History of Ice-cream

Ice Cream Beginnings and Makers

Ice-cream (originally referred to as "iced cream") or gelato in Italy, is a frozen dessert made from dairy products, like milk and cream, combined with sugars, flavorings and other ingredients. The mixture is stirred slowly while cooling to prevent ice crystals from forming.  The result is a smoothly textured ice cream. Here is ice-cream's early history.

Ice-cream Water-ices

Ice-cream started around the time as the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Fruit juices were kept cold by being packed with snow but they were really 'water-ices' rather than the real ice-cream that we know.



First Frozen Creamy Mixture

In 1550 Blasius Villefranca found that freezing-point could be reached if salt were added to snow, and so he managed to produce a creamy, frozen mixture.

Ice-Cream in Europe

In England during the 17th century, it's been said that King James II in 1686, was served with something like ice-cream, while his exiled brother, Charles II, earlier in 1660, was known to have eaten ice-cream in Paris.

Ice-Cream in the US

• 1790, the first American president, George Washington, was said to be a been fan of ice-cream in 1790.

• 1832, Augustus Jackson, a confectioner from Philadelphia, created new recipes for making ice-cream

• 1846, Nancy Johnson patented a hand-cranked freezer that established the basic method of making ice cream still used today.

• 1848, William Young patented the similar "Johnson Patent Ice-Cream Freezer."

• 1851, Jacob Fussell, a milk supplier of Baltimore, USA, set himself up as a supplier of ice-cream to other milkman, establishing the world's first ice-cream factory.

Ice-Cream Factory in London

Around twenty years later, in 1870, an ice-cream factory was set up in London for the benefit of a large number of Italian immigrants who arrived about that time.

Ice-cream is said to have become really popular in 1922, when British Thomas Wall, a sausage manufacturer in Acton, was worried that fewer sausages will be sold during the summer months, so he began to manufacture the first wrapped blocks of ice-cream as an alternative. It was an instant success.



Note: My sources are varied, from library reference materials down to smaller light reading science and invention books. Among my entertaining short readings, I like Ken Ireland's Who Invented, Discovered, Made the First..? (Ravette Books, 1988)

Image Credit:

Ice Cream. en.wikipedia.org / Public Domain