Of Sugar & Snow, A History of Ice Cream Making

of sugar and snow
california studies in food and culture

darra goldstein, editor
of sugar and snow
A History of Ice Cream Making
jeri quinzio
university of california press

berkeley los angeles london
The publisher gratefully acknowledges the generous support of the
General Endowment Fund of the University of California Press
Foundation.
University of California Press, one of the most distinguished
university presses in the United States, enriches lives around the
world by advancing scholarship in the humanities, social sciences,
and natural sciences. Its activities are supported by the UC Press
Foundation and by philanthropic contributions from individuals
and institutions. For more information, visit www.ucpress.edu.
University of California Press

Berkeley and Los Angeles, California
University of California Press, Ltd.

London, England
© 2009 by Jeri Quinzio
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Quinzio, Jeri.
Of sugar and snow : a history of ice cream making / Jeri
Quinzio.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
isbn 978-0-520-24861-8 (cloth : alk. paper)
1. Ice cream, ices, etc.—History. I. Title.
TX795.Q59 2009
641.8'62—dc22 2008026041
Manufactured in the United States of America
18 17 16 15 14 13 12 11 10 09
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1
This book is printed on Cascades Enviro 100, a 100% post

consumer waste, recycled, de-inked fiber. FSC recycled certified
and processed chlorine free. It is acid free, Ecologo certified, and
manufactured by BioGas energy.
To Glen
contents
preface / ix
acknowledgments / xv
one. Early Ices and Iced Creams / 1
two. Crème de la Cream / 26
three. Ingenious Foreigners and Others / 50
four. The Land of Ice Cream / 75

five. Screaming for Ice Cream / 103
six. Women’s Work / 129
seven. Modern Times / 155
eight. Ice Cream for Breakfast / 180
epilogue. Industry and Artistry / 208
notes / 215
bibliography / 239
index / 261
illustrations follow page 144.

