Legends of the recipe for ice cream moving from China
to Europe
Popular tradition asserts that Marco Polo saw ice cream being made on
his trip to China and took the recipe home to Italy with him on his return.[2]
However, Marco Polo in his writings never claimed to introduce ice cream
to the west.[3] Catherine de Medici's Italian chefs are said to have carried
the ice cream recipe to France when she went there in 1533 to marry the
Duc d'Orléans.[1] One hundred years later Charles I of England
was supposedly so impressed by the "frozen snow" that he offered
his own ice cream maker a lifetime pension in return for keeping the formula
secret, so that ice cream could be a royal prerogative.[4] There is, however,
no historical evidence to support these legends, which first appeared
during the 19th century. Food historians are still searching for the origins
of ice cream.
Other frozen treats
While it was not yet ice cream per se, some examples of early pre-planned
ice dishes include the Roman emperor Nero (37-68) who is said to have
ordered ice to be brought from the mountains and combined with fruit toppings,
and King Tang (618-97) of the Shang Dynasty who is said to have had a
method of creating ice and milk concoctions. People living directly alongside
snow and ice have probably always put sweet things like honey and fruit
juice on frozen water for variety, as some still do to this day. Snow-cones,
made from balls of crushed ice topped with sweet syrup served in a paper
cone, are consumed in many parts of the world. A popular springtime treat
in maple syrup-producing areas is maple toffee, where boiled maple syrup
is poured over fresh snow, congealing in a toffee-like mass, eaten from
a wooden stick used to pick it up from the snow.
The West
Contemporary western-style ice cream, however, was probably developed
in the 1600’s, and was introduced to the United States by colonists
who brought their ice cream recipes with them. Confectioners, many of
whom were Frenchmen, sold ice cream at their shops in New York and other
cities during the Colonial era. Ben Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas
Jefferson were among the elite who regularly ate and served ice cream.
Dolley Madison is also closely associated with the early history of ice
cream in the United States. In 1843 Nancy Johnson became the first American
to patent a handcranked ice cream freezer. This was followed by the invention
of the ice cream soda. It was probably invented by Robert Green in 1874,
although there is no conclusive evidence to prove his claim. The ice cream
sundae originated in the late 19th Century. Several men claimed to have
created the first sundae, but there is no solid evidence to back up any
of their stories. Some versions say that the sundae was invented to circumvent
the Blue Laws, which forbade serving sodas on Sunday. Both the ice cream
cone and banana split were popularized in the first years of the 20th
century.
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