Hokey pokey

Hokey pokey is a flavour of ice cream in New Zealand, consisting of plain vanilla ice cream with small, solid lumps of honeycomb toffee. Hokey pokey is the New Zealand term for honeycomb toffee. The original recipe until around 1980 consisted of solid toffee, but in a marketing change Tip Top decided to use small balls of honeycomb toffee instead. It is the second-most popular ice cream flavour behind vanilla in New Zealand, and is a frequently cited example of Kiwiana. It is also exported to Japan, Australia and the Pacific Islands. Origins and etymology The term hokey pokey has been used in reference to honeycomb toffee in New Zealand since the late 19th century. The origin of this term, in reference to honeycomb specifically, is not known with certainty, and it is not until the mid-20th century that hokey-pokey ice cream was created. Coincidentally, "hokey pokey" was a slang term for ice cream in general in the 19th and early 20th centuries in several areas — including New York City and parts of Great Britain — specifically for the ice cream sold by street vendors, or "hokey pokey men". The vendors, said to be mostly of Italian descent, supposedly used a sales pitch or song involving the phrase "hokey pokey", for which several origins have been suggested. One such song in use in 1930s Liverpool was "Hokey pokey penny a lump, that's the stuff to make ye jump".