Since a 1984 Presidential proclamation, July has been ‘National Ice Cream Month’. There is still time to get some licks in to celebrate. In the U.S. we consume enough ice cream to equal 48 pints per person each year! At any given time, 87% of Americans have ice cream in their freezer. Nine percent of U.S. milk production goes toward making ice cream.
The origins of this frosty confection can be traced back as far as Alexander the Great in the 400’s BC. He ate snow flavored with honey and nectar – the first snow cones! Roman emperor Nero did the same in the 50-60s AD, and in the 1200s Marco Polo brought ‘water ice’ to Europe from the far east. Catherine de Medici introduced this luxury dessert to France in 1553.
The snow cone variety likely arrived in America in the early 1700s with the European settlers and was first served in the US when Maryland Governor, Thomas Bladen served ice cream made from strawberries and milk to his guests in 1744.
Important to the history of ice cream in the US is James Hemmings, Thomas Jefferson’s slave and personal chef, brother of Sally Hemmings, and the younger half-brother of Jefferson’s wife Martha. James was sent to France from 1784 to 1789 to study at the Chateau Chantilly, the most acclaimed kitchen in France, where he learned to speak French and make a custard-based frozen delicacy. Because of the need for plenty of salt, ice and the many hours entailed in its creation ice cream was reserved for the elite. Jefferson’s Monticello estate had its own ice houses, a necessity for serving this rare dessert at Jefferson’s lavish parties in Philadelphia and Virginia.
Ice cream was a big hit among the founding fathers and their social set. In 1790, Martha Washington first served ice cream at the White house and the first ice cream parlor opened in New York.
In 1832, Augustus Jackson, an African American who had been a White House chef for James and Dolley Madison invented an eggless custard recipe, a uniquely American style and added salt to the recipe to lower the freezing temperature, making it more transportable. Known as the modern “Father of Ice Cream”, he did not patent his processes or his many flavor recipes but made and sold his confections in Philadelphia which became a mecca for Black owned ice cream parlors.
In 1843 Nancy Johnson was issued the first patent for a small hand-cranked ice cream freezer which harnessed the principles of thermodynamics and endothermic reactions. It was one of the first labor saving devices to make women’s lot easier. It brought ice cream making into the home without the need for electricity or hours of labor.
Where would we be without the mechanical ice cream scoop invented and patented in 1896 by Alfred Cralle, the first African American to hold a solo patent for this beauty.
In 1903 Italo Marchiony patented the first edible waffle cup for ice cream and the walk-away edible cone was debuted at the St. Louis World’s Fair the next year.
Soft serve ice cream appeared in 1938 followed by the advent of the modern ice cream purveyors: 1940 – Dairy Queen; 1953 – Baskin-Robbins; 1960 – Haagen-Dazs; 1983 – Ben and Jerry’s; and 1987 – Dippin Dots.
Whatever your favorite be thankful that ice cream is now a dessert of the people and no longer relegated to the ice boxes of the rich!