

  And I do.

• 3:00Speaker 04

  I'm in California, so churro is like a dessert if you go out for Mexican food. So, I'm going to say more listeners went with funnel cake.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  OK.

• 3:09Speaker 04

  Just because it has that very specific, like, summer, I'm at the fair or at the beach kind of feel to it.

• 3:16Speaker 01

  So, you're going funnel cake. How about you, Glenn?

• 3:18Speaker 03

  I disagree because, I mean, I don't have a wide experience with churros. I mean, I think of them as West Coast. I think of them as Mexican. But of course, they're originally from Spanish and Portuguese cuisine. And my only inroad into that cuisine, really, is my husband. He's Cuban, but Cubans don't really mess around with churros. They're a pastelito people. But that said, conversely, I am a person who grew up in Pennsylvania, near Pennsylvania, Dutch country. Pennsylvania, Dutch, or German immigrants. Funnel cakes are in my blood, in my coagulated blood. But I think they're more specialized. I think outside of a state fair, you don't see them in the wild. Churros are on the streets of New York. They're sold at every zoo, every theme park. I think they're going to win the day. I'll go with churros.

• 3:54Speaker 01

  All right, churros. How about you, Stephen?

• 3:55Speaker 02

  I agree with Glenn. Funnel cakes, A, like Glenn said, they're more specialized. They're more, I think of them as a county fair food. I also think, like, I could only replace one to two meals a day with a funnel cake.

• 4:08Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 4:09Speaker 02

  Whereas I could replace all meals with churros.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  Gotcha.

• 4:12Speaker 02

  So, I'm going to go with churro.

• 4:14Speaker 01

  You're going to go with churros. I just want to say, before I reveal the answer, that the best possible answer is really missing from this, as you know, if you have ever been to the Minnesota State Fair. Because the actual correct answer is state fair mini-donuts. Now, if you have ever seen state fair mini-donuts, there's a little machine, and it plops out the little dough into a little tiny mini-donut and to the hot oil, and it bobs down the little machine. And eventually, it gets flipped over, and then it travels down the little conveyor belt. It gets tossed into a thing of sugar, and it comes out, and you eat it, I'm going to say roughly 17 seconds after it was fried.

• 4:54Speaker 04

  Yes.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  And I'm telling you right now, state fair mini-donuts are the actual answer.

• 4:59Speaker 04

  But they have to be apple cider, I feel like.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  No, no, no.

• 5:02Speaker 04

  Mini-donuts are regular.

• 5:03Speaker 03

  Piggly, piggly.

• 5:03Speaker 01

  Oh, come on.

• 5:04Speaker 03

  Anarchy.

• 5:04Speaker 01

  No, state fair mini-donuts are fat-flavored. The actual answer from our listeners, churro did beat funnel cake. Churro got 54.4% of the vote, though. So, funnel cake, very respectable showing.

• 5:17Speaker 03

  OK.

• 5:18Speaker 04

  I mean, they're right. Because churros, to me, are better than funnel. Funnel cake is too messy.

• 5:23Speaker 01

  Well, funnel cake is a little more chaotic, right? Churros are a little more orderly. Anyway, next up, you cannot have snacks without drinks. So, we asked which refreshing summer drink is better, lemonade or iced tea? I do want to note, some of our listeners asked, why did we not offer the compromise solution of the drink? Notice the Arnold Palmer, which is a mix of iced tea and lemonade. I will grant you, that is also a good drink. If you like a compromise, that's a good compromise. I am told that it is also known as a half and half, a flop, or muddy water. Anyway, between these two classic drinks, lemonade and iced tea, what do you think our listeners chose? Stephen Thompson, I'm going to start with you.

• 6:04Speaker 02

  To me, this one is clear. It's iced tea. It is a far more versatile drink. It is far more likely to be heavily caffeinated. You can drink it unsweetened. You can drink it sweetened. You can drink it hypersweetened. When I moved to DC, I really discovered the wonders of sweet tea.

• 6:20Speaker 01

  I feel like I should make a joke about how, yes, sweet tea comes from Washington, DC, but I'm not going to say it because people won't know I'm kidding.

• 6:26Speaker 02

  DC is nominally the South.

• 6:28Speaker 01

  I got you, I got you.

• 6:29Speaker 02

  So, to me, lemonade, it's fine. It's tart. It's delicious, but it's a little too tart.

• 6:35Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 6:35Speaker 02

  And if you want a refreshing summer drink, it's iced tea, all the way.

