• skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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    24 days ago

    Also remember that this was during Prohibition when ice cream was the stand in for booze for most Americans.

    Basically the Navy was rowing around a battalion-sized keg party across the Atlantic

    Also, one of my favorite American history facts, after a chain of several events this is also why we still have about a billion pounds of cheese squirreled away in caves under most of the Midwest. Not kidding. The ice cream boom caused problems for the milk industry after Prohibition was repealed and one two skip a few, we’ve got 19.5 fucktons of government subsidized cheese and nowhere to put it. This is a true story. Once society inevitably collapses in the West I’m headed toward the cheese caves.

    • EpeeGnome@lemm.ee
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      24 days ago

      WW2 started several years after America ended the Prohibition, and the ice cream barge was commissioned in its later years as the war in the Pacific dragged on. Still, I don’t think the navy was providing alcohol rations, so I imagine it was quite the party atmosphere when the ice cream barge showed up.

      • skulblaka@sh.itjust.works
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        24 days ago

        Oof, guess my timing was a little off, fair enough. But by this point these were soldiers who grew up with ice cream being the norm.