The Delightful Mexican Treat – Paletas
One of the many beautiful things about this world we call home is the mix of cultures and everything that they bring. And lucky for us, we get to explore and delve into all the amazing foods and desserts that each culture has to offer.
Our neighboring country Mexico is full of many beautiful sites, amazing food, and a lovely culture. Tacos, mole, pozole are all a part of the delicious Mexican cuisine. Now, let’s not forget about the desserts! Flan, tres leches, and pan dulce: it doesn’t get better than that!
Whether you call it a popsicle, a freeze pop, a paleta or a frozen treat on a stick, it's all delicious in the end!
Read on to discover the differences… (If any?)
What is a Paleta?
A dessert that we can’t forget about is the traditional Mexican paleta. Water is mixed and blended with fresh fruits and herbs, then frozen on a stick to create a delicious frozen treat to enjoy during the hot summer days, or any day really!
These paletas are pretty much Mexican culture on a stick. Mexico’s amazing ingredients are mixed together to create flavors such as mangoneada, mamey sapote, arroz con leche, Mazapan, and more.
You can find variations of popsicles all around the world and each is unique to their land and culture. But how did Mexican culture come to create paletas and what is the history behind them?
Travel Back in Time…
Many believe that ice cream was invented in China, then brought to Europe and eventually it made its way to Mexico. However, in terms of Mexican paletas, the history is a bit patchy, and no one is entirely sure of how they were created.
There is a legend that says during ancient times, before the invention of freezers, Aztec servants would travel to the volcano Popocatepetl, modern day Mexico City, to harvest ice for the emperors. The chefs of the Aztec emperors would then put the fruit with the ice to preserve it, and coincidentally they created a sweet treat, made specially for the royals.
Whether the Aztec story is true or not, we’ll never know. The other origin story dates back to the 1800s. Mexico was finally free from Spain’s ruling, meaning the ice no longer had sky-high taxes on it.
Since ice was more affordable, people started experimenting by adding fresh fruit to the ice and creating delicious frozen dessert, perfect for the summer heat!
Fast forward to the 1940s, a man named Alejandro Andrade opened up an ice cream shop in Mexico City. They started selling ice cream, paletas and soon added aguas frescas to their menu. If you take a trip down to Mexico, you will see just how popular they are! They have expanded and opened up several stores since then.
The beauty of paletas is their simplicity. Paletas are made with natural fruits and mixed with either milk to create a creamy paleta, or water to create a more fruity paletas.
History of the Popsicle…
We know that frozen treats have been enjoyed for ages in all different parts of the world. We’ve talked about paletas, now let’s dive into the history of popsicles.
Back in 1905, an 11-year old boy named Frank Epperson was living in Oakland, California. One cold night, Frank accidentally left a glass of water outside overnight. In this glass of water, Frank had mixed powdered soda mix and coincidentally left a wooden stirring stick in the glass as well.
Come next morning, Frank finds his soda mixture completely frozen and decides to run the glass under hot water and tugs on the stick to remove the ice pop from the glass. Though he didn’t know it yet, Frank had discovered an amazing frozen treat. Frank continued to make popsicles for his friends and later on in life, for his children as well.
Frank initially named his creation “Eppsicles” to combine his last name with icicles, but his children started calling them “Pop’s sicles” and the name stuck for good! The word “popsicles” is actually a trademark name!
Years later, Frank teamed up with Joe Lowe Co. and together they distributed popsicles all around the United States.
Since then, popsicle has become a household name, synonymous with frozen treats on a stick. People use the word “popsicle” as a generic term to describe any frozen treat on a stick. It's kind of like how people say "Kleenex" when they mean "tissue," or "Band-Aid" when they mean "bandage."
Differences and Similarities in Popsicles, Paletas & freeze pops…
When we compare popsicles and paletas, they seem like the exact same thing. However, they have a few differences.
To start, the brand name “popsicles” are usually made with water, food dye, sugar and artificial flavors.
It’s rare and only more common in recent times to find popsicles that are made with real fruit and ingredients.
The process by which a trademark becomes generic is known as genericide…
This occurs when a brand attains such widespread recognition that it loses its connection with the company that first created it, and customers begin to use the name of the product in place of its original trademarked version.
Just like how we describe our paletas/ freeze pops as popsicles and vise versa!
Anyways, if you think about it, popsicles are sort of like frozen candy because you’ll find flavors such as blue raspberry, strawberry lemonade, rainbow and more. If you grew up in the 80’s and 90’s I’m sure you’ve seen the Popsicle brand in the frozen aisle at your grocery store.
