Snowballs: Not a Snow Cone — A New Orleans Summer Survival Tool

Not a Snow Cone — A Snowball

Let us get one thing clear from the start: a New Orleans snowball is not a snow cone. A snow cone is crunchy, icy, and sad — the kind of thing they sell at county fairs from a cart with a broken wheel. A snowball is a thing of beauty — finely shaved ice so soft and fluffy that it resembles actual snow, drenched in flavored syrup that seeps into every layer, creating a frozen treat that is simultaneously icy and creamy, especially when you add condensed milk on top, which you absolutely should.

Snowballs are a New Orleans institution, as essential to surviving summer as air conditioning and cold beer. When the temperature hits ninety-five and the humidity makes the air feel like warm soup, the only civilized response is to stand in line at your neighborhood snowball stand and order a medium with your flavor of choice, extra syrup, stuffed with condensed milk or ice cream or both, and eat it on the sidewalk while it melts down your arm. This is how summer is survived in New Orleans.

The Flavors

The range of snowball flavors is staggering. Traditional options like cherry, grape, and spearmint share menu space with local favorites that exist nowhere else. Nectar cream — a pink, vanilla-almond syrup — is the most New Orleans of all snowball flavors, a taste that immediately transports every local back to childhood. Wedding cake, cream of coconut, praline, and orchid cream vanilla are other distinctly local choices that you will not find on any snow cone cart in the rest of America.

The stands themselves are neighborhood institutions, many of them seasonal operations that open in the spring and close in the fall, their small wooden structures and hand-painted signs as much a part of the neighborhood landscape as the corner store or the church. Hansen's Sno-Bliz, Pandora's, SnoWizard — these are names that inspire loyalty and debate in equal measure, because every New Orleanian has a favorite snowball stand and will defend that choice with the passion of a football fan.