History of Ice Cream

 Ice Cream  

Ice cream is a frozen dessert typically made from milk or cream that has been flavoured with a sweetener, either sugar or an alternative, and a spice, such as cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit, such as strawberries or peaches. Food colouring is sometimes added in addition to stabilizers. The mixture is cooled below the freezing point of water and stirred to incorporate air spaces and prevent detectable ice crystals from forming. It can also be made by whisking a flavoured cream base and liquid nitrogen together. The result is a smooth, semi-solid foam that is solid at very low temperatures (below 2 °C or 35 °F). It becomes more malleable as its temperature increases.

Vanilla ice cream served with whipped cream, chocolate sauce and a wafer

Ice cream may be served in dishes, eaten with a spoon, or licked from edible wafer ice cream cones held by the hands as finger food. Ice cream may be served with other desserts - such as cake or pie - or used as an ingredient in cold dishes - like ice cream floats, sundaes, milkshakes, and ice cream cakes - or in baked items such as Baked Alaska.

Italian ice cream is gelato. Frozen custard is a type of rich ice cream. Soft serve is softer and is often served at amusement parks and fast-food restaurants in the United States. Ice creams made from cow's milk alternatives, such as goat's or sheep's milk, or milk substitutes (e.g., soy, oat, cashew, coconut, almond milk, or tofu), are available for those who are lactose intolerant, allergic to dairy protein, or vegan. Banana "nice cream"[a] is a 100% fruit-based vegan alternative. Frozen yoghurt, or "froyo", is similar to ice cream but uses yoghurt and can be lower in fat. Fruity sorbets or sherbets are not ice creams but are often available in ice cream shops.

The meaning of the name ice cream varies from one country to another. In some countries, such as the United States and the United Kingdom, ice cream applies only to a specific variety, and most governments regulate the commercial use of the various terms according to the relative quantities of the main ingredients, notably the amount of butterfat from cream. Products that do not meet the criteria to be called ice cream, usually due to being reduced fat (often through cost reduction), are sometimes labelled frozen dairy dessert instead. In other countries, such as Italy and Argentina, one word is used for all variants.

Early frozen desserts

The origins of frozen desserts are obscure, although several accounts exist about their history. Some sources say the history of ice cream begins in Persia in 550 BC. 

A Roman cookbook dating back to the 1st century includes recipes for sweet desserts that are sprinkled with snow,and there are Persian records from the 2nd century for sweetened drinks chilled with ice.

Kakigōri is a Japanese dessert made with ice and flavoured syrup. The origins of kakigōri date back to the Heian period in Japanese history, when blocks of ice saved during the colder months would be shaved and served with sweet syrup to the Japanese aristocracy during the summer.  Kakigōri's origin is referred to in The Pillow Book, a book of observations written by Sei Shōnagon, who served the Imperial Court during the Heian period. 

The earliest known written process to artificially make ice is known not from culinary texts, but the 13th-century writings of Syrian historian Ibn Abi Usaybi'a in his book "Kitab Uyun al-anba fi tabaqat-al-atibba" (Book of Sources of Information on the Classes of Physicians) concerning medicine in which Ibn Abi Usaybi'a attributes the process to an even older author, Ibn Bakhtawayhi, of whom nothing is known. 

Ice cream production became easier with the discovery of the endothermic effect. Prior to this, cream could be chilled easily but not frozen. The addition of salt lowered the melting point of ice, drawing heat from the cream and allowing it to freeze.

Early modern

Kulfi in a matka pot from India

In the 16th century, the Mughal Empire used relays of horsemen to bring ice from the Hindu Kush to its capital, Delhi, used to create kulfi, a popular frozen dairy dessert from the Indian subcontinent often described as traditional Indian ice cream. better source needed]

Europe

The technique of freezing was not known from any European sources prior to the 16th century. During the 16th century, authors made reference to the refrigerant effect that happened when salt was added to ice. By the latter part of the 17th century sorbets and ice creams were made using this process. 

Ice cream's spread throughout Europe is sometimes attributed to Moorish traders, but more often Marco Polo. Though it is not mentioned in any of his writings, Polo is often credited with introducing sorbet-style desserts to Italy after learning of them during his travels to China. According to a legend, the Italian duchess Catherine de' Medici introduced flavoured sorbet ices to France when she brought Italian chefs with her to France upon marrying the Duke of Orléans (Henry II of France) in 1533. No Italian chefs were present in France during the Medici period, and ice cream already existed in France before de Medici was born. One hundred years later, Charles I of England was reportedly so impressed by the "frozen snow" that he offered his own ice cream maker a lifetime pension in return for keeping the formula secret, so that ice cream could be a royal prerogative. There is no evidence to support these legends.