preface
During the past few years, whenever I told people I was working on a book
about ice cream, they invariably smiled. Then they told me their ice cream
stories. Some described how they struggled to turn the crank of an old-
fashioned ice cream maker on a summer afternoon, just so they could lick
the dasher when the ice cream was ready. Peach ice cream was a particular
favorite. Some reminisced about waiting for the familiar jingle of the ice
cream truck’s bells when they were kids, and then having trouble deciding
between a Popsicle and a Fudgsicle. The tales were predictably happy,
except for the ones about a scoop of ice cream falling out of a cone onto
the street.
People also told me stories they’d heard about the history of ice cream
and its creation. One woman, a Philadelphia native, said that as a school-
girl she was taught that ice cream was invented in her hometown. When I
told her it wasn’t, she said, “I didn’t quite believe it even then.” People spin
all sorts of tales about ice cream’s origins, and most of them are wrong.
That’s too bad, because its history is remarkable. It doesn’t need embellish-
ment.
I’d like to set the record straight.
One popular myth has it that Nero invented ice cream since he liked eat-
ing snow with honey poured over it. He may have enjoyed that particular
treat; however, pouring honey over snow is not making ice cream.
Marco Polo may have tasted ices in China in the thirteenth century, as
many believe, but he did not bring recipes or information about freezing
techniques back to Italy. If he had, there would be references to them in
ix
the books, letters, and diaries of the time. If he had, Italian scientists
would not have been experimenting with freezing techniques three cen-
turies later.
The most enduring myth is that Catherine de Medici introduced ice
cream to France from Italy when she married the future king Henry. How-
ever, nearly a century after Catherine’s death, M. Audiger, a French confec-
tioner, said he had to go to Italy to learn how to make ices. Surely that
would not have been necessary if Catherine’s Italian cooks had taught the
French how to make them when she arrived in 1533.
Not only is there no documentary evidence of ice or ice cream making in
Italy so early in the sixteenth century, but also, as Alberto Capatti and
Massimo Montanari point out in Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History, culi-
nary techniques and knowledge circulated widely between Italy and
France as early as the thirteenth century.1 There was no need to rely on
Catherine de Medici for recipes.
Even if the Italians had known how to make ices at the time, Cather-
ine was hardly in a position to influence French dining habits. She was
a fourteen-year-old girl when she married Henry, Duke of Orléans,
who was also fourteen. As the second son of King Francis I and Queen
Claude, he was not expected to reach the throne, so he had little influ-
ence at court. Since Catherine was a foreigner and not considered a
great beauty, she had even less. When Henry did become king, following
the untimely deaths of his older brother and then his father, Henry’s
mistress, the beautiful Diane de Poitiers, actually wielded more power
than Catherine.
Catherine came into her own after her husband died and the first of her
three sons who would become kings of France took the throne. During the
reign of her son Henry III (1560 to 1574), the French, like the Italians
before them, became entranced with ice and snow. They began decorating
their tables with carved ice sculptures, serving dishes atop piles of snow,
and putting ice in their drinks. But there is no evidence that they ate ice
cream.
x / Preface
Another tenacious ice cream myth is that King Charles I of England,
who reigned from 1625 to 1649, had a French cook who made ice cream. The
story is told two ways. One has it that King Charles was so enamored of
the ice cream that he rewarded the cook with lifetime tenure. In the other
version, he was so impressed that he threatened to have the cook killed if he
revealed the recipe to anyone else. The English writer W. S. Stallings Jr. has
laid both versions to rest. He wrote that the story “is undocumented and is
first seen in print in the 19th century. The documentation of ice cream in En-
gland begins following the return of Charles II from his exile in France.”
That was not until 1660. In fact, the first known recorded English use of the
words ice cream is from the Feast of St. George at Windsor in May 1671, when
“One plate of Ice Cream” was served to the table of King Charles II.2
Stories of kings having cooks killed over an ice cream recipe are enter-
taining, but I find the facts more fascinating. Ice cream, like the Zelig char-
acter in Woody Allen’s film, has been on the scene for some of the most
dramatic events of the past. Sometimes it played a leading role; at other
times, it was an extra walking through the background. Following ice
cream’s progress through time tells us a great deal both about ice cream
and about the era in which it was made. It’s a tale that takes us from
palaces to playgrounds, from banqueting rooms gleaming with silver and
crystal to city streets teaming with pushcart vendors. Along the way, it
touches on nearly every important social, political, and economic develop-
ment of the past four centuries.
In this book, I trace the history of ice cream from its early days in
seventeenth-century Italy to the dawn of its industrialized production in
America. My title—Of Sugar and Snow—is drawn from a phrase early con-
fectioners used to describe the desired consistency of their ice cream.
Throughout the book, I use comments and recipes to illustrate how the
making—and the eating—of ice cream changed according to its circum-
stances and surroundings.
For example, medical opinion regarding ices and ice cream was and is ever-
changing. In the seventeenth century, some believed its cold temperature
Preface / xi
would bring on paralysis. Others thought it was just the thing to cure scurvy,
emaciation, and, yes, paralysis. In the nineteenth century, it was believed that
eating ice cream chilled the stomach and stopped digestion. It was also
considered a good, healthy treat for children. In the late twentieth century,
Americans blamed ice cream for coronary artery disease. Yet in every era,
praised or maligned, it has been a much-loved dessert.
Scientists and inventors have been as important to the development
of ice cream as cooks and confectioners. Italian scientists experimenting
with freezing in the sixteenth century inspired confectioners to create ices
and ice creams in the seventeenth. In the nineteenth century, an American
woman named Nancy Johnson invented an easier-to-use ice cream maker,
and home cooks began making ice cream more often. Frederick Tudor, a
Bostonian, developed the ice industry and made ice cream available to
nearly all. Mechanized production methods, refrigeration, and railroads
each changed commercial ice cream making and distribution.
Surprisingly, the democratization of ice cream was not met with univer-
sal approval. When peddling ice cream on the street became an entry-level
job for nineteenth-century immigrants, fashionable confectioners and
their customers were dismayed. Nevertheless, by the turn of the twentieth
century, Americans were gobbling up five million gallons a year, and ice
cream had become a mass-market product.
Many events that seemed to have nothing to do with ice cream had a
huge impact on the business. During Prohibition, corner saloons were of-
ten transformed into soda fountains, and the ice cream business pros-
pered. But repeal and the Great Depression of the 1930s hit it especially
hard. Celebrated in songs, poems, and children’s rhymes, ice cream was an
early film star and a soda fountain favorite with the bobby-soxer genera-
tion. It took on a patriotic flavor in America during World War II and
became more widespread than ever afterward, partly as a result of the de-
velopment of the federal highway system. Now a Fourth of July tradition
and the obligatory accompaniment to a birthday cake or a slice of apple
pie, ice cream is a staple of supermarket freezers.
xii / Preface
Today, commercial ice cream making is a sixty-billion-dollar global en-
terprise dominated by two companies: Nestlé and Unilever. They control
more than a third of the market and own such famous brands as Ben &
Jerry’s, Häagen-Dazs, and Dreyer’s. They’re rapidly expanding in such
markets as China, Brazil, the Philippines, and Indonesia. Their story is
less about ice cream and more about global business, so I leave the telling
of it to another author.
I close with a brief look at today’s ice cream artisans, the women and
men who are carrying on a tradition of quality and creativity by making
and selling their own unique ice creams in small shops. No doubt their ice
creams will be the stuff of the nostalgic stories of tomorrow.
Preface / xiii
acknowledgments
I am grateful to many individuals without whom, as the saying goes, this

