The History of Ice Cream

Podcast Transcript

Ice cream is a delicious, popular treat served around the world. Yet it hasn’t been around forever.

The creation of ice cream can be traced over centuries and across different empires. What finally brought ice cream to the masses wasn’t its great taste; it was changes in technology, which allowed it to ultimately become the dessert we know and love today.

Learn about the history and development of ice cream on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily.

Everyone loves ice cream. Even if you don’t like ice cream, you are probably suffering from a memory implant or something because everyone loves ice cream.

While we all know what ice cream is, most people would have a hard time explaining exactly what it is or how it is made.

So, what exactly is ice cream?

Ice cream is usually made from cream or milk and flavored with a sweetener, such as sugar, cocoa, or vanilla, or with fruit. It is made by cooling the concoction to below the freezing point of water and stirring.

By completing these steps, a smooth, quasi-solid foam is created. At lower temperatures, this foam hardens; at warmer temperatures, it has lower viscosity and can revert to a liquid.

The scientific basis for this is a colloidal emulsion, or a combination of two or more liquids in which one liquid is dispersed as tiny droplets in the other. This combination is stabilized by another agent used to make the ice cream.

Ice cream can be served in a variety of ways. It can be placed in dishes and served with utensils, eaten as finger food in edible cones, or it can even be part of other desserts, such as floats and milkshakes.

Other popular desserts are similar to ice cream, but not quite the same. The best-known example is the Italian version, gelato.

Gelato differs from ice cream because it is a frozen custard. The main difference between custard and ice cream is how they are made. The custard recipe involves adding small amounts of egg yolk and air into the base, giving the treat a smoother texture. Despite this difference, it is often mistaken for ice cream.

Another similar concoction is frozen yoghurt or “froyo.” The main difference is that frozen yoghurt uses yoghurt as the product’s base.

So, where did ice cream come from?

The origins of Ice cream can be traced back further than you may think. There is no specific date or inventor for it, but there have been variations of iced or frozen drinks and snacks that can help us understand how it may have developed over time.

Iced beverages and desserts have existed for centuries, with origins dating back to 4000 BC in Mesopotamia. During this time, nobles built icehouses along the Euphrates River to help battle the brutal summer heat. The ice came from snow and ice collected during winter from nearby mountains, rivers, or highland areas, and was transported to the ice houses for storage.

Another historic example of using snow and ice to cool beverages occurred in Athens during the 5th Century BC, when snow was sold on the streets to cool wine.

In China, camphor-laced water buffalo milk was iced to create a popular sweet drink, and in Ancient Rome, iced beverages were often served to the emperor, often with added sweeteners like honey.

The best example of a proto-ice cream can be found in 16th-century India, when the Mughal Emperors sent horse riders into the mountain ranges to collect ice for the capital.

Once the ice was delivered, it was used to make a dish called “kulfi.” The treat was made with condensed milk frozen in molds. This treat is often described as “traditional Indian Ice Cream.”

There are a few differences between kulfi and ice cream today. The most significant difference is that kulfi is not churned during its creation. This makes the dish denser than ice cream. Because of this key difference, kulfi is often considered a frozen dessert in its own right.

Meanwhile, Europe was also having its own ice cream-related discoveries.

Europeans wrote about a cooling effect caused when ice mixed with salt. The effected was later used to make dishes such as sorbet and ice cream, and much later it would be better understood as the endothermic effect.

The introduction of ice cream to Europe is often attributed to Marco Polo, but some argue that credit should instead go to Moorish traders.

Polo is credited with bringing sorbet-style desserts to Italy after his time in China. It is believed that he had learned of the dish on his travels and brought it home.

After arrival in Italy, the popular new dish spread across European elites.

According to popular ice cream legend, sorbet was introduced to France by an Italian, Catherine de’ Medici. After marrying the French Duke of Orléans in 1533, she is said to have brought Italian chefs to her new home. This supposedly is how sorbet was brought to France.

This story is pretty much proven to be complete malarky. During the Medici period in France, there was no documentation of any Italian chefs present. Additionally, ice cream has been proven to have existed in France before Catherine de’ Medici’s birth, so it is pretty safe to conclude that this story is false.

As for England, the first known record of an ice cream-related dish being consumed dates to roughly a century later, in the mid-1600s. It is reported that, during the time, Charles I was served “frozen snow.” He was so impressed by the dessert that he offered the royal ice cream maker a lifetime pension to keep the recipe secret and preserve the treat’s royal status.