France

In 1665, the Catalogue des Marchandises rares..., edited in Montpellier by Jean Fargeon, listed a type of frozen sorbet. While the composition of this sorbet is not provided, Fargeon specified that it was consumed frozen using a container that was plunged into a mixture of ice and saltpetre. These sorbets were transported in pots made of clay and sold for three livres per pound.

According to L'Isle des Hermaphrodites, the practice of cooling drinks with ice and snow had already emerged in Paris, particularly in the court, during the 16th century. The narrator notes that his hosts stored ice and snow, which they later added to their wine. This practice slowly progressed during the reign of Louis XIII and was likely a necessary step towards the creation of ice cream. In 1682, Le Nouveau confiturier françois provided a recipe for a specific type of ice cream, called "neige de fleur d'orange".

In 1686, Italian Francesco dei Coltelli opened an ice cream café in Paris, and the product became so popular that during the next 50 years, another 250 cafés opened in Paris.

The first recipe in French for flavoured ices appears in 1674, in Nicholas Lemery's Recueil de curiositéz rares et nouvelles de plus admirables effets de la nature. Recipes for sorbetti saw publication in the 1694 edition of Antonio Latini's Lo Scalco alla Moderna (The Modern Steward). Recipes for flavoured ices begin to appear in François Massialot's Nouvelle Instruction pour les Confitures, les Liqueurs, et les Fruits, starting with the 1692 edition. Massialot's recipes result in a coarse, pebbly texture. Latini claims that the results of his recipes should have the fine consistency of sugar and snow. 

England

The first recorded mention of ice cream in England was in 1671. Elias Ashmole described the dishes served at the Feast of St George at Windsor for Charles II in 1671 and included "one plate of ice cream". The only table at the banquet with ice cream on it was that of the King. The first recipe for ice cream in English was published in Mrs. Mary Eales's Receipts, in London in 17:18.

Noblewomen eating ice cream in a French caricature, 1801

 To Ice Cream.

Take Tin Ice-Pots, fill them with any Sort of Cream you like, either plain or sweeten'd, or Fruit in it; shut your Pots very close; to six Pots you must allow eighteen or twenty Pound of Ice, breaking the Ice very small; there will be some great Pieces, which lay at the Bottom and Top: You must have a Pail, and lay some Straw at the Bottom; then lay in your Ice, and put in amongst it a Pound of Bay-Salt; set in your Pots of Cream, and lay Ice and Salt between every Pot, that they may not touch; but the Ice must lie round them on every Side; lay a good deal of Ice on the Top, cover the Pail with Straw, set it in a Cellar where no Sun or Light comes, it will be froze in four Hours, but it may stand longer; then take it out just as you use it; hold it in your Hand and it will slip out. When you wou'd freeze any Sort of Fruit, either Cherries, Raspberries, Currants, or Strawberries, fill your Tin-Pots with the Fruit, but as hollow as you can; put to them Lemmonade, made with Spring-Water and Lemmon-Juice sweeten'd; put enough in the Pots to make the Fruit hang together, and put them in Ice as you do Cream.

— Mrs. Mary Eale's Receipts (1718)

Title page to The Art of Cookery by Hannah Glasse

The 1751 edition of The Art of Cookery made Plain and Easy by Hannah Glasse includes a recipe for ice cream: "H. GLASSE Art of Cookery (ed. 4) 333 (heading) To make Ice Cream...set it [the cream] into the larger Bason. Fill it with Ice, and a Handful of Salt." L'Art de Bien Faire les Glaces d'Office by M. Emy, in 1768, was a cookbook devoted to recipes for flavoured ices and ice cream.

In 1769 Domenico Negri, an Italian confectioner, founded a business in Berkeley Square London which would become famous for its ice creams. His shop was at the Sign of the Pineapple (an emblem used by confectioners) and his trade card said he sold "All Sorts of English, French and Italian wet and dry'd Sweet Meats, Cedrati and Bergamot Chips, Naples Diavoloni, All sorts of Baskets & Cakes, fine and Common Sugar plums", but most importantly, "all Sorts of Ice, Fruits and creams in the best Italian manner."

In 1789 Frederick Nutt, who served an apprenticeship at Negri's establishment, first published The Complete Confectioner. The book had 31 recipes for ice creams, some with fresh fruit, others with jams, and some using fruit syrups. Flavours included ginger, chocolate, brown breadcrumbs and one flavoured with Parmesan cheese.

North America

An early North American reference to ice cream is from an account in 1744 of a dinner held by governor Thomas Bladen and his wife: "...after which came a Dessert no less Curious. Among the Rarities of which it was Compos'd, was some fine Ice Cream, which, with the Strawberries and Milk, eat most Deliciously." 

