Super market aisles are chock full of delicious snacks of all shapes, sizes, and flavors. Thanks to refrigeration, some of these snacks have a much longer shelf life and are available year round.Ice cream has been around for a long time and everyone has a personal preference. There’s a rich history behind the story of ice cream. Plus people from every state share different opinions on which flavor is the best.
A lot of myths surround the origin of ice cream desserts. Romans mixed chipped ice or snow with some flavoring, but that would make slurpies, not ice cream. According to historian Robert Brantley, ice cream probably originated in China, where a frozen dairy product was first described in the seventh century, and the Mogul court served ice cream in banquets as a special dessert.
In contrast with the discovery of fire and its uses more than 700,000 years ago, using cold and ice have been recent, just a couple hundred years ago. At this time, people discovered the possibility to use salt and ice to make liquids cold, and even freezing them.
Very rich people built icehouses with ice collected from rivers and lakes in the winter. If an icehouse was properly built and the ice protected, the cold effect could last the whole summer!
The boom of ice cream most likely began in Italy in the seventeenth century, when it became a staple in banquets though European royal houses.
In the US, modern ice cream was brought in the later eighteenth century, and boy have we come far! Vanilla and chocolate are boring compared to cookie dough, moose tracks and, mint chocolate chip! What’s your favorite?