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Gotcha. Ayesha, what do you think?

• 6:41Speaker 04

  I mean, I think the correct answer is lemonade, myself. But using my highly scientific research and my past as a former server in a restaurant, and remembering what people tended to order in the summer, almost always, iced tea with lemon on the side. So, I think it's got to be iced tea. I don't get it because, Stephen, you said it's versatile, but like, I don't know. I like my tea hot. I think it's weird when it's cold. Maybe that's just.

• 7:07Speaker 02

  Madness, life contains multitudes.

• 7:08Speaker 01

  Yeah. All right, Glenn, what do you think?

• 7:10Speaker 03

  This is an interesting question because on the surface, it seems like a 50/50 proposition. It's not. As Stephen mentioned, this is actually a 33/66 question because iced tea comes in two forms, sweetened and unsweetened. Both are popular. You take the sugar out of iced tea, you got iced tea. You take the sugar out of lemonade, you have literal acid. So, also, iced tea is the hot summer version of the most popular drink in the world, one of the most popular drinks in the world. This is iced tea in a wok.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  Yeah, you're all wrong.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Lemonade came in first place with 60.4%.

• 7:43Speaker 02

  What?

• 7:44Speaker 01

  iced tea came in second with 39.6%.

• 7:47Speaker 03

  Exactly.

• 7:47Speaker 04

  I mean, I'm losing, but I'm actually happy about these choices so far.

• 7:51Speaker 01

  I just want to say, I personally don't drink much iced tea unless I am pretty specifically drinking it and thinking of it as water, slightly more interesting water. But anyway, our listeners chose lemonade, and good for them because lemonade's delicious.

• 8:04Speaker 02

  I was so sure.

• 8:05Speaker 01

  OK. On to one of the most obvious summer cookout matchups, hamburger versus hot dog. Glenn, what do you think the listeners went with?

• 8:14Speaker 03

  Here's where I begin to question my common touch, because if it's up to me, there's no contest here. Hamburgers rule, hot dogs drool. It's a consistency thing because I think they're just too consistent. They're gross. They're too homogenized. They lack texture, grit, whatever. They lack interest. It's the meat of least resistance. It's why you give them to children, because you don't have to risk them having anything like, you know, flavor. It's why they slide down the gullets of the Joey Chestnuts of the world. It's why bologna grosses me out, really, because they're just, I don't know. It's just featureless, undifferentiated sponginess. Now, sausage, chorizo, totally different vibe. Because of the grit, because of resistance and spice and texture, I can't believe that people love hot dogs more than hamburgers. I don't want to live in that world, so I'm going hamburger.

• 8:57Speaker 01

  All right. Ayesha, how about you?

• 8:58Speaker 04

  Wow. I'm offended.

• 9:01Speaker 02

  I know. I'm still just shaking my head over here.

• 9:03Speaker 03

  Spit in truth.

• 9:04Speaker 04

  Look, I love a good artisanal hamburger, you know? I've never been a McDonald's hamburger person. I prefer the bistro version. But I love a good ballpark, like the brand ballpark, hot dog. Like, all beef, I don't, I do like pork, but I don't like it in my hot dogs for some reason. There's nothing like it. If you're grilling it, it has flavor. It has that, just like, especially if it's charred. So, I feel like hot dog, and I'm going to, again, this is based off of my pitch when we were talking about funnel cake. I think that hot dog, hamburger, you can eat all year round. Hot dog feels very specific to summer. This is probably not how people voted, but if I were voting, I'd say, I think, baseball

• 9:45Speaker 04

  games, I think, you know, going to an amusement park, I think of, you know, going to a barbecue and having, also, like, a hot dog just feels easier to eat than a burger if you're, like, trying to stand and talk to people. So, I'm going to say the people went with hot dog, and if they did, they're right.

• 10:02Speaker 01

  All right. Very good. Stephen, how about you?

• 10:04Speaker 02

  Yeah, Ayesha said it all. I think hot dog is the more summery food. I don't think of this as my forearm, so much as a shelf onto which hot dogs may be lined up at various summer sporting events. Love a hot dog with a little, little strip of mustard on one side, a little strip of ketchup on the other. Unbeatable. You don't want flavor.

• 10:25Speaker 03

  Beatable.

• 10:25Speaker 02

  It's right there, buddy.

• 10:26Speaker 03

  Very beatable. Eminently beatable.

