Serious Eats - seriouseats.com

I cook on a propane powered custom grill and many people taste that i get a heck of a lot of flavor. i've been to many cook outs and contests w/ the hardcore charcoal experts w/ their cans of bud light, to each his or her own, i just wonder how many competitions the people w/ the strongest opinions have won?

DC misses its favorite foodie!

i love the idea of your elementary school's "free table!"

I don't think so. Actually, I tried the Green & Black vanilla pictured in the post, and it was good of course, but not amazing.

I work in the dairy industry and can tell you that the specks are mainly for show. Someone else mentioned that they could be ground up pods and that is essentially correct. When they make vanilla extract the pods and seeds are mashed up and soaked in ethanol to extract the flavor components. Once the extract is removed, the pods and seeds are dried and ground further to make the specks. There may be some residual flavor in the specks but not much. An ice cream manufacturer will buy those specks from a vanilla supplier by the boxful and add them to the ice cream along with extract to get the flavor.

A better indicator of quality is whether the flavor is vanilla extract only since that is a defined flavoring. If the label says vanilla and other natural flavors, that means the flavor company has padded out the natural vanilla with additional natural flavor components to tweak the profile. And, of course, when the labels starts talking about artifical flavor and vanillin, walk away.

Good vanilla ice cream without flecks vs. good vanilla ice cream with flecks...They are a different breed of cat so it's hard to fairly compare them side-by-side, at least in my book. Each can be satisfyingly good in its own way.

I agree with those who say that flecks don't necessarily equate quality and flavor in a vanilla ice cream.

I'm hoping for a debate about coffee ice cream. There are some really bad coffee ice creams out there and I wonder if coffee ice cream lands on the SE Team's list of classic ice cream flavors.

I don't really care if it has flecks or not. If the ice cream is good, then the ice cream is good.

I like really yellow vanilla ice cream. I've never seen yellow with flecks. Only the pristine white with flecks. Thus, no flecks > flecks.

I'm not sure why people say it's just a psychological thing. The specks have a texture that is pretty obvious. And since we don't blend our steaks before eating them, I'd say that those specks can make a difference.

All other things being equal (air %, ingredient list, etc) I prefer specks.

I enjoy the specks. I know it's a psychological thing--seeing the specks. But, hey, we eat with our eyes first.

@lawofmurphy - I worked at Starbucks for 8 months and managed to avoid everything but the tea and the plain, bold coffee! If you're lactose intolerant, dead set on avoiding HFCS, not too fond of sweets and trying to limit caffeine, Starbucks has few options. No chocolatey chips for me!

I've read that the specks are often not really the little seeds from the inside of a vanilla bean; instead they are made by grinding whole vanilla pods that have been made into extract then dried.