Remembering Yum-Yum summers in Camden

Camden's Yum-Yum summers lasted from the mid-1930s until the late '80s.

But fondness for the distinctive, locally made frozen treat - with its unusual "split" flavors and creamy texture - endures among folks who grew up in the city.

"In the early '70s in Fairview, kids with a wagon sold Yum-Yum from a steel container with ice all around it," recalls Paul Christman, 54, a retail clerk who lives in Runnemede.

"We'd be playing outside at Westfield Acres and hear the boy with the wagon yelling, 'Yum-Yum, Yum-Yum,' " says Audubon resident Lori Jean Nourse, 55, a painter.

"Then we ran inside to get nickels from our mothers."

While wagons and nickel "dips" (known elsewhere as scoops) belong to the past, production of Yum-Yum continues - largely by hand and in small batches - at Leo's Ice Cream in Medford.

Leo's is descended from the family firm that originated Yum-Yum and managed to outlast its competitors and imitators. The company owns the rights to the product name once locally synonymous with what people now generally call water ice.

"We get people in here every day who grew up in Camden," says Rick Cirelli, 60, a former city teacher who took over the family business in 1980. It moved to Medford about 17 years ago.

Many of the products, which include ice cream and gelati, follow the original recipes of Cirelli's Italian immigrant grandfather, Giovanni Leo, who taught him the trade.

Cirelli often works 16-hour days; his wife, Cheryl, works as well, along with daughters Gina and Renata.

"We sell to about 30 accounts, including custard stands that don't want to make their own water ice," he says.

Not that Yum-Yum is water ice.

"Creaminess" makes it special, Cirelli says, sitting at a 1950s dinette set in the delightfully retro shop. Sinatra, a favorite, is on the soundtrack.

"You wouldn't have to be a genius to figure out the trade secret of Yum-Yum," he continues. "But I'm not going to tell it to you."

Beginning in 1936 from his home at Third and Chestnut in South Camden, Giovanni Leo supplied entrepreneurial armies of city kids with five-gallon containers of Yum-Yum.

The boys (and, later, girls) sold the treat in little white paper cups all over town, from the grassy medians along Park and Baird Boulevards to Broadway and Federal, from Centerville to Cramer Hill.

"Two of us kids would roll a wagon through the streets," says Cherry Hill's Dan Cirucci, 68, a retired public relations professional who spent much of his childhood in South Camden.

"All the rowhouses had their windows open, and everyone was out on their front steps. We could make $8 between us on a hot summer day," he adds.

The most popular flavors included lemon and cherry, although cherry-pineapple, lime-vanilla, and rainbow also had followings.

"There was a trick: If you squeezed the cup, you wouldn't have to put a dip in the bottom of it," Cirelli notes. "Customers would say, 'Don't squeeze the cup!'

"It seems like selling Yum-Yum was everybody's first job in Camden," he adds. "Every nationality, every race. They all dealt with Yum-Yum."

Indeed: After I post a query on Facebook's "Camden, NJ - Yours and Mine" page, dozens of people post Yum-Yum vignettes.

"When [we] heard the kid selling it yelling, 'Yum, yum, Yum-Yum,' we were all like Flash Gordon running to get one," George W. Greenwood says.

"Pushed a shopping cart from Food Fair with a barrel of Yum-Yum all summer long [and] made a lot of money for a kid," Edward Robey says.

"All ya needed was start-up money and a wagon, some business sense, [and] the will power not to eat your profits," says Jim Hayes.

"I got a few free," Melanie Ways posts, "because the kid selling it liked me."

What today's customers like, Cirelli says, is tradition. New varieties have been added, but the vintage flavors dating back to the good old days in Camden remain.

So while he and his wife pride themselves on their ingredients, some varieties contain old-fashioned artificial flavors.

Take cherry-pineapple, a sample of which instantly evokes my own childhood.

"It's an old taste," Cirelli observes.

And were Leo's to instead use all-natural pineapple, longtime customers "wouldn't want any part of it," says Cheryl.

Likewise, "I'm not going to add chocolate chips or Swedish Fish or gummy bears," says her husband.

"Yum-Yum is what it is."

Sweeter than a summer memory.