Here at Beach Town Pops we use only the freshest ingredients to make our Belgium Dark Chocolate pops dipped in toasted coconut and sea salt.
Paletas on the other hand are made with more natural and whole ingredients such as fruit, vegetables, nuts, spices and more! With paletas, it is likely that you will find more unique flavor combinations. You can easily find flavors such as Pineapple with Mint, Chamoy, and Mango with Chile. Paletas are much more like frozen fruit on a stick.
Our Take on the Universal Frozen Treats…
We love freeze pops just as much as you do. And we stands for the team at Beach Town Pops, the coolest catering service in Southern California!
We make gourmet freeze pops, but we’re going to tell you why we’re different from the traditional popsicle full of artificial ingredients and more like paletas.
In 2011, Ashley Adamczyk found herself craving a popsicle to beat the heat. At the time, she was on a tropical island working for the TV show Survivor. Unfortunately for her and her craving, the store was completely out of popsicles!
Whatever you call fresh frozen desserts on a stick, (Paletas! Popsicles! Freeze Pops!) Make sure to call Beach Town Pops to make your event extra special ;-)
Regardless of the tragedy, Ashley thought to herself, “You know what, I think I can make my own pops!” She grabbed a few ingredients and created her very own batch of popsicles.
What Ashley didn’t even imagine is that this first batch of popsicles was going to eventually turn into her very own business. She didn’t stop at one batch, for whatever reason, popsicles intrigued Ashley and it turned into her passion.
Batch after batch, Ashley kept practicing and perfecting her recipes, switching out ingredients for better quality, tweaking the process each time. Soon enough, she had the perfect freeze pop recipe and was ready to share it with everyone!
Starting off small, Ashley started to make pops for her friends and family members. Thanks to the amazing support, she moved to selling at local farmer’s markets. Knowing she could take this idea a lot further, and Beach Town Pops was born!
On a stick or in a sleeve our pops are sure to keep your guests cool.
Our Take on Popsicles/Freeze Pops (aka paletas)
As we’ve mentioned, we call our treats “freeze pops” and sometimes due to genericide, we interchange that word for “popsicles.” Our desserts are made with only the freshest ingredients plus pure cane sugar… Which sounds a lot like a paleta. ;-)
We definitely don’t outsource our pops from local manufacturers…
We take our frozen treats seriously, which is why we make our pops in house!
To start, we like to use organic fruits, vegetables and spices because a great popsicle starts with great ingredients. We purchase our ingredients from local farmers in Santa Barbara, so we know the quality of what we’re putting into our frozen treats.
We don’t let anyone else make our pops for us and slap our name on it, so you definitely won’t find a similar product on the grocery shelf.
We Got the Flavor and the Booze!
In terms of flavors, we’re pretty sure you’ve never had the type of flavors we have! Imagine yourself in the hot Los Angeles summer with an Italian Plum and Almond Burmese Semolina pop in hand! Or how about a Lemongrass Basil ice cream? We have flavors for the everyone to enjoy.
We offer all types of frozen treats: popsicles, ice cream, sorbet and gelato. And what they all have in common, apart from the amazing flavors, are the boozy options. Level up any frozen treat, and event really, with some booze!
For adults only, we offer lots of flavors that care pretty much a frozen cocktail. Tequila Sunset, Mojito, Fresh Grape and Champagne Sorbet, Tangerine and Prosecco Sorbet: our mouths are watering!
Custom Branding for Your Special Event…
Let’s be honest, having us at your next event will automatically level it up. But we don’t want to just stop there. We want to make your event as special as possible by offering custom branding on the popsicle sticks, cups, wrappers and even our ice cream cart!
Charcoal swirled coconut freeze pops from Beach Town Pops
When we cater to you, we can stick around and serve your guests. We’ll come with our fancy ice cream cart, decked out to represent your event or brand with the image of your choosing. Each guest will receive their frozen treat with custom branding as well, making it a day to remember.
All in all, when it comes down to it, you can call frozen fruit on a stick whatever you want. Regardless of the name, it’s still a delicious freeze pop, and ours happen to be irresistible too.
Whether you call it a popsicle, an ice pop, or a frozen treat on a stick, it's all delicious in the end!
If you’re on the hunt for a catering service for your next event, make sure to check us out and have a chat with one of our professional ice cream scoopers!