Brooke Jackson-Glidden

Statesman Journal

Correction: A previous version of this story misidentified the location. Tysonberry's neighbors the former Baskin-Robbins space.

The new ice cream shop on South Commercial has no tubs of ice cream.

"My ice cream is so fresh, I haven't made it yet," boasts Tyson Mayberry, owner of Tysonberry's Chilliscious Ice Cream.

Tysonberry's has no traditional ice cream freezers for kids to fog up, noses smashed against the glass. It has no ice cream scoops, no list of pre-made flavors. When you order a scoop of ice cream, Mayberry pours creamy white mix into a bowl with flavored syrups and envelops the mixture in billowing, chilly steam.

Mayberry, a former aerospace engineer, uses liquid nitrogen to freeze his ice cream, which means he can make scoops from scratch every time. Liquid nitrogen ice cream has become a fad at high-end restaurants and chains like Sub Zero, but Tysonberry's is Salem's first liquid nitrogen ice cream shop.

Liquid nitrogen allows ice cream to freeze in seconds, which means ice crystals don't develop at the same rate. Ice crystals grow when ice cream chills too slowly, the way freezer burn covers your pint of Ben & Jerry's if your power goes out or you leave the freezer door open. Because liquid nitrogen is so cold, ice cream freezes quickly enough that the ice crystals are microscopic, meaning creamier ice cream.

Mayberry decided to move next to the former Baskin-Robbin's space after discovering the technique by accident with his daughter Tifanie on movie night.

"I was making ice cream with Tiffy, and the movie was over by the time the ice cream was finished," he said, wiping down his counter. "I said, 'There's got to be a faster way to do this.' "

Mayberry Googled "fast ice cream" and watched countless YouTube videos before making it himself in his kitchen. After one try, he couldn't go back.

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Make it yourself

Above the TysonBerry's counter, a large display lists optional mix-ins for his ice cream — but no pre-set flavors. When I ask for a scoop of chocolate ice cream, Mayberry looks incredulous.

"That's it?" he responds. "What's your favorite ice cream flavor? Or your favorite candy bar?"

Mayberry grew up in New Orleans before he moved to Los Angeles for work. After his daughter was accepted into a nutrition program in Portland, he moved north to live closer to her. He decided to move to Salem to open his ice cream shop after three months.

"Portland feels like L.A.," he said. "Salem feels like home."

While he lived in Louisiana, Mayberry remembers going to restaurants that didn't have a menu. Generations of locals came in for so long, chefs just learned to make what people liked. Mayberry uses his years in New Orleans for inspiration, from the Cafe Du Monde chicory coffee he serves to his laissez-faire menu. Mix-ins are 50 cents each, and options include a variety of Torani syrups, candy and nuts.

His favorite combination: chocolate, coconut and banana, using his dairy-free base.

Tysonberry's opened Feb. 6, but Mayberry has already seen kids squeal as he swirls fresh scoops of chocolate-Snicker's-peanut butter.

"Kids love it. They love to pick their own flavors; they go nuts when we pour over the liquid nitrogen," he said.

Parents probably love it, too: Mayberry's ice cream base doesn't have a teaspoon of traditional sugar, not that you would notice.

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A healthy treat

Tifanie Mayberry studies nutrition at the University of Natural Medicine in Portland. With her influence, the elder Mayberry has adapted his ice cream mix to be "sugar"-free — but don't worry, it doesn't taste like aspartame. Instead, Mayberry uses Whey Low, a sugar replacement that's made from natural sugars like fructose.

"We both know that sugar is poison," he said. "The doctor who made (Whey Low) uses the same stuff in sugar, but it's diabetic friendly. It's just as sweet, if not sweeter."

The reason Whey Low tastes like sugar is because it is sugar: specifically, lactose (milk sugar), fructose (fruit sugar) and sucrose (table sugar). And yet, your body will only absorb 25 percent of the calories of what it would in traditional sugar.

"We have a patent on a process of mixing sugars together that eliminates 75 percent of the calories," said Whey Low President Lee Zehner. "When they go into the small intestine, they're not well-absorbed. Each one is fully caloric, 4 calories per gram, but when they're combined together in these proportions, they essentially cancel each other out."

Whey Low is all natural and has 70 to 80 percent the glycemic index of sugar. Still, Zehner isn't about to recommend diabetics pound down the chocolate chip.

While Zehner said Whey Low will work with 99 percent of diabetics, he is hesitant to say the product is 100 percent diabetic friendly.

Eberhard's Dairy in Redmond makes Mayberry's ice cream mix with Whey Low. Once it arrives, Mayberry adds organic Dagoba cacao for his chocolate ice cream, per his daughter's recommendation. Mayberry tries to find as many organic mix-ins as he can and also makes dairy-free ice cream mix with coconut.

"With Tifanie in school, I have to go all-organic," he said. "She's the boss."

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Liquid nitrogen: Nothing new

The origin story of liquid nitrogen ice cream varies from source to source, but the most compelling possible birthplace may have been in the British kitchen of ice cream innovator Agnes Marshall. In her 1901 book "The Table," she talked about pouring "liquid air" on ice cream ingredients as a fun dinner party trick.

More often, Americans attribute the first liquid nitrogen ice cream to Curt Jones, the founder of Dippin' Dots. In 1988, Jones started using liquid nitrogen to flash-freeze ice cream to create "the ice cream of the future": tiny ice cream spheres that were popular in the turn of the century and are still available in grocery stores.

Those who don't consider Dippin' Dots traditional liquid nitrogen ice cream (as if there is such a thing) may mention the invention of molecular gastronomy, a culinary school that uses chemicals to transform the form or consistency of foods. Oxford physicist Nicholas Kurti and the French chemist Hervé This founded the culinary idea in 1988, and This is often considered one of the inventors of liquid nitrogen ice cream. In 2005, Italian physicist Davide Cassi and chef Ettore Bocchia wrote the book on liquid nitrogen ice cream called "Impromptu Ice Cream and Other Culinary Inventions."

In Oregon, the liquid nitrogen top dog has been Sub Zero's for years, with three locations in the Portland area (West Linn, Happy Valley and Tigard). The Utah company has locations across the United States, including shops in China and Dubai. Sub Zero's model is the closest to TysonBerry's: ice cream that's made in front of you, with toppings and flavors you pick yourself. Portland also has a few independent shops, including Mix'n'Match Creamery in Milwaukie and What's the Scoop in Portland on Willams and Gaines streets.

Email Brooke Jackson-Glidden brookejg@statesmanjournal.com or call 503-428-3528. Follow her on Twitter @jacksonglidden, or like her Facebook page www.facebook.com/BrookeJackson-Glidden.

If you go

What: Tysonberry's Chilliscious Ice Cream, liquid nitrogen ice cream

When: 10 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily

Where: 3820 Commercial St. SE

For more information: Call (503) 990-8316