Ice cream is a much older invention than you might think. Image: Pixabay. Public Domain.
The Persian Origins of Ice Cream
Ice cream must be a relatively recent invention, surely? How could you make and store frozen milk and cream in a time when freezers and electricity weren't even on the distant horizon?
You may be surprised to learn that the first ice creams were invented in Persia in or around 550 BC, that's during the late Bronze Age and in modern-day Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Syria and Turkey.
The concoction proved popular, and it travelled around the globe and down the centuries. Today, ice cream is a $73.6 billion industry in the U.S.A. and £519.2 million or $667 million in the U.K. (Sources: Forbes/Ibis World).
The Persian people constructed ice houses and ice pits along the route of the Euphrates River, and these were filled with snow that fell during sub-zero winters. Their ice creams, sorbets and falooda (vermicelli noodles) remained cold in the oppressive summer conditions. Ice cream was always consumed within hours of its creation.
The Science of Ice Cream: An Exothermic Reaction
In the 13th century, there was a wonderful scientific discovery. When ice and salt were combined, the two substances created an exothermic reaction, the release of heat as the molecules moved.
The salt lowered the freezing point of the milk or cream below the freezing temperature of water. The ice pulled the heat away from the liquid, and the movement of the molecules in the liquid created air. Ice crystals attached to the milk or cream fats to become a foam.
More air resulted in smoother ice cream; today's ice creams are classed as emulsions. All ice creams have an exothermic brine (water and salt), a chosen liquid and a flavouring.
Ice Cream Myths and Italian Pharmacists
There's a legend but no proof that the explorer and merchant Marco Polo discovered ice cream in China in the late 13th or early 14th century and that he introduced it to Europe.
Another unproven claim, courtesy of the Victorians, involved Catherine de Medici. It was said that she took ice cream from her native Florence to Paris when she married the future King Henry II of France in 1633.
There's no evidence that around the same time, King Charles I in England ate "cream ice" during his reign.
During the 1600s, Italian pharmacists utilised the ice cream salt and water chemical reaction as a party trick to impress their customers. A resident of Naples took it a step further, and he made a tasty offering in the 1660s.
Antiquary and politician Elias Ashmole recorded that Britain's King Charles II dined on strawberries and "one bowl of ice cream" at a banquet at Windsor Castle in 1671. The ice cream was only consumed at the top table.
Ice Cream Arrives in the U.S.A.
The Europeans took ice cream to the Americas. Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826), Minister to France prior to becoming President of the U.S.A., favoured the French-style ice cream that he'd enjoyed in Paris. French chefs used egg yolks to create a custard base for the ice cream.
In the Victorian era, the uptake of mechanical ice cream makers, normally a metal drum in a wooden tub with a handle that turned and mixed the concoction, increased. The U.S.A. and Canada received demands for more and more ice from the ice-cream-loving Europeans.
Ice cream cups were first patented in the U.S.A. during the 1880s, and the ice cream sundae was invented in the mid-west in 1881, although the inventor's identity soon became a matter of dispute.
The waffle cone was first presented with ice cream at the 1904 St. Louis World Fair, and during prohibition in the U.S.A., the lack of refreshing drinks led to a surge in ice cream consumption.
Currently, there are over one thousand ice cream flavours in the world. According to the U.K. Ice Cream Alliance, most flavours that are presented as new inventions today were actually made in the past.
National Ice Cream Day and World Ice Cream Day occur each July on the third Sunday of the month.
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