book could not have been written. They helped with translations, found
books and illustrations for me, and read and corrected various drafts of my
manuscript. They also played the important, if more subtle, role of offering
cheer and encouragement along the way. I value each and every one.
They include Ken Albala, Gary Allen, Jackie and Parviz Amirhor, Rob
and the late Alice Arndt, Ubaldo di Benedetto, Madonna Berry, Marilyn
Brass, Sheila Brass, Joe Carlin, Kyri Claflin, Roz Cummins, Ivan Day, Anne
Faulkner, Norma Gahl, Barbara Haber, Susan Jasse, Sheryl Julian, Rose-
mary Kafka, Janet Katz, Lynn Kay, Patricia Kelly, Daniel MacLeod, Douglas
and Lola MacLeod, Ellen Messer, Doris Millan, Deb McDonald, Sandra
Oliver, Beth Riely, Susan Rossi-Wilcox, Lynn Schweikart, Andrew Smith,
Nancy Stutzman, Agni Thurner, Joyce Toomre, Barbara Ketcham Wheaton,
Joan and Jay Wickersham, Winnie Williams, and of course, my hus-
band, Daniel Coleman.
Librarians are special individuals. I am indebted to those at the
Boston Athenaeum, the Boston Public Library, the New York Public Li-
brary, the Winterthur Library, the Library of Congress, Harvard’s Botany
and Houghton Libraries, and above all, everyone at the Schlesinger Li-
brary, most notably Marylène Altieri and Sarah Hutcheon.
I also thank the ice cream people who were so generous with their time
and even their ice cream. Steve Herrell, founder of Steve’s Ice Cream and now
owner of Herrell’s Ice Cream based in Northampton, Massachusetts; Gus
Rancatore, owner of Toscanini’s Ice Cream in Cambridge, Massachusetts;
xv
Stephanie Reitano, of Capogiro in Philadelphia; Amy Miller, of Amy’s Ice
Cream shops in Texas; Torrance Kopfer, of Cold Fusion Gelato in Newport,
Rhode Island; and Gabrielle Carbone, of the Bent Spoon in Princeton, New
Jersey.
The members of my writers’ workshop have meant more to me than I
can express. They are Myrna Kaye, Roberta Leviton, Barbara Mende, Sabra
Morton, Shirley Moskow, Beth Surdut, Molly Turner, Rose Yesu, and the
late Doris Luck Pullen.
Everyone at the University of California Press—Randy Heyman, Kate
Marshall, Laura Harger, Bonita Hurd, and Mari Coates—has been enor-
mously helpful to me. Finally, I appreciate the guidance and support I re-
ceived from Darra Goldstein and Sheila Levine. They are editors—and
individuals—par excellence.
Thank you all.
xvi / Acknowledgments
one
Early Ices and Iced Creams
A royal dinner in seventeenth-century Naples was a dazzling spectacle.