Who brought ice cream to the United States first is unknown. Confectioners sold ice cream at their shops in New York and other cities during the colonial era. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were known to have regularly eaten and served ice cream. Records, kept by a merchant from Chatham street, New York, show George Washington spending approximately $200 on ice cream in the summer of 1790. The same records show president Thomas Jefferson having an 18-step recipe for ice cream. Although it is incorrect that Jefferson introduced ice cream to America, as is popularly believed, he did help to introduce vanilla ice cream. First Lady Dolley Madison, wife of U.S. President James Madison, served ice cream at her husband's Inaugural Ball in 1813. 

Small-scale hand-cranked ice cream freezers were invented in England by Agnes Marshall and in America by Nancy Johnson in the 1840s. 

Expansion in popularity

J Podesta, Ice Cream maker's stall, Sydney Markets, c. 1910

Children in Chicago surround an ice cream vendor in 1909.

Agnes Marshall, "queen of ices", instrumental in making ice-cream Fashionable. 

In the Mediterranean, ice cream appears to have been accessible to ordinary people by the mid-18th century. Ice cream became popular and inexpensive in England in the mid-19th century, when Swiss émigré Carlo Gatti set up the first stand outside Charing Cross station in 1851. He sold scoops in shells for one penny. Prior to this, ice cream was an expensive treat confined to those with access to an ice house. Gatti built an 'ice well' to store ice that he cut from Regent's Canal under a contract with the Regent's Canal Company. By 1860, he expanded the business and began importing ice on a large scale from Norway.

In New Zealand, a newspaper advertisement for ice cream appeared in 1866, claiming to be the first time ice cream was available in Wellington. Commercial manufaturing was underway in 1875. Ice cream rapidly gained in popularity in New Zealand throughout the 20th century. By 2018, exported ice cream products included new flavours such as matcha to cater to Asian markets. 

Agnes Marshall, regarded as the "queen of ices" in England, did much to popularize ice cream recipes and make its consumption into a fashionable middle-class pursuit. She wrote four books: The Book of Ices (1885), Mrs. A.B. Marshall's Book of Cookery (1888), Mrs. A.B. Marshall's Larger Cookery Book of Extra Recipes (1891) and Fancy Ices (1894) and gave public lectures on cooking. She even suggested using liquid nitrogen to make ice cream.

Ice cream soda was invented in the 1870s, adding to ice cream's popularity. The invention of this cold treat is attributed to American Robert Green in 1874, although there is no conclusive evidence to prove his claim. The ice cream sundae originated in the late 19th century. Some sources say that the sundae was invented to circumvent blue laws, which forbade serving sodas on Sunday. Towns claiming to be the birthplace of the sundae include Buffalo, Two Rivers, Ithaca, and Evanston. Both the ice cream cone and banana split became popular in the early 20th century. 

The first mention of the cone being used as an edible receptacle for the ice cream is in Mrs. A.B. Marshall's Book of Cookery of 1888. Her recipe for "Cornet with Cream" said that "the cornets were made with almonds and baked in the oven, not pressed between irons". The ice cream cone was popularized in the US at the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri. 

The history of ice cream in the 20th century is one of great change and increases in availability and popularity. In the United States in the early 20th century, the ice cream soda was a popular treat at the soda shop, the soda fountain, and the ice cream parlour. During the American Prohibition, the soda fountain to some extent replaced the outlawed alcohol establishments such as bars and saloons.

Ice cream became popular throughout the world in the second half of the 20th century after cheap refrigeration became common. There was an explosion of ice cream stores and of flavours and types. Vendors often competed on the basis of variety: Howard Johnson's restaurants advertised "a world of 28 flavors", and Baskin-Robbins made its 31 flavours ("one for every day of the month") the cornerstone of its marketing strategy (the company now boasts that it has developed over 1,000 varieties).

One important development in the 20th century was the introduction of soft ice cream, which has more air mixed in, thereby reducing costs. The soft ice cream machine fills a cone or dish from a spigot. In the United States, chains such as Dairy Queen, Carvel, and Tastee-Freez helped popularize soft-serve ice cream. Baskin-Robbins later incorporated it into their menu.

Technological innovations such as these have introduced various food additives into ice cream, most notably the stabilizing agent gluten, to which some people have an intolerance. Recent awareness of this issue has prompted a number of manufacturers to start producing gluten-free ice cream. 

The 1980s saw thicker ice creams being sold as "premium" and "super-premium" varieties under brands such as Ben & Jerry's, Chocolate Shoppe Ice Cream Company and Häagen-Dazs.