Brief History of Ice-Cream

Ice-cream, originally, iced cream, is a frozen dessert made from dairy products, like milk and cream, combined with sugars, flavorings and other ingredients. The mixture is stirred slowly while cooling to prevent ice crystals from forming. Result is a smoothly textured ice-cream. Here is brief history of ice-cream.

Water-ices. Ice-cream started around the time as the Pharaohs of ancient Egypt. Fruit juices were kept cold by being packed with snow but they were really 'water-ices' rather than the real ice-cream that we know.

First Frozen Creamy Mixture. In 1550 Blasius Villefranca found that freezing-point could be reached if salt were added to snow, and so he managed to produce a creamy, frozen mixture.

Ice-Cream in Europe. In England during the 17th century, it's been said that King James II in 1686, was served with something like ice-cream, while his exiled brother, Charles II, earlier in 1660, was known to have eaten ice-cream in Paris.

Ice-Cream in the US. In the United States, the first president, George Washington, was said to be keen on ice-cream in 1790.In 1832, Augustus Jackson, a confectioner from Philadelphia, created new recipes for making ice-cream, and in 1846, Nancy Johnson patented a hand-cranked freezer that established the basic method of making ice cream still used today. William Young patented the similar "Johnson Patent Ice-Cream Freezer" in 1848. In 1851, Jacob Fussell, a milk supplier of Baltimore, USA, set himself up as a supplier of ice-cream to other milkman, establishing the world's first ice-cream factory.

Ice-Cream Factory in London. Around twenty years later, in 1870, an ice-cream factory was set up in London for the benefit of a large number of Italian immigrants who arrived about that time. Ice-cream is said to have become really popular in 1922, when British Thomas Wall, a sausage manufacturer in Acton, was worried that fewer sausages will be sold during the summer months, so he began to manufacture the first wrapped blocks of ice-cream as an alternative. It was an instant success.

Today. Ice-cream is continuously made, with all kinds of flavour combinations and creaminess.