Ice cream probably evolved from chilled wines and
other beverages.
Around 3,000 years go, the Emperors of China are
believed to have enjoyed frozen delicacies made from snow and ice
flavoured with fruit, wine and honey. In the 4th Century B.C., Alexander the Great is said to have
been fond of iced beverages, and by 62 A.D., the Roman Emperor
Nero is recorded to have sent fleets of slaves to the Apennine
mountains to collect snow and ice to be flavoured with nectar,
fruit pulp and honey.
Legend has it that the great adventurer Marco Polo brought back
recipes for water ices from China to Venice (Italy) in the 13th
Century, however since the Persian Empire was already enjoying
frozen fruit juice, teas, wines and liqueurs by then, it seems
more likely that these products spread to Italy via Persia. The
Arabic word charab is thought to be the derivation
of the Italian sorbetto, French sorbet and
English sherbet.
Catherine de Medici of Florence
took her Italian cooks and sorbetto recipes with her to France
in 1533 when she married
the duke of Orléans, who later became King Henry II.
Charles I of England is then thought to have purchased the formula
for "frozen milk" from a French
chef in the 17th Century. As they spread through the royal houses
of Europe, eggs
and cream also began to be added, and the frozen delicacies came
to be known as "cream ices".
In 1660 an Italian, Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli,
started to sell cream ices to Paris society from his Cafe
Procope, which still operates today. Decorated
frozen desserts became fashionable - the bombe glacee, parfait, coupe,
and mousse.
By now ice was being commercially harvested from frozen lakes,
with salt added to lower the Freezing Point (and temperature) for
more efficient storage and freezing. This meant ice cream was no
longer exclusive to the nobility.
In 1760 "The Compleat Confectioner" cookbook
contained a method for making raspberry ice cream.
The U.S. President's wife Dolly Madison created a sensation when
she served ice cream as a dessert in the White House at the second
inaugural ball in 1812.
An American woman, Nancy Johnston, invented
and patented the hand-cranked ice cream freezer (a similar concept
to a butter
churn, but with ice and salt packed around the outside) in 1843,
and in 1851 the first ice cream "factory" (using manually
operated churns) was set up by Jacob Fussell in Baltimore,
USA.
The first commercial ice-making machine was patented
in Australia in 1855 by James Harrison. The machine had a 15ft
flywheel and produced over 6000 lbs. of ice per day. Further mechanisation
of the ice cream manufacturing process took place in the 1880's
and 1890's. The invention of the
homogeniser by August Gaulin (France) in 1899 allowed a much smoother
ice cream texture, and the brine freezer (1902) permitted faster
freezing.
At the St. Louis (USA) World Fair in 1904, a Syrian waffle vendor
named E.A. Hamwi is credited with introducing the ice cream cone,
when he started rolling waffles into cone shapes for the benefit
of an ice cream vendor in an adjoining booth. More about that here.
The "Popsicle" is said to
have been accidentally invented in 1905 by eleven-year-old
Frank Epperson, when fruit-flavoured soda water was left outside
and froze on a particularly cold San Francisco night, with stirring
sticks still in place.
The first home refrigerator was introduced by General
Electric in 1911.
Prohibition in the USA (1919) resulted in many bars being converted
into ice cream parlours, and ice cream's popularity boomed.
Ice cream novelties as we now know them began
to appear in the 1920's - the first chocolate-coated ice cream
bar ("I-Scream
Bar") appeared in the USA in 1919 (later re-named the "Eskimo
Pie"), and the first ice cream on a stick was the "Good
Humor Bar" (1920, USA). Both products are still on the
market, as is the Popsicle!
The first mechanical horizontal batch ice cream freezer
was invented by H.H. Miller of Canton, Ohio, USA, and about 1926
the first continuous
freezer was commercialised by Clarence Vogt of Louisville, Kentucky,
USA, opening the way for true mass production of ice cream.
Many further refinements to manufacturing equipment have taken
place since then, but by this stage the basic technology was in
place to produce the ice cream that we know and love today.
- Sources: International Ice Cream Association
and others. |
