Molasses and soy sauce flavored snow cone anyone?

Has everyone been as busy this holiday season as I have? I realize that I have only written 3 blog entries since Thanksgiving! Every year seems to get more and more hectic doesn't it? Anyhoo.....

Yesterday, I was reading an interesting article in USA Today about Google...not about the price of Google stock, or the acquistion of shares of AOL by Google...but about how Google has become a daily part of life for many of us. I found myself nodding in agreement with the author as I read the article. I "google" everything: recipes (yes. I'm learning to cook. don't laugh), and general people, places, and things.

After I finished the article, I folded up the paper, put on my coat and gloves and headed out to walk across campus. Almost from the moment I stepped outside, I couldn't wait to get to my office to (you guessed it) look something up on Google. "Google what" you ask?

I wanted an answer to the following question:

What the heck is that brown s*&t they poor all over campus that is supposed to melt the ice and snow?

This is my third winter in Amherst. And this winter, like every winter, as I walk across the UMASS campus, I wonder about this.

If you have been on campus at all during the winter months, you know what I am talking about. It is brown and sticky like molasses, and smells like a chinese restaurant. And I'm sure you have had the same thought: I wonder what that s*&t is!

Well, wonder no more. I have the answer (at least if it is the same stuff they used during the winter of 2002). I typed the words molasses, University of Massachusetts, and snow into the search engine. Google returned about 150 entried, and I discovered that back in 2002, a representative from the physical plant described the concoction in The Chronicle (a now defunct campus publication).



According the archived article from 2002, this sticky smelly substance is called Ice B'Gone

"The main ingredient in Ice B'Gone is Ice Ban, a byproduct of distilling plants in the Midwest, which manufacture beer, other alcoholic beverages, and ethanol. It consists mainly of carbohydrates, protein, fat, and sugar, and is also used as a cattle feed substitute that looks and smells like molasses. Ice B'Gone, the product UMass Amherst is using, is a mixture of Ice Ban and magnesium chloride."

Almost good enough to eat! Come on, I dare you.