A Cool HistoryYou know that delicious ice cream you buy at the store? Perhaps you think that it is a modern creation. Believe it or not, ice cream has been a popular treat all around the world for generations. We don't know where it was first invented, or how, exactly it spread to become a worldwide delicacy. However, there are many theories and legends surrounding ice cream's history. Here are a few...
37 CE - The Roman Emperor Nero sent servants to bring ice from the mountains to Rome in order to create a frozen fruit dessert. 400's CE - Tang Dynasty - In China, the Emperor used fermented milk, ice and spices to make a creamy dessert. 1200's - Marco Polo went to China, where he discovered a frozen treat he called ice cream. When he returned to Italy, he introduced the treat to Europe. 1649 - Charles I of England offers his chef money to protect the ice cream recipe for the rest of his life. However, the recipe spreads when Charles is beheaded! Late 1600's - The American colonists brought ice cream recipes from Europe to the New World. 1744 - A group of important colonists had dinner with the Governor of Maryland. One of the dinner guests from Scotland remarked, "A dessert...among the rarities of which is composed, was some fine ice cream which, with the strawberries and milk, eat more deliciously." This was the first time someone from the American colonies wrote about ice cream. 1843 - On September 9th, the "Artificial Freezer" was introduced to the world by Nancy M. Johnson of Philadelphia. This allowed people to make ice cream more efficiently than the pot freezer method. 1850 - The "Father of the Wholesale Ice Cream Industry," Jacob Fussell, opened the first commercial ice cream factory in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania. 1880 - Somewhere in America, the ice cream sundae was invented, although it is not clear exactly where the treat was first introduced. What we do know is that it was first served in a soda fountain during the 1880's. It was created because soda fountains could not sell ice cream sodas on Sundays, so they served ice cream sundaes instead. 1903 - Italo Marchiony patented the ice cream cone on September 22. 1928 - William Dreyer and Joseph Edy introduce Dreyer's and Edy's Ice Cream, which was sold from an ice cream truck. 1930's - American grocery stores begin selling ice cream 1940's - During WWII, the world's largest ice cream manufacturers were the U.S. Armed Forces. During this time, ice cream was so popular that it became an American symbol. 1953 - Burt Baskin and Irv Robbins merged their ice cream stores to begin the Baskin Robbins 31 Flavors chain of ice cream stores. 1978 - Ben and Jerry's Homemade Ice Cream opened in Burlington, Vermont. 2008 - The first "personalized" ice cream shop opens in Chicago, Illinois. At her shop, iCream, Cora Shaw used liquid nitrogen to create individualized ice cream for customers. 2014 and beyond- Ice cream will always remain popular, and new toppings, flavors and frozen treats will continue to be added to the ice cream family. |
Click on the pictures below to see what they are about!
To see a historian in Wiliamsburg, Virginia make ice cream the way the American colonists did, click on the link below.
http://www.history.org/media/videoPlayer/?cat=vodcast&file=IceCream |