• 10:28Speaker 01

  I love how we're learning all of our X. All right. Well, I mean, I am happy to tell Glenn only.

• 10:36Speaker 04

  Oh, my God.

• 10:37Speaker 01

  That the answer is hamburger. Hamburger beat hot dog, getting 60.

• 10:42Speaker 03

  All is right with the world.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  60.5% of the vote for hamburgers.

• 10:46Speaker 03

  I believe in humanity.

• 10:48Speaker 02

  65%?

• 10:49Speaker 01

  No, 60.5.

• 10:51Speaker 02

  60.5. Still, 60, my umbrage remains, 60.5%.

• 10:56Speaker 01

  Yeah, that's, that seems.

• 10:58Speaker 03

  I reserve the right to high umbrage.

• 11:00Speaker 01

  That's weird. It is a little weird. All right. Well, we have more questions in our summer snacks quiz, but first, let's take a quick break.

• 11:08Speaker 05

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors.

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• 12:26Speaker 01

  Welcome back. So we're going to move on to dessert now with one of the questions that I have to say people have felt most passionate about. This is the Dairy Queen Face-Off. We asked, Dilly Bar versus Blizzard versus Peanut Buster Parfait. Oh, by the way, our editor, Jessica Reedy, had a note for me. We were asked why dipped cone was not in there. She says too similar to the Dilly Bar. So we chose to-

• 12:54Speaker 03

  I see that. We'll let listeners litigate that themselves.

• 12:57Speaker 02

  Ice cream with a shell.

• 12:58Speaker 01

  Ice cream coated in chocolate is all one thing. All right, Glenn, why don't you kick us off? What do you think? Dilly Bar, Blizzard, Peanut Buster Parfait?

• 13:05Speaker 03

  Yeah, this is going to be Blizzard in a walk. I don't agree with it because my preference is purely nostalgic. Because Blizzard was introduced in 1985. I was in high school. I, my preferences were already set, but my preferences started with the Peanut Buster Parfait, which should win, but won't, because after dinner, Dad would load us up into the AMC Gremlin, and we'd go out to the DQ on Route 202, Linda Holmes, outside Westchester. And we'd watch the sunset. As we sat on the picnic tables, eating our Peanut Buster Parfaits, I had one, he had one. That place is now a car dealership. Anyway, Blizzard, wildly popular. It's going to be the Blizzard.

• 13:37Speaker 01

  Love it. All right, Blizzard. Glenn picks Blizzard. Stephen, what do you pick?

• 13:40Speaker 02

  Well, I grew up eating at Dairy Queens all over central Wisconsin. Your Stevens Point, your Shawno. And I've tried every Dairy Queen menu item many times. In fact, in the interest of rigorous research, I went there just two days ago to confirm what I have thought all along, which is that the best Dairy Queen menu item is a Blizzard with Heath Bars. That, to me, is a perfect food.

• 14:02Speaker 03

  It's an aggressive stance.

• 14:03Speaker 02

  I would have bet, by the way, $1,000 that Glenn would have uncorked a giant anti-Dilly Bar screed in this conversation, because-

• 14:12Speaker 03

  I'm aware of its work.

• 14:12Speaker 02

  Because Glenn hates a waxy candy.

• 14:15Speaker 03

  It's true.

• 14:15Speaker 02

  Any candy that can be compared to candle wax, and the Dilly Bar coating is too waxy.

• 14:20Speaker 01

  I get it. I get it. All right. So Stephen, you think that it's a Blizzard?

• 14:25Speaker 02

  I think it's a Blizzard.

• 14:26Speaker 01

  And you think the audience is going to pick Blizzard?

• 14:28Speaker 02

  I'm going to say yes.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  Okay. How about you, Aisha? What do you think?

• 14:31Speaker 04

  I mean, I don't even know I'm playing anymore. Like, I'm not getting any of these correct. I don't know our listeners. Like, who are they? I don't know. I think it's obviously a Blizzard, but like, honestly, none of these are the best. I'm a very boring person when it comes to desserts. I don't like mixing things too much together. I like a plain vanilla cone, maybe, maybe a little sprinkle, but not much. But I have memories, myself, of going to Dairy Queen. There was one in West Haven, Connecticut, and there was another one in Handen, Connecticut. Went to both of them. They were always treats. My dad would take my sister and I after, like, tennis, or just for, because he wanted. He has a very big, sweet tooth. And we would always get the Misty Slush, which is basically

• 15:14Speaker 04

  DQ's take on the icy. It's different from the Misty Freeze, which is a mixture of slush and soft serve ice cream. I just like the slush. Just give me, like, the cherry, the grape. Those were the best. That's what it should be. But I think our listeners, what do I know? I don't know. They're probably going to say Blizzard. So tell us what it is.

