In the Kitchen

A Short and Sweet History of Ice Cream

A sweet summer treat, you know it, you love it, ice cream! This sweet treat is a summer staple, but few people know its history. So, today I’ll fill in the background for this frozen dessert!

According to PBS, Explore the Delicious History of Ice Cream, the earliest recorded instance of ice cream was in the Tang Dynasty, an empire in present day China from 618 to 907 CE. This kind of ice cream was very different from what you may have in your freezer.

From PBS, “This version was made with cow, goat or buffalo milk that was heated with flour. Camphor, an aromatic substance harvested from evergreen trees, was added to enhance the texture and flavor. The mixture was then placed into metal tubes and lowered into an ice pool until frozen.” This is the earliest example of “ice cream” but it doesn’t stop there.

In medieval times, Arabs drank an iced refreshment called sherbet, flavored with pomegranate juice, cherry juice, or quince, quince is a small rounded fruit with a sweet taste. The wealthy Europeans soon took to adoring this icy drink, including the Itallians and French.

During the 17th century sugar was added to the sherbet, creating sorbet. Antonio Latini is credited with writing down the first sorbet recipe.

Now, let’s circle back to somewhat modern day ice cream. In the 1700’s the ice cream was looking more like modern day, and recipes were a common sight in many cook books. Finally, in 1790 the first official ice cream parlor was opened, in New York.

In the present day, 9% of the American cow milk production goes towards ice cream. Ice cream is a staple of summer and childhood as a whole. Now that you know some history about ice cream, I hope you get to have some over the summer!

Sources

Avey, Tori. “Explore the Delicious History of Ice Cream.” PBS, Public Broadcasting Service, 10 July 2012, https://www.pbs.org/food/the-history-kitchen/explore-the-delicious-history-of-ice-cream/#:~:text=The%20earliest%20forms%20of%20ice,that%20was%20heated%20with%20flour.

Hello! It has been a long and fun journey for the newspaper club 2021-22. I really enjoyed writing in general and writing about animals and other stuff. My favorite animals are birds so that's why a lot of my articles are on birds. Fun fact: my favorite animal is a duck but i have yet to write about one soooo maybe next year and platypus are poisonous. I really enjoyed the newspaper club and look forward to the newspaper club 2022-23. I hope to be a part of this group next school year but it's time to say goodbye to my friends. So until next year my friends.

Did you know that cheese has a history? Cheese making can be traced back to 1615 B.C. In 1615 B.C. cheese was introduced to Asia. There was a cheese called ¨Rushan¨ that was produced in China since the Ming Dynasty. The Mongolians also had a history of producing cheese. You could also find cheese in the Roman Republic at around 100 B.C. Hundreds of different cheeses were made in the roman empire while Julius Caesar was emperor of the Roman Empire. Back then cheesemaking was a highly valued process. Cheese has been produced in America since the 17th century. Most farmers were cheesemakers in America because they produced dairy products like milk. In the 1830´s immigrants came to Wisconsin and started producing cheese. In 1850 400,283 lbs of cheese were made. Source: National Historic Cheesemaking Center.