Similar to the French story, there is little to no evidence of this story. While it may be true, it is likely just a legend.

In the Americas, there were accounts of ice cream being served as early as 1744, with the first lady of Colonial Maryland reportedly serving it.

Not much is known about the development or popularity of ice cream in America until it was advertised in the New York Gazette in 1777. The ad stated that a confectioner named Philip Lenzi had ice cream available “almost every day.” This suggests that the product had been steadily growing in popularity across America during this period.

Ice cream was considered a delicacy for the elite until the mid-18th century. Around this time, ice cream became increasingly accessible to the average person. Much of this was due to the spread of ice houses and commercial ice selling.

In Europe, it was around the Mediterranean that ice cream first became accessible for the average person. However, for the rest of the continent, it took a bit longer.

In England, the treat wasn’t generally accessible to the public until the mid-19th century. This is due to the efforts of a Swiss immigrant named Carlo Gatti.

Gatti had set up a stand outside Charing Cross Station in 1851. At this location, he sold ice cream scoops for 1 penny each.

This was revolutionary for those who wanted ice cream because, until his stand, you could only get the treat at an ice house, which you needed to have access to. Gatti had gotten around this by building his own ice well that he had cut within the Regent’s Canal.

One of the most crucial people in the expansion of ice cream’s popularity is the “Queen of Ices,” Agnes Marshall.

Marshall is cited for popularizing ice cream recipes in England. She did this by making dessert consumption a popular middle-class course at meals. She ended up writing four books, each containing ice cream recipes. In addition, she gave public lectures and suggested new innovations, such as using liquid nitrogen to make ice cream.

Multiple 19th century innovations helped expand ice cream’s popularity.

One of the first innovations was the combining of ice cream with soda water in the 1870s. This created ice cream floats. This idea is typically credited to an American named Robert Green.

Another innovation was the ice cream sundae. The origins of the sundae can be traced to the late 19th century and are believed to have been developed as an alternative to ice cream floats.

During the late 19th century in the United States, some communities had “Blue Laws” in place. Blue Laws are state or local regulations that restrict or ban certain activities on Sundays or holidays.

In some areas, blue laws prohibited the sale of soda on Sundays. To circumvent this law, it is believed that the sundae was invented. The exact origin of the ice cream sundae is unknown, as numerous towns in the United States claim to be its birthplace.

As for the ice cream cone, a recipe was first mentioned in one of Agnes Marshall’s cookbooks in 1888. In her cookbook, Mrs A.B. Marshall’s Book of Cookery, Marshall discusses how to make a “Cornet.”

The cornet differs from the modern cone, but it shares the same function as an edible vessel for holding ice cream. The cornet was made of almond and baked in an oven. It later became popularized after the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904.

In the 20th century, ice cream became increasingly accessible, because of reduced refrigeration costs, which increased its popularity.

Before modern refrigeration, making ice cream was quite labor-intensive. The process included cutting ice from ponds and lakes during the winter months and storing it in underground holes, ice houses, or wood-frame houses to keep it during the warmer months.

It was then made by hand in a large tub field with salt and ice. This is known as the pot-freezer method. By doing this, the temperature of the ingredients is lowered through the combination of salt and crushed ice.

This method was later replaced by the hand-churn method, which used similar resources to the pot-freezer method but added a hand-cracked machine to mix the liquid. This resulted in a faster, smoother ice cream.

Refrigeration made ice cream innovation easier, since they didn’t need to go through all these steps to make ice. Two of these major innovations were the expansion of flavors and the creation of soft-serve ice cream.

Soft-serve ice cream is made similarly to regular ice cream, but it contains more air, making it cheaper to produce. The style is served slightly differently, from a machine that fills cones or dishes via a spigot that controls the release of ice cream.

Around this time, technological development also occurred in the form of additives. The most notable of these are the gluten-stabilizing agents. This helped prevent ice cream from degrading by protecting it from aging.

Today, ice cream can be mass-produced, making it a popular treat sold around the world. It can be purchased in cartons at shops or at specialty ice cream stores.

As of the mid-2020s, the global ice cream market is a major food-and-beverage segment valued at roughly $105–$125 billion annually and projected to grow to $140–$200 billion by the 2030s, depending on the report and growth assumptions.

In the United States, the domestic ice cream market alone generates about $20–$22 billion per year, with continued moderate growth projected over the coming decade.

Ice cream has become a permanent part of the cuisine in almost every country, and for good reasons, because ice cream is awesome and everyone likes it.

That is why there is a great deal of truth to old saying, “I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice cream.”