The Idaho Ice Cream Potato Has Been My Western Idaho Fair Tradition for 24 Years
I had lived in Idaho for maybe three days when I discovered one of the strangest things I had ever seen... an ice cream potato.
I had absolutely no idea what that meant, but twenty-four years later, I’m still eating them and with the Western Idaho Fair opening Friday, I already know there’s at least one thing I’m eating this year.
What Is an Idaho Ice Cream Potato?
Let me take you back to August 2002. My family had just moved to Idaho. My wife, our four kids, two dogs and I were all crammed into a room at the old Shilo Inn Riverside while we waited for everything to close on our house.
Six people... two dogs... one hotel room... for somewhere around two or three weeks. Yeah, good times.
I hadn’t even been on the air yet, but one of my first responsibilities at the new radio station was working our booth at the Western Idaho Fair.
So there I was. I’d lived in Boise for only a few days, I was at my first Western Idaho Fair and I was basically walking around trying to get acclimated to this place we’d just decided to call home.
Naturally, food was part of that process. I had just bought a Pronto Pup and hadn’t even taken my first bite when something caught my eye.
ICE CREAM POTATO.
Ummm... Excuse me? My fat-guy algorithm immediately kicked in and I needed answers.
Was this an actual potato with ice cream on it? Was it potato-flavored ice cream? Was somebody putting a baked potato in the freezer? What exactly was this little abomination going to be?
There was only one reasonable way to find out, so I ordered one and it was AMAZING.
If you’ve somehow lived in Idaho all this time without trying one, there’s no actual potato involved.
The famous version from Westside Drive In starts with vanilla ice cream formed into the shape of a potato. It’s coated in cocoa so it looks like potato skin, then topped with whipped cream, chocolate and nuts. It looks ridiculously close to an actual baked potato, but tastes nothing like one.
And by the time I finished that first one, I was practically licking the container clean.
How Did the Idaho Ice Cream Potato Become Famous?
There’s actually a little more history behind this dessert than I realized. Chef Lou Aaron told an Idaho Master Gardener writer in 2017 that the concept traces back to a dessert created at Boise’s Gamekeeper Restaurant in the Owyhee Plaza in the 1940s.
That earlier dessert was known as the Gamekeeper Surprise and used maple nut ice cream with chocolate fudge sauce, whipped cream and almonds.
Chef Lou eventually developed the Idaho Ice Cream Potato we know today and trademarked the name “Idaho Ice Cream Potato” in 1991.
Then came Westside Drive-In.
The original Westside dates back to 1957. Chef Lou, who grew up in Boise’s North End and remembered going there as a kid, purchased it in 1994. The ice cream potato came with him.
And over the years, that crazy-looking dessert became one of the foods most associated with Idaho.
Food Network featured Westside Drive-In on Diners, Drive-Ins and Dives with Guy Fieri in 2009, and the ice cream potato is among the restaurant’s signature dishes highlighted by the network.
Food Network has also included Westside’s creation as Idaho’s entry in its “50 States of Iconic Desserts.”
Not bad for something that initially made me wonder what in the heck Idahoans were doing to perfectly good potatoes.
Where Can You Get an Ice Cream Potato in Boise?
Westside Drive-In has two Boise locations, the original on State Street and the Parkcenter location that opened in 2012. The Idaho Ice Cream Potato is available year-round.
But for me, there’s still something special about getting one at the Western Idaho Fair.
That’s where I discovered it and that brings me back to 2002.
Because after finishing that first ice cream potato, I went back to work at the radio station’s booth. But I couldn’t stop thinking about that stupid potato.
When my shift was over, I went back to the ice cream potato booth before leaving the fairgrounds.
I bought six... Yes, six. I know, there were only five other people waiting for me back at the hotel, but I needed another one. Don’t judge me!
I drove the few minutes back to the Shilo Inn and proudly walked into our hotel room carrying what looked like six baked potatoes. My family’s reaction was almost exactly the same as mine had been a few hours earlier.
"Oh. Thanks, Dad. You brought us…potatoes. We get it. We moved to Idaho."
Then they tried them. Have you ever thrown a side of beef into a pool full of piranhas?
That’s approximately what happened next. It was a feeding frenzy, those things disappeared and before that year’s Western Idaho Fair was over, we went back and got them again.
Why the Western Idaho Fair Means Ice Cream Potatoes to Me
That was 24 years ago and I’ve eaten a LOT of ice cream potatoes since then.
I’ve stopped at Westside Drive-In specifically because I was craving one. And Westside has plenty of other food I really enjoy, but if you ask me for my favorite thing there, there’s not much competition.
Chef Lou still operates the popular Idaho Ice Cream Potato booths at the Western Idaho Fair and Art in the Park.
And that’s why when the Western Idaho Fair opens Friday, I already know one of the first things I’m looking for.
Twenty-four years ago, I walked through those gates as the brand new guy in Boise that hadn’t even done his first radio show here yet.
I was living in a hotel room with my entire family and two dogs. I didn’t know the Treasure Valley. I didn’t know the traditions. I didn’t know the places everybody else already knew. I was just trying to figure out my new home.
And somehow, one of my earliest introductions to Idaho involved a Pronto Pup and an ice cream sundae disguised as the one of the things our state is most famous for.
Maybe that’s why I’ve always loved these things so much. It’s not just dessert, it’s one of my first Idaho memories and 24 years later, the Western Idaho Fair still doesn’t quite feel complete until I’ve had one.
Although these days, I’m probably only buying one.
Probably.
No Churn Idaho Blueberry Ice Cream
Gallery Credit: Cory Mikhals
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