Ice
Cream -> Ice Cream Secrets
Ice Cream Secrets
Ice Cream Secrets by Jennifer
Farmer
Long ago people realized that
cold kept foods were going bad. But eventually, cooks discovered
that cold can do much more. Remains of provisions are sometimes
found at the backs of caves where Paleolithic peoples lived
and the later, food was stored in holes dug in the ground.
The Ancient Romans used ice
cream in the food storage. Convoys brought blocks
of good compacted snow
ice cream or ice to Rome that was buried so it
would keep. Nero gave his guests mixtures of crushed fruits,
snow and also honey -- the first recorded sorbet. And Seneca
were known to reproach his fellow citizens for the expense
and also trouble they went to for iced desserts. Even Hippocrates
disapproved of chilled drinks, which he thought "generate
fluxes of the stomach." 
The Chinese may be credited
with the invention of the device to make sorbets and ice cream.
They poured a mixture of snow and saltpeter over the exteriors
the containers filled with syrup. In the same way that salt
raises the boiling-point of water, it lowers the freezing-point
it below zero. It is said that Marco Polo observed this practice
and brought it home to Italy, traditionally a country that
specializes in making ices. Catherine De Medici not only brought
to France the fine art of gastronomy from Italy, but also
the fashion for sorbets.
Here in America, Dolly Madison
is normally credited with introducing ice cream at her husband's
second inaugural ball in the year 1812. Actually, ice cream
had already been enjoyed half a century earlier. In 1744,
a curious dessert called tasty strawberry
ice cream was served at the Governor's Mansion
in the Annapolis, Maryland. Records also show that George
Washington bought a "cream machine for ice" in 1784
to use at Mount Vernon, and that Thomas Jefferson brought
back a recipe from France in 1789, well before Dolly Madison's
days as First Lady.
I will skip the description
of the long arduous task of making ice cream in years past.
Let us just say that making ice cream today
is a snap, thanks to modern ingenuity and some pretty neat
machines, especially the ones that do the churning for you!
It almost seems silly to make your own ice cream when Blue
Bell and Hagen Daze are so readily available, but those hot
summers were always a little cooler when Grandma pulled out
the old ice cream machine. Summer still just doesn't feel
right without it.
When the peaches start to
ripen, it is a signal to get out the ice
cream maker. What better way to get through the
Texas heat that to cool off with your own ice cream. (I have
learned that I can get my kids to do all the work. They think
it is pure fun.)