• 15:31Speaker 03

  It's Blizzard. It's Blizzard.

• 15:33Speaker 02

  Also, Aisha, I want to second your statement on the Misty Freeze, Misty Slush. An ice cream novelty that is thirst-quenching is really hard to come by, and that's one of them.

• 15:41Speaker 01

  Yeah. I am delighted to say that you are all correct. Blizzard came in first place with 78.1% of the vote.

• 15:49Speaker 04

  I'm on the board.

• 15:51Speaker 02

  Nice.

• 15:52Speaker 01

  Peanut Buster Parfait, 12.8%. And in the third place is the Dilly Bar, 9.1%. Poor, poor Dilly Bar. I love a Dilly Bar. I gotta say. I got nothing against a Dilly Bar. While we are talking about ice cream, next up, we have Waffle Cone versus Sugar Cone versus Cake Cone. Now, if you don't know the difference here, the Cake Cone is the small, flat-bottomed one that tastes like Styrofoam. The Sugar Cone is the normal cone-shaped one. And then the Waffle Cone is the big one where you can see it, like, wrapped and folded over. How do we think our listeners chose on Cake Cone versus Waffle Cone versus Sugar Cone? I'm going to start with Aisha.

• 16:35Speaker 04

  This is a tough one. I did work in an ice cream shop for a couple of summers way back when. I feel as though most people, a lot of people, really love to get the Waffle Cone. Now, the Waffle Cone is so messy, especially if you put too many scoops of ice cream.

• 16:51Speaker 02

  It loses its structural integrity.

• 16:53Speaker 04

  Right. I think the best way to have a Waffle Cone is to have it in a bowl, and then put the Waffle Cone on top, and then you can, like, crunch it in. And that's the ideal way to do it. But anyone who tries to, like, eat it standing up, you are a daredevil. I don't get it. I'm going to say Waffle Cone. I think that's where the people lie. I don't believe it, but you know.

• 17:11Speaker 01

  Waffle Cone.

• 17:12Speaker 03

  It's where the people lie.

• 17:13Speaker 01

  Good pick. Good pick. All right, Glenn, how about you?

• 17:15Speaker 03

  I think the Sugar Cone is popular. I don't understand why. It is dark brown. It's pointy. It has a very pronounced molasses flavor, like a burnt molasses character-

• 17:23Speaker 01

  Yes, there is.

• 17:24Speaker 03

  -that when you get to the bottom, and you haven't done your homework, and you haven't pushed the ice cream all the way down with your tongue, you just have this little nubbin of bitterness. The flat-bottomed Cake Cone is the best cone, which, as you mentioned, it is like, Lynda, it's very like thin Styrofoam, just a hint of flavor. It knows its place.

• 17:41Speaker 01

  That's so right.

• 17:42Speaker 03

  Which is why it works, because it is a vessel. It provides structure. It is only the mildest of flavors. You can use your tongue to make sure every compartment is filled out in every level. Waffle Cones, Sugar Cones, they're bossy. They're divas. They're competing with the flavor of the ice cream. The Cake Cone is perfect. Like, people are going to say Sugar Cones, and I don't know why.

• 17:59Speaker 01

  All right. All right. Stephen, what do you think?

• 18:01Speaker 02

  Okay, so the nice thing about the cone with the Styrofoam bottom, if you're eating soft serve, it does have a really nice way of soaking into the ridge of the cone in a way that is very pleasing to me. But I gotta say, Waffle Cone, it's just the most delicious cookie substance to eat of the three, and I think it goes the best with ice cream. Yes, do you have to be careful about the structural integrity? Of course, but you knew the job was dangerous when you took it, people. I'm going to say Waffle Cone all the way.

• 18:32Speaker 03

  For the daredevils among you.

• 18:34Speaker 01

  I do want to say, I, for me, I kind of lean toward Aisha's answer, which is the best cone is no cone, right?

• 18:40Speaker 02

  I can abide that.