The splendor of the décor complemented the magnificence of the foods, to
the delight of the guests. Confectioners seized the opportunity to demon-
strate their considerable talents and turned tabletops into showcases of
their art. They carved hams from ice and displayed them in baskets made
of sugar paste; they shaped lions and bulls from butter and posed them in
battle stance. They created fruit-and-flower-filled ice pyramids that glis-
tened in the candlelight. They molded gods from marzipan to watch over
the mortals at the table.
The foods that the diners actually ate were equally splendid. They
feasted on a dozen or more courses, possibly spit-roasted pork topped with
a crown of lemons, fresh strawberries bathed in wine and served atop a
mound of snow, lasagna sprinkled with sugar and cinnamon, and dishes
of fresh fennel, pears, grapes, and artichokes adorned with snow and flow-
ers. Parmesan cheese was served with sage under it and laurel leaves
painted silver and gold over it. There was an abundance of wine. The
grand finale was an array of cookies, pastries, and the fashionable new
dessert: sorbetti.
At the time, Naples was still part of the Spanish empire, and Charles II
was its king. Although Spain’s power and influence were declining, its no-
bles entertained as sumptuously as they had when Spain was the domi-
nant power in Europe. They were in the vanguard of the dining changes
sweeping through the continent. During the seventeenth century, wealthy
Europeans were enjoying products from the New World, tasting tomatoes,
1
chocolate, peppers, and other new foods. At the same time, changing theo-
ries of science were revolutionizing medical and nutritional doctrines, and
new techniques and inventions were transforming culinary practices.
Nowhere were the changes more pronounced than in fashionable Naples.
It was the perfect setting for sorbetti to make their debut.
Turning to Ice
All the dining changes taking place were important to the development of
ice cream, but first and foremost among them was the discovery of freezing
techniques. Long before anyone made ices and ice creams, much less
served them to kings, ice and snow were highly valued. They were hard to
get, difficult to store, and expensive. In other words, they were perfect sta-
tus symbols. Those who were able to acquire them flaunted them, using
them to add elegance to tables, cool the air on hot summer nights, and
crown foods. Athenaeus, the second-century Greek philosopher and au-
thor of The Deipnosophists, wrote that “in the island of Cimolos under-
ground refrigerators are constructed in summer, where the people store
jars full of warm water and draw them out again as cold as snow.” Alexan-
der the Great is said to have had pits constructed in which he stored snow
and ice. A fourth-century emperor of Japan, Nintoku, was so pleased by a
gift of ice that he designated the first of June as the Day of Ice. On that day
each year, he gave chips of ice to palace guests in a ceremony called the Im-
perial Gift of Ice.1
By the fifteenth century, the elites of Spain and Italy could send their ser-
vants or slaves to nearby mountains, where they gathered snow, packed it
down, wrapped it in straw, and carried it home, sometimes on mules’ backs,
sometimes on their own. They stored the snow in pits dug for the purpose
on their masters’ estates. Those who lived in areas where shallow ponds
froze in winter harvested the ice and stored it in pits. Initially, the storage
pits were simply holes in the ground filled with alternating layers of snow
and straw and covered with straw or wooden planks. Over time, Europeans
built larger and more elaborate pits and lined them with bricks or wooden
2 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

slats. The pits were located in dry, cool spots, often on a slope so they
would drain well. Later, the well-to-do constructed large, aboveground ice-
houses, often of brick. Some of the icehouses were so well constructed
that water in them could be frozen into ice, cream could be chilled, and
meltwater channeled to cool wine in a nearby cellar. In England during
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, icehouses became architectural
whimsies: they masqueraded as Greek temples or Chinese pagodas.2
But an icehouse allows only storage. The key to making ices was in find-
ing out how to make ice or snow freeze other substances. That happened in
the mid-sixteenth century, when Italian scientists learned that immersing
a container of water in a bucket of snow that was mixed with potassium
nitrate, or saltpeter, would freeze the water. Giambattista della Porta de-
scribed the theory in his Natural Magick, published in 1558 and soon trans-
lated and disseminated throughout Europe.
Wine may freeze in Glasses.

Because of the chief thing desired at feasts, is that Wine cold as ice
may be drunk, especially in summer. I will teach you how Wine shall
presently, not only grow cold, but freeze, that you cannot drink it but by
sucking, and drawing in of your breath. Put Wine into a Vial, and put a
little water to it, that it may turn to ice the sooner. Then cast snow into a
wooden vessel, and strew into it Saltpeter, powdered, or the cleansing of
Saltpeter, called vulgarly Salazzo. Turn the Vial in the snow, and it will
congeal by degrees. Some keep snow all the summer. Let water boil in
Brass kettles, and pour it into great bowls, and set them in the frosty cold
air. It will freeze, and grow harder than snow, and last longer.3
Eventually, scientists and then cooks learned that common salt would
work as well as saltpeter. For centuries, the combination of ice and salt was
used for freezing. Even today, some home cooks use the method when
they’re making ice cream. Mixing salt with ice lowers the ice’s freezing
point, causing it to melt. As it does, heat is transferred away from the ice
cream mixture and it freezes.
Early Ices and Iced Creams / 3

