Hokey pokey

Hokey pokey is a flavour of ice cream, invented in New Zealand and consisting of plain vanilla ice cream with small, solid lumps of sponge toffee. The original recipe until around 1980 consisted of solid toffee, but in a marketing change Tip-Top decided to use small balls of sponge toffee instead

It is the most popular flavour after plain vanilla in New Zealand,^[1] and a standard example of Kiwiana.^[2] It is also exported to Japan and the Pacific.^{[citation needed]}

Etymology

"Hokey pokey" was a slang term for ice cream in general in the 19th and early-to-mid 20th centuries in several areas — including New York^[3] and parts of Great Britain — specifically for the ice cream sold by street vendors, or "hokey-pokey" men. The vendors, said to be mostly of Italian descent, supposedly used a sales pitch or song involving the phrase "hokey pokey", for which several origins have been suggested, although no certain etymology is known.

The name may come from the term "hocus-pocus", or it may be a corruption of one of several Italian phrases. According to "The Encyclopedia of Food" (published 1923, New York) hokey pokey (in the U.S.) is "a term applied to mixed colors and flavors of ice cream in cake form". The Encyclopedia says the term originated from the Italian phrase oh che poco - "oh how little". Alternative possible derivations include other similar-sounding Italian phrases: for example ecco un poco - "here is a (little) piece" or "ecce pocce" (roughly) "Get it here, it's cold".

Related uses

• Sponge toffee is also known as "hokey pokey" in New Zealand (and in southern parts of the Dominican Republic)^{[citation needed]}
• Hokey Pokey (The Ice Cream Man) (1975) is a song by Richard & Linda Thompson.
• In Ireland, the term 'Poke' is a common name for an ice cream
• Hokey Pokey's Ice Creamery is an ice cream company in Corning, New York.

References

• Edmund Forte. "Hokey Pokey and All That: The history of ice cream". http://www.edmundforte.co.uk/141633.html.  — Forte presents several alternative hypotheses.
• The Mavens' Word of the Day: hokey

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