• 18:42Speaker 01

  When I go to get ice cream, I always get just a dish of ice cream, because that's what I care about. I care about the ice cream, assuming that it is good, right? My family used to, when we were on vacation in Maine in the summer, used to go to this place called Dorman's Dairy Dream in Thomaston, Maine. And I would get a little dish of chocolate chip ice cream with chocolate sprinkles. And this was when I was a little kid, and I was there last summer. And you know what I ordered? Same thing. Still good. Little dish of chocolate chip ice cream, chocolate sprinkles. Absolutely correct answer. But for our listeners, this is another one that was not particularly close. Waffle Cone came

• 19:25Speaker 01

  in first with 60.1% of the vote. Second place was Sugar Cone with 27.6% of the vote. In third place was the Styrofoam Cone with 12.3%.

• 19:39Speaker 03

  That's okay. It gets off on being underappreciated. It's fine.

• 19:42Speaker 04

  I'm with you, Glenn, though. I do prefer the Styrofoam Cone. Well, we're going to stay on ice cream for one more question. I don't know about you, but in the summer, I personally get a lot of opportunities to listen to ice cream trucks, the sound systems of which are of varying quality. So we asked, do you love an ice cream truck, or do you just want to go to an ice cream shop? Stephen, I think it's your turn to go first.

• 20:06Speaker 02

  Yeah, and this is really, to me, one of the toughest ones. Obviously, like, an ice cream shop is a more pleasant place to go than the exterior of an ice cream truck. They tend to be air-conditioned. You tend to have, like, a large menu of sophisticated-to-the-pallet options to choose from. And when you get to an ice cream truck, you're choosing from, like, is the treat I'm eating vaguely shaped like SpongeBob, or is it vaguely shaped like Spider-Man? And like, that is, you know, not as fancy. But the ice cream truck comes to you. It comes to you when you're at your most in need of refreshment. And there's an element of surprise that sometimes comes with the arrival of the ice cream truck that

• 20:49Speaker 02

  makes me think that more people are going to have a strong emotional reaction to, like, when an ice cream truck came to save the day. So I'm going to go with ice cream truck, in part because, like, part of my relationship with going to get ice cream is that very often, what I am when I want ice cream is thirsty. And ice cream isn't always the best thirst-quencher. But when you go to an ice cream truck, they've got stuff like bomb pops and snow cones and popsicles that are more thirst-quenching than ice cream is. So I'm going to go with the ice cream truck.

• 21:26Speaker 01

  All right. Glenn, what would you pick? Ice cream truck or ice cream shop?

• 21:31Speaker 03

  Well, I'm just going to come out and say what we're all thinking. Ice cream shops smell weird. There, I said it. They smell weird.

• 21:39Speaker 02

  Is it the cleanser?

• 21:40Speaker 03

  No, what it is, it's a very high in the nose kind of sinussy smell. It's the sugar. Yes, it is the Freon. Freon smells weird. Big Freon is gonna tell you, oh, we're odorless gas. They lie. They're not an odorless gas. Also, at ice cream shops, you've got all those people who are sampling everything with those little wooden spoons and they're testing doing, can I have the butter pecan? Can I have the chocolate? It's chocolate. You know what chocolate tastes like? And they put it back in a little cup at the top of the thing. I hate it. Ice cream truck, again, my love of the ice cream truck is based on nostalgia because every summer at 3 o'clock in the afternoon, a ice cream truck would roll up. As you said, Stephen, they come to you, would roll up to Wedgewood Swim Club, which sounds a lot fancier than it was. And the swim team would line up and they'd get their bomb pops and their water rices, as we said back then. I would get an ice cream sandwich

• 22:24Speaker 03

  because nobody else got an ice cream sandwich, which meant that the ice cream sandwiches in the ice cream truck spent all their time in the back, bottommost, darkest, coldest part of the freezer.

• 22:33Speaker 01

  Oh, sure.

• 22:34Speaker 03

  So that the wafer got crispy, hard and crispy. So my heart says ice cream truck, but I think people like being obnoxious and holding up the line and deciding with the little wooden spoons. I think people like choice, as Stephen mentioned, so I think people are gonna say ice cream shop.

• 22:49Speaker 01

  So you say shop. Ayesha, what are you saying?

• 22:51Speaker 04

  Well, as I already said, I worked in an ice cream shop for a couple of summers, shop with the two Ps and a B.

• 23:00Speaker 03

  Another thing.

• 23:03Speaker 04

  And another thing. So this place actually, fun little side note here, it was called Kelly's Cone Connection. And can you guess how she spelled Kelly's Cone Connection?

• 23:13Speaker 03

  Oh, no. No, no, no, no, no.