When Della Porta filled his vial with wine diluted with water and turned
it in the salted snow, the result was a semifrozen, slushy wine that was a
hit at banquets. Illustrations of vials or flasks being turned in their tubs
look uncannily like later illustrations of ice cream freezers being turned in
their ice-filled tubs. A Spanish doctor practicing in Rome at the time, Blas
Villafranca, wrote that this was the new way to cool wine and water, and
that all the nobility and gentry of Rome used the method.4
In addition to slushy wine coolers, the new technique made possible all
sorts of fanciful ice artistry. Cooks dipped fresh fruits in water, froze them
until their icy exteriors sparkled, and then displayed them. They set marzi-
pan boats afloat on seas of ice. They created tall pyramids of ice with fruits
and flowers frozen within them. For a dinner in Rome celebrating the feast
of the Assumption on August 15, 1623, Antonio Frugoli, a steward and au-
thor of Practica e scalcaria, made an ice pyramid with a fountain in its cen-
ter. During dinner, fragrant orange-flower water splashed over the icy
fountain for more than half an hour, according to Frugoli’s account.5 The
coolness as well as the fragrance and beauty of the centerpiece must have
charmed the guests.
Best of all, the new freezing technique made it possible for cooks and
confectioners to begin experimenting with making ices and ice creams.
“The Stomach Grows Chilled”

Not everyone took to all this iciness immediately. Dietetic beliefs were still
governed by the humoral doctrine in the early seventeenth century, and its
adherents prized moderation above all. Based on the writings of Hip-
pocrates, Aristotle, and Galen, the doctrine classified people according to
four humors or temperaments: sanguine, phlegmatic, choleric, or melan-
cholic. Each had its own characteristics and required particular foods or
food preparation methods to achieve the ideal, which was defined as a
slightly warm, slightly moist body.
Those whose dominant humor was sanguine were of a hot and moist
character, so they required cooling, drying foods. Cholerics were hot and

dry and needed cooling, moistening foods. Foods were classified as hot,
cold, dry, or moist to varying degrees, a classification that had little to do
with their physical properties. For example, strawberries were cold and dry
in the first degree, and dates were hot in the second degree and moist in
the first degree.6
Temperature was also important, since extremes of any kind were to be
avoided. Very cold foods and drinks were considered especially dangerous.
Hippocrates had written, “Cold things, such as snow and ice, are inimical
to the chest, being provocative of coughs, of discharges of blood, and of
catarrhs.”7 In the fifth century, Anthimus wrote, “The stomach grows chilled
and loses its efficacy”8 as a result of consuming cold drinks. Colic, convul-
sions, paralysis, blindness, madness, and sudden death were some of the
problems attributed to putting ice in drinks. According to French food his-
torian Jean-Louis Flandrin, the prejudice against iced drinks was based on
the belief that wine turned into blood when drunk. To avoid serious injury
it had to be drunk at body temperature.9
In addition, some believed that chilling drinks by immersing a decanter
in ice and saltpeter was dangerous because particles of saltpeter could
penetrate the decanter, get into the water or wine, and burn up the intes-
tines.10 Small wonder that, despite changing ideas about science and nu-
trition, many seventeenth-century doctors disapproved of cold drinks, not
to mention ices.
Of course, people don’t always follow their doctor’s advice today, and
many didn’t then either. Their rationalizations—everyone else does it, I
don’t do it often, I don’t use much—are familiar, too. The sixteenth-century
French essayist Michel de Montaigne was visiting Florence when he wrote,
“It is customary here to put snow into the wine glasses, I put only a little
in not being too well in body.”11 The noted seventeenth-century English di-
arist John Evelyn blamed “an Angina & soare Throat” on drinking wine
with “Snow & Ice as the manner here is” when he was staying in Padua.12
Long after humoral theory had been forgotten, some of its tenets re-
mained in popular consciousness. At the turn of the twentieth century,

