If you’ve ever wanted to order a scoop of ice cream but then thought, “The appearance of this dessert might make me vulnerable to sniper attack,” Baskin-Robbins has your back. The world’s largest ice-cream shop chain announced this week that it will celebrate Veterans Day by dishing out “First Class Camouflage” ice cream in the traditional military colors of green, brown, and tan.
On the one hand, using a form of clothing intended to prevent soldiers from dying in combat as inspiration for an ice cream flavor is kind of incongruous and arguably in poor taste. On the other hand, some of the best-tasting foods are drab in appearance. (Steak, chicken, bread, pancakes, cookies, peanut butter, potatoes: All are various shades of brown.) Given the wide range of dull-colored flavors, camouflage ice cream is a concept with potential.
However, Baskin-Robbins flubbed the execution. The brown color of its camouflage ice cream is chocolate, and the tan is salted caramel—so far, so good. But the green flavor is “cake.” Cake? Cake is not green! How on earth could the world’s foremost ice cream company overlook the best and most obvious green ice cream flavor, pistachio? (Mint chip is disqualified; besides the fact that it would taste terrible with salted caramel, it’s really more aquamarine than green.) Under the circumstances, perhaps the company’s best defense is that pistachio was hiding in plain sight.