• 23:19Speaker 04

  No, okay. Okay, yeah, so, look, look, she was a sweetheart and eventually they changed it so that it wasn't off. But like, it was a little joke in my town. And it was actually connected to a drive-in like grill. So like in the summer, they'd have all the classic car shows and everything. It was very like, given us 1950 vibes.

• 23:39Speaker 03

  Yeah.

• 23:40Speaker 04

  But anyway, I have very fond memories of working at that shop with some of my friends and, you know, getting to interact with people. But I agree with Stephen that there's just so much nostalgia for ice cream trucks. The music, it just gets stuck in your head and it is like Inside Out. The jingle that just won't get like, 20 years later, you will remember it. Now, I am not someone who enjoys hard ice cream, in part because I have sensitive teeth. And so like, biting into an ice cream sandwich is just gonna, it makes my skin crawl and my teeth hurt. So I was never an ice cream truck kid. I was always like, give me the soft serve. But I think the ice cream truck nostalgia baby, it almost always wins every time.

• 24:21Speaker 03

  Should I change my vote? Oh, no.

• 24:23Speaker 04

  Nope, too late, too late.

• 24:24Speaker 03

  I'm not gonna, not gonna, gonna stick with it.

• 24:26Speaker 01

  All right, I just wanna say that I also would go with the ice cream truck. But our listeners went ice cream shop.

• 24:33Speaker 03

  There we go.

• 24:34Speaker 01

  Are you kidding me?

• 24:35Speaker 03

  They like the choice.

• 24:36Speaker 01

  Eighty-three point seven percent, eighty-three point seven percent. I don't know our listeners.

• 24:43Speaker 02

  I am out of step.

• 24:44Speaker 01

  All right, this is perhaps especially important here on the East Coast, but we asked about two classic summer seafood nibbles, the lobster roll and the crab cake. Which do you think our listeners chose lobster roll or crab cake? Aisha Harris, which one?

• 24:56Speaker 04

  Uh, my family is from Baltimore, so I'm gonna go with crab cake. And I think that listeners went with crab cakes.

• 25:02Speaker 01

  All right, Glenn.

• 25:03Speaker 03

  A lobster roll made with imitation lobster is sad. A crab cake made with imitation crab is just crab cake, crab cake.

• 25:08Speaker 01

  All right, crab cake. Stephen?

• 25:10Speaker 02

  I'm gonna have to have my Maryland citizenship revoked. I've lived here for 18 years, but I love a lobster roll and I cannot pass that up as my choice.

• 25:18Speaker 01

  All right.

• 25:19Speaker 02

  It's lobster, man.

• 25:20Speaker 01

  Well, Stephen, our listeners went with you. It's lobster roll came in first with 54.4% of the vote. Crab cake came in second with 45.6%. Logically enough.

• 25:32Speaker 02

  Both of them are very expensive.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  We are tallying up the score and I will tell you, we have a tie between Stephen and Glenn. You both got four correct. You know, listen, it's all good. We have a tie. Ayesha, you got two correct, so everybody was in it. Let's face it, everybody was in it.

• 25:49Speaker 04

  Thank you for my participation sticker.

• 25:51Speaker 01

  No, no, no way, no way. Everybody did a wonderful job. Glen Weldon, Aisha Harris, Stephen Thompson. Thank you so much for being here to play this game with me.

• 25:59Speaker 03

  Thank you, buddy.

• 26:00Speaker 04

  Thank you.

• 26:01Speaker 01

  This episode was produced by Ramel Wood and Mike Katsif and edited by our showrunner, Jessica Reedy, and Hello, Come In provides our theme music. Thank you for listening to Pop Culture Happy Hour from NPR. I'm Linda Holmes and we'll see you all next time.

• 26:18Speaker 05

  Stay tuned for the following announcements and messages from our sponsors. This message comes from Google Workspace with Gemini. One subscription that does it all. Personalized AI and premium business versions of Gmail, Google Docs, Drive and more. Try it free for 14 days at g o o dot g l e slash Workspace with Gemini.

• 26:40Speaker 06

  In a midterm election, it's hard to keep track of all those small down ballot races. So some voters are using AI chatbots to figure out who to support.

• 26:50Speaker 07

  Sometimes if you push back to hallucinations, the chatbot will confess that it made something up. But in other cases, you know, it will double down.

• 26:57Speaker 06

  What you should know about using AI for election research. Listen now on the NPR Politics Podcast.