famed cookbook writer and cooking school director Fannie Farmer wrote
of ices, “Hygienically speaking, they cannot be recommended for the final
course of a dinner, as cold mixtures reduce the temperature of the stomach,
thus retarding digestion until the normal temperature is again reached.”13
However, most physicians were leaving the humoral system behind by
the latter part of the seventeenth century. Chefs and diners alike were only
too happy to follow their lead. European eating habits were changing;
heavily spiced and sweetened foods were off the table, herbs and salads
were on. Wines sparkled. Sugar found its home in the dessert course.
A Sip of Sherbet
Once scientists had mastered freezing, and medicine had more or less
given its approval, creating recipes for ices and ice creams was relatively
simple. After all, cooks had for many years been making the drinks and
creams that were the precursors of ices and ice creams.
In the Middle East, drinks known as sherbets—sharâb or sharbât (Ara-
bic), sharbate (Persian), serbet (Turkish)—have been ubiquitous since me-
dieval times. European travelers encountering them for the first time often
wrote about them with great enthusiasm. Sir Thomas Herbert, who trav-
eled in Persia from 1627 to 1629, wrote, “Their liquor is sometimes fair
water, sugar, rose-water, and juice of lemons mixed, and sugar confected
with citrons, violets or other sweet flowers; and for the more delicacy, some-
times a mixture of amber; this we call sherbet.” He said sherbet was “a
drink that quenches thirst and tastes deliciously.” The Persians served
their sherbets over ice or snow in large porcelain or gold bowls and sipped
them from long-handled wooden spoons.14
A nineteenth-century English novelist, James Morier, described the
flavor of Persian sherbets as “so mixed that the sour and the sweet were
as equally balanced as the blessings and miseries of life.”15 Sour flavors
were popular in Middle Eastern sherbets, and in fact, sour Cornelian
cherries (Cornus mas) were so commonly used in Turkish sherbets that
the cherries were also called, simply, sorbet. Pomegranate, citron, lemon,

lime, and quince were also popular drink flavors in the Middle East. Eu-
ropean drink flavors included lemon, strawberry, raspberry, cherry, apri-
cot, peach, pistachio, and hazelnut. The drinks were made by blending
fruit juices and other flavorings with sugar and water, or a sugar syrup,
then chilling them with snow or ice. We make lemonade the same way
today, although ice has replaced snow. To freeze the drinks into smooth
ices requires added sugar, something cooks figured out after they had
made a few very icy ices. Eighteenth-century drink recipes often directed
the reader to double the sugar when turning a drink into an ice.
Iced sherbet drinks were also made from powders. That may sound like
a modern-day shortcut, but the use of powders is centuries old. Jean
Chardin, another seventeenth-century traveler in Persia, wrote, “In Turky
they keep them in Powder like Sugar: That of Alexandria, which is the
most esteem’d throughout this large Empire, and which they transport
from thence every where, is almost all in Powder. . . . They keep it in Pots
and Boxes; and when they would use it, they put a Spoonful of it into a
large glass of Water. It mixes of itself with the Water, without being forc’d
to stir it, as we do our Syrups, and makes a most admirable Liquor.”16
Some nineteenth-century confectioners made what they called “essences”
by combining the grated rind of a lemon or other fruit with sugar, pressing
the mixture into a stone jar, covering it, and storing for a month before using
it as a base to make ices.17 The essences may have made something like the
sherbet powder Chardin observed.18
The word sharbat appeared in Italian in the late sixteenth century as the
name of a Turkish beverage. The frozen dessert became known as sorbetto
in Italian, sorbet in French, sorbete in Spanish. The English language kept
the h and called it sherbet. Middle Eastern sherbets are still drinks, but
European and American sherbets are generally ices or ice milks.19
Iced Cream
Cooks had been making creams and custards, both simple and sophisti-
cated, since the Middle Ages. In medieval England, “cream of almonde”

was a popular dessert. Spanish cooks made a crema Catalana, which was
golden with saffron. The Italian crema della mia nonna (my grandmother’s
cream) was sweetened with honey and flavored with citron. The English
made a sage cream with red sage and rose water. They also made cabbage
cream by building up skins of cream “round and high like a cabbage.”20
The cream did not contain cabbage. It was meant to look like the vegetable,
not to taste like it.
A seventeenth-century Italian cook, Bartolomeo Stefani, made a custard
he called latte alla spagnuola, or “Spanish-style cream.” Made with milk,
cream, sugar, and eggs, it is flavored with musk, the only ingredient that
makes it seem dated. After it was cooked, Stefani heated a paddle in the fire
and used it to brown the top, which he sprinkled with sugar. It’s very like a
crème brûlée.21
Another cream dessert, popular in France and Italy in the six-
teenth and seventeenth centuries, was called neige, or “snow,” in France;
latte miele, or “whipped cream,” in Italy; and snow in England. Cooks
whipped cream, sugar, and sometimes a flavoring such as rose water or
orange flower water, scooped off the frothy puffs of faux snow, and let
them drain. As frugal as they were fanciful, the cooks put cream that
drained off back into the original mixture and rewhipped it, so as not to
waste any. After the snows had drained, they were either served immedi-
ately or set on ice to chill before serving. Occasionally they were stabi-
lized with the addition of meringue. Later frozen desserts were also
called snows.
Some creams were made with unusual (to us) ingredients such as laurel
leaves, saffron, musk, tarragon, celery, violets, and rose petals. Others are
as familiar to us as the flavors on an ice cream shop menu: caramel, lemon,
ginger, almond, strawberries, raspberries, and even crumbled cookies. Some
recipes were simple mixtures of cream, sugar, and flavorings or pureed
fruit. Others were custards, made just as they are today with cream or milk
or both, egg yolks, sugar, and a flavoring. In his 1685 work, The Accomplisht
Cook, English chef Robert May made some of his creams with egg yolks,

