History Of Ice Cream

Most of the below following information has been actually extracted for “The History of Ice Cream”, written by the International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers (IAICM) Washington DC, 1978.

Once upon a time, hundreds of years ago, Charles I of England hosted a sumptuous state banquet for many of his friends and family. The meal, consisting of many delicacies of the day, had been simply superb but the "coup de grace" was yet to come. After much preparation, the King's French chef had concocted an apparently new dish. It was cold and resembled fresh- fallen snow but was much creamier and sweeter than any other after- dinner dessert.

The guests were delighted, as was Charles, who summoned the cook and asked him not to divulge the ice cream recipe for his frozen cream. The King wanted the delicacy to be served only at the Royal table and offered the cook 500 pounds a year to keep it that way. Sometime later, however, poor Charles fell into disfavor with his people and was beheaded in 1649. But by that time, the secret of the frozen ice cream remained a secret no more. The cook, named DeMirco, had not kept his promise

This is just one of many of the fascinating tales which surround the evolution of our country's most popular dessert, ice cream. It is likely that ice cream was not invented, but rather came to be over years of similar efforts

It is likely that ice cream was not invented, but rather it has come to be over years of similar efforts. The Roman Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar was said to have sent slaves to the mountains to bring snow and ice to the cool and freeze the fruit drinks he was so fond of. Centuries later, the Italian Marco Polo returned from his famous journey to the Far East with a good recipe for making water ices resembling modern day sherbets.

About 1926 the first commercially-successful continuous this process freezer was perfected. The continuous freezer, developed by Clarence Vogt, and later ones produced by the other manufacturers, had allowed the ice cream industry to become a mass producer of the product.

The first Canadian had started selling ice cream was Thomas Webb of Toronto, a confectioner, in the year 1850. William Neilson was produced his first commercial batch of ice cream on Gladstone Ave. in Toronto the year 1893, and his company produced ice cream at that time location for close to 100 years.

Also see, 1975 Ice Cream   &  99 Flake