Booza is an ancient Middle Eastern ice cream made with mastic, a type of gum, which gives the ice cream a stretchy texture. It’s made in various different ways throughout the Middle East, with many different names – ashta in Syria, dondurma in Turkey, or booza in Lebanon. Growing up, whenever we would eat really good ice cream, my mom would make a comment about how it was nothing compared to the booza she had back in Syria. It wasn’t until I was 21 when I had my first real booza, at Glace Bachir in Le Marais district in Paris. In addition to its wide flavor selection, Bachir coats each scoop of its stretchy booza in ground pistachios, which by itself would sell me on its shop. As I was eating my sixth scoop of delicious stretchy, rose-water essenced booza, I finally understood what my mom had been talking about all of these years. Mastic is another ingredient, usually found in small pebbles, the resin from the mastic tree creates a stretchy product that’s often found in gum. Booza is typically made by beating and stretching cold cream and sugar with mastic, resulting in a stretchy-type of creamy texture. The ingredients used to make booza include heavy cream, sweetened condensed milk, labneh or whole-milk Greek yogurt, sahlep, mastic pebbles, salt, and rosewater.