some with egg whites, some with whole eggs, and some, rather casually,
“with eggs, or without.”22
Often custards were baked in pies, and then as now, they were the stuff
of farce. A clown jumping into a giant custard pie and splashing the filling
on the guests was a high point of eighteenth-century English banquets. In
the early part of the twentieth century, actors hurling custard pies at each
other was the height of hilarity in American silent films.23
Most of the early creams and custards could have served as the basis for
ice creams with very little change. In fact, in the early days of freezing, cooks
gave detailed instructions on how to freeze ice cream but sketchy directions
for making the mixture, perhaps because everyone knew how to make creams
but not how to freeze them. Once they understood that, they turned their
creams into “iced creams,” as they were quite logically called at first.
Snow Wonders
Antonio Latini was one of the first to write in detail about making and
serving ices. He was the author of Lo scalco alla moderna, or The Modern Stew-
ard, a two-volume work published in 1692 and 1694,24 one of the most ex-
tensive European culinary texts published before the end of the century.
Latini, whose title reveals that he considered himself a “modern steward,”
was at the forefront of many of the culinary changes of the day: using
New World foods, promoting regional specialties, and taking advantage of
the latest scientific discoveries. When he wrote the book, Latini was the
scalco for the household of Don Stefano Carrillo Salcedo, first minister of
the Spanish viceroy in Naples. It was a position of consequence in a noble
household. As scalco, Latini was responsible for overseeing everything
from food to finances. No detail was too large or too small for his atten-
tion, from planning menus and selecting wines to directing the fanciful
folding of napkins. The scalco supervised the cooks, carvers, and other ser-
vants, selected the musicians and singers, and balanced the budget. He
planned and managed everything from royal picnics to wedding banquets.
Most important, he made sure all was carried out with panache.

Latini was an unlikely candidate for such a position. Born in a small
town called Coll’Amato in the Marche region on the east coast of Italy in
1642, he was orphaned when he was five. He had to beg for food and a
place to sleep until he found work as a servant. It was an inauspicious start
to a remarkable life.
In seventeenth-century Europe, birth was generally destiny. Most peo-
ple were poor and illiterate, and few ever traveled more than fifty miles
from their birthplace. Latini was an exception. In one home where Latini
worked, a priest who served as a cook taught him the rudiments of reading
and writing. When he was sixteen, Latini went to Rome to try to better
himself. There he worked as a cook, a waiter, and a wardrobe attendant in
the household of Cardinal Antonio Barberini, nephew of Pope Urban VIII.
Working for one of the most powerful families in one of the world’s most
sophisticated cities, Latini honed his skills. He became more literate; he
learned the duties of a cuoco (cook), trinciante (carver), and scalco. Most
important, he saw how a grand ecclesiastical household was managed.
After working for officials in Rome and Faenza, Latini went to Naples and
became the scalco for the Salcedo household in 1682.25
While working in Cardinal Barberini’s household, Latini would have
worn clerical garb since, at the time, the clothing of the staff reflected the
style of those they served. When he moved to Naples and rose to the rank
of steward, he wore elegant Spanish attire and was allowed to wear a wig.
In his book’s frontispiece portrait, Latini looks more like a king than a
cook. He sports a lace jabot and flowing robes, and his wig’s ringlets rival
those of France’s king, Louis XIV. Latini’s intense deep-set eyes, imposing
nose, and serious demeanor all convey the impression of a man of sub-
stance. To emphasize his intellect, he’s depicted holding a book; Latin in-
scriptions and ornate curlicues decorate the oval frame around him. It’s a
portrait of a man of elegance and erudition.
In his book, Latini described the duties of a cuoco, trinciante, and scalco
in detail. He devoted several pages to the many responsibilities of a scalco
and stressed that he owed complete loyalty to his master. He wrote that

