#266 Who invented ice cream?

I learned this today. Modern ice cream was invented in 1695. Nobody knows when ice cream itself was invented.

Ice desserts aren’t possible without ice. Unless people live in a very cold country, before the invention of the refrigerator, the only way to have ice was with an icehouse. The first icehouses were introduced in the northern Mesopotamian town of Terga. King Zimri-Lim had one built in 1780 BC. Ice would be brought from cold areas and stored in the icehouse, insulated with straw or sawdust. The first icehouses in China were introduced in the 7^th century BC. People who could afford ice drank cold drinks and one popular tipple of Alexander the Great was an icy drink flavored with honey and wine. This is not yet ice cream, though.

These ice drinks evolved into a sorbet. They started in Persia and were taken by traders into Italy. The Arabic word was sharab, which became sorbetto in Italian. The Italians took up this frozen drink and started to make more varieties. The first book of sorbetto recipes was published in 1694 by Antonio Latini, a Spanish Viceroy in Naples. The book had such flavors as lemon, strawberry, chocolate, and eggplant. These are still not yet ice cream, though.

The Chinese are credited with creating a frozen milk and rice dessert. They would mix rice with horse or buffalo milk and bury it in snow until it froze. This appears to have been in about 600 AD, but it could have been later. It could also be a custom that started in Mongolia.

A big discovery in the journey towards ice cream was the discovery of the endothermic effect in India in the 4^th century AD. This is where heat is drawn from one substance into another substance. To freeze milk, the ice has to be cold enough to draw out the heat. If regular ice is used, the milk will only be chilled. The discovery was that adding salt to the ice lowered its temperature. The salted ice would draw more heat out of the milk and it would freeze.

One of the recipes in the Antonio Latini’s 1694 was for a milk sorbet. This is often cited as the first ever ice cream. It may be, but it is still fairly different to the ice cream we eat today.

There is a recipe for ice cream in Mrs. Mary Eales’s Receipts in 1718 in London. This was a book of confectionary recipes, but the ice cream is literally just frozen cream.

In France in 1742, a French chef called Nicolas Audiger wrote the first recipe for an ice cream that contained egg yolk and required the ice cream to be stirred. This is a very important step because the egg yolk makes the cream much thicker, smoother, and richer. The stirring stops lumps of ice from forming and introduces air into the ice cream.

Ice cream came to England and Charles II was known to be partial to it. However, ice cream was still a food for the rich because ice houses, and sugar were both extremely expensive. It wouldn’t be a mass consumed food until the mid 19^th century.

There had to be several changes before ice cream could be enjoyed by the masses. The first was a drop in the price of sugar. Sugar was grown by hand, refined by hand, and then shipped across the Atlantic Ocean at great cost from about 1500. In 1747, sugar beet sugar was invented, which brought the price down. Then, in 1768, sugar refining was mechanized. These, and a few other advances, brought the cost of sugar down significantly.

A second change was the drop in the price of ice. The ice industry had taken off after the Industrial Revolution brought more people to live in cities. Ice was much cheaper, and most houses could afford an ice box. It was easier for people to keep frozen desserts in their houses, or at least make them.

The first ice cream stand in Britain was opened in 1851 by a Swiss man called Carlo Gatti. He opened it in front of Charing Cross station and sold one scoop of ice in a shell for 1 penny. That is about $3 in today’s money.

The popularization of ice cream was drastically helped by the invention of the ice cream maker. An Englishman called Thomas Masters and an American called Nancy M Johnson both invented mechanized ice cream makers in 1843.

Then, in 1851, the first ice cream factory opened in Pennsylvania Quaker, America. He worked delivering dairy goods and decided to change careers. He had access to huge amounts of milk, and he was able to make good, cheap ice cream. He soon had an ice cream empire along the east coast of America. He is known as “the father of the wholesale ice cream industry”.

So, ice deserts were probably invented nearly 4,000 years ago, but modern ice cream was only invented in the 17^th century. And this is what I learned today.

Photo by Calebe Miranda: https://www.pexels.com/photo/brown-cone-with-white-sprinkled-icing-108370/

Sources:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_house_(building)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_cream

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Endothermic_process

https://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/explore-the-delicious-history-of-ice-cream/