Marginalia<\/em> by H.P. Lovecraft, there is a section titled “The Dweller in Darkness” by Donald Wandrei. In that piece he explains the history and story behind the first 1927 trip to Maxfields:—<\/p>\nWe took a bus for Warren, Rhode Island, where they promised a great treat. At Warren we walked to an establishment called Maxfield’s in a rambling old Colonial house. Its specialty was ice-cream, and it developed that our pilgrimage was solely for the purpose of consuming ice-cream.<\/p>\n
There were thirty-two varieties on the menu. “Are they all available?” asked Lovecraft.<\/p>\n
“No,” said the waiter, “only twenty-eight today, Sir.”<\/p>\n
“Ah, the decay of modern commercial institutions,” said Lovecraft dolefully. “Thirty-two varieties are advertised but only twenty-eight are prepared for the famished pilgrims.”<\/p>\n
We each ordered a double portion of a different flavor, and by dividing each other’s choice, we enjoyed three flavors with each serving. The trams came on and on — chocolate, vanilla, peach, black raspberry, pistachio, black walnut, coffee, huckleberry, strawberry, orange, plum, mint, burnt almond, and exotic types whose names I do not recall. The ice-cream was superior; there was no doubt of its being of the finest quality. But on the twenty-first variety I was beyond capacity. I watched with awe while the remaining flavors arrived in the same huge portions, and Lovecraft and Morton ate on with undiminshed zest, interspersing the astonishing meal with a wealth of literary allusions on the origins of ice-cream, its preparation in Italy, its appeal to famous men, the distinctions between meringues, ice-creams, and ices. I managed to sip each flavor for the record of twenty-eight, but I was a weak runner-up to the champions. I would estimate that Lovecraft and Morton consumed between two and three quarts of ice-cream apiece on that gastronomic triumph.<\/p>\n
The occasion was so memorable that we wrote a short note of appreciation of the twenty-eight varieties and our enjoyment, signed it, and left it at the table. A year later when we visited Warren, we were surprised to find our tribute decorating a wall. Lovecraft was both amused and delighted but all he said was, “What a disapointment that the other four varieties were not available.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A quick tracking-down of the site of Lovecraft’s famous ice-cream eating contests, which I had pictured as being in urban …<\/p>\n
Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2500","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-historical-context","category-new-discoveries"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2500","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2500"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2500\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2500"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2500"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jurn.link\/tentaclii\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2500"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.jurn.link\/tentaclii\/oldimages\/bosworth.jpg\" "\\"bosworth\\"")
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