Tag Archives: food jokes

Why Did The Ice Cream Cross The Road?

Nationality: Korean
Primary Language: English
Other language(s): Korean
Age: 19
Occupation: Student
Residence: LA, California
Performance Date: 3/3/2024

Context:

My informant, DH, is a friend of mine from my freshman year at USC from Los Angeles, California. I talked with DH one night in second semester freshman year about food, as DH loves food. We were going to get some ice cream and he just started spastically laughing whilst getting some ice cream because I said a tame joke about how much he loves sugary foods. I asked him why in the world he was laughing so much and he told me this:

Text:

“My mom and I would have this dumb joke between the three of us, me, my brother, and her. It was this super funny joke about how fat we were because, well, we were, and I mean who could blame us, we love food! Especially ice cream, so she said this to us one day: ‘Why did the ice cream cross the road? 너에게서 멀어지려고!’ Which translates to: ‘To get away from you!’ That was so funny, it stuck forever.”

Analysis:

Now I did look this up and didn’t find anything specific, I mean I did find a Korean dad joke about ice cream crossing the road but the answer was a Korean word which was a play on words but has nothing to do with a specific person or their history as this one did. I find it interesting how they have their own joke about their own history together but it’s still somewhat tied to their Korean language and heritage. It’s a wholesome funny joke that I’ve personally never heard of before but it seems super funny and self aware too, love it.

Mexican Boy Scouts song

Nationality: Mexican-American
Age: 48
Occupation: Pediatric Oncologist
Residence: San Francisco, CA
Performance Date: March 15, 2014
Primary Language: English
Language: Spanish

My informant is my father, a 48 year old pediatric oncologist at Stanford University. He is bilingual, binational and bicultural, born to a white American father and a Mexican mother. He grew up in both countries but spent his formative adolescent years in Mexico City, where he joined the Mexican Boy Scouts or “los escouts” as he calls them. It was there that he learned this joke from a fellow Escout, who he is still good friends with today.

He performs this piece of folklore frequently, usually in the presence of children—before, when my sister and I were little, he would teach it to us when we were camping, and now, since we’re older, he usually does it around our younger cousins, especially around mealtimes.

Here is the song:

“Queremos comer!
Sangre coagulada
revuelta en ensalada
higado encebollado
de sapo reventado
y de postre!
Helado con caquita de venado!!”

Translation:

We want to eat!

Coagulated blood

Mixed up in a salad

Onion-fried liver

of a scrambled frog

and for dessert!

Ice cream with little deer poops!

This little song has gone from being a piece of his adolescence to being passed on to our generation, so it means a lot to him as both a part of his past, and a reminder of old friendships, as well as a part of his family life now. He uses it to bond now with his younger relatives over the humorous idea of such a disgusting meal, and to reconnect, I think, with his inner child.