This Eclectic Ice Cream Flavor Is A Nova Scotian Staple

The history of ice cream is one of innovation. Until Baskin-Robbins' 31 flavors, a cornucopia of tastes in ice cream was an unreachable ideal (even if the brand's modern-day ingredients list is disappointing). Until Steve Herrell decided to chop up Heath bars and Oreos, nobody could conceive of mixing them into their frozen dessert. And until Ben & Jerry's decided to start selling its ice cream in pints, the best option anyone had was too-much-for-one-person tubs.

But there are ice cream innovations that go beyond these, some of which might not yet be known outside the region where they first appeared. One of the best examples is Nova Scotian Moon Mist, an ice cream flavor combo that has to be tasted to be believed. Multicolored, multi-flavor frozen treat blends are nothing new — rainbow sherbet is an old favorite, while Superman ice cream has a couple of potential flavor combos — but Moon Mist stands on its own not just for its distinctive colors, but its flavors: Bubblegum, banana, and grape.

Moon Mist isn't the only ice cream invention to come out of Canada, and it may not even be the most important globally; the McDonald's McFlurry was also invented there. But there's no denying it's Canada's most colorful ice cream creation, so much so that people have been known to dye their hair in its signature purple, yellow, and light blue colors. Indeed, the popularity of Moon Mist in Canada's eastern provinces cannot be overstated: It's the single most popular ice cream flavor across not just Nova Scotia but also New Brunswick, Prince Edward Island, Newfoundland, and Labrador. It's popular enough to have appeared on shows like "Trailer Park Boys."

The flavors may seem somewhat strange to Americans — while bubblegum is pretty common everywhere, banana is only typically spotted in Ben & Jerry's Chunky Monkey, and grape is all but unheard of. And while we don't know with certainty who concocted it, there's one man whose family passionately insists he was its progenitor (albeit with a different flavor combo): Bruce Hart.

Moon Mist's broad popularity in the region started taking off in the 1970s, but its history goes back further than that — at least, according to the descendants of the man who claimed to have invented it. Supposedly, sometime around World War II, Bruce Hart traveled from Nova Scotia down to the University of Massachusetts to study food science. While there, he experimented with a mixture of ice cream flavors, eventually settling on a banana, grape, and blue raspberry trio. Allegedly, he wasn't just the first to create the concoction (and name it Moon Mist) but the first to sell it back at his creamery in Nova Scotia.

Moon Mist has undergone some changes since then, notably when blue raspberry was swapped out for a similarly colored but possibly more flavor-balancing bubblegum. Eventually, it became popular enough that nobody could prove who'd created it. Hart's story does seem the oldest, though, so it's certainly worth considering.