a cuoco should be good and faithful and not overly fond of drink. He ex-
plained how a trinciante was supposed to carve all kinds of meats, fish, and
fruit. In Latini’s world, a carver not only had to be highly skilled, he had to
be a showman as well. He was expected to be able to spear a roasted bird
on a fork, hold it up in the air for the guests to see, and then, still holding
it aloft, carve it precisely.
Latini listed food specialties from each region in the Kingdom of Naples,
explained how to select fish, and noted where to find the best prosciutto,
the finest rice, and the most abundant saffron. His recipes included soups,
meats, fish dishes, pastas, sauces, drinks, and pastries. He offered multi-
course menus for banquets, weddings, and other events, even one for a trip
to watch Vesuvius erupting. Although he included a few medieval leftovers
such as sugared pasta, Lo scalco alla moderna made it clear that Latini was
embracing modern ways. In one chapter, he advocated cooking with fresh
herbs such as parsley, thyme, and mint instead of sweet spices such as cin-
namon and clove, citing the longevity of Capuchin monks as proof that
the regimen was healthy.
So thoroughly have New World foods been integrated into the Europe-
an diet that today people find it difficult to imagine Italy without tomatoes,
France without haricots verts, and Ireland without potatoes. However, it
took Europeans a long time to accept some of the new foods. Well into the
eighteenth century, people looked on potatoes with fear and contempt,
and some thought they caused leprosy.26 Jean Le Rond d’Alembert and De-
nis Diderot’s eighteenth-century Encyclopédie, ou Dictionnaire raisonné des
sciences, des arts et des métiers (1751–1780) conceded that potatoes were nu-
tritious, but suggested that they were more appropriate for peasants and
laborers than for the upper classes. The now-ubiquitous tomato was not
widely eaten in Europe until the eighteenth century, and it was not used as
a sauce for pasta until later still. Most paintings of macaroni eaters show
the pasta dressed only with cheese, and printed recipes for pasta with tomato
sauce didn’t show up until the nineteenth century.27 So, even though he
was writing two hundred years after Columbus landed in America, Latini’s

use of New World foods such as tomatoes, which he called variously
poma d’oro and pomadoro, was modern and innovative. In fact, his recipes
for tomato sauces are thought to be the first recorded in Italian. One,
which he called “Sauce in the Spanish Style,” was made with roasted and
then peeled and minced tomatoes, along with minced onions, hot chili
peppers, thyme, salt, oil, and vinegar. Latini wrote that it was a very tasty
sauce for boiled dishes or anything else, but did not suggest using it with
pasta.
Latini’s sorbetti recipes were the first published in Italian, and to this day
Italian ices and ice creams are prized. In his introduction to the section on
ices, Latini said every Neapolitan was born knowing how to make them.
He said great quantities were eaten in Naples, and they had the consis-
tency of sugar and snow. Latini explained that he was not writing for the
many Neapolitan experts, but was trying to help those who had yet to
learn how to make ices. He promised he would not give away any profes-
sional secrets, and he did not. By today’s standards, his recipes are not ex-
plicit enough to work from unless one is experienced. But they tell us what
kinds of ices were eaten in Naples at the time and, roughly, how they were
made. He also gave us nine recipes when others of the era offered no more
than one or two. In his recipes, Latini used the feminine sorbetta (singular)
and sorbette (plural) rather than today’s masculine sorbetto, sorbetti.
Here is his recipe for lemon sorbet:
PER FARE VENTI GIARE DI SORBETTA DI LIMONE

Si richiedono trè libre di Zuccaro, Sale libre trè, e mezza, tredici libre di Neve,
Limoni numero trè, quando sieno grossi, se saranno piccioli, ti regolerai a
giudizio, particolarmente nella Stagione estiva.
TO MAKE TWENTY GOBLETS OF LEMON SORBET

You need three pounds of sugar, three and a half pounds of salt, thir-
teen pounds of snow, and three lemons, if they are fat. If they are small,
you must adjust the amount according to your judgment, particularly
in summer.

Latini was writing for professionals; they would have understood that the
snow and salt were intended to go into the freezing pot, not into the sor-
bet itself. But if they weren’t familiar with the method, they would not
learn it from Latini. He didn’t offer any instructions as to cooking, freez-
ing, stirring, or timing. When he said ices had the consistency of sugar
and snow, he implied that he was making what we would call scoopable
ices rather than hard, icy ones.
The balance of sugar and liquid is critical in making ices. Use too much
sugar, and you get a thick, sweet slush that never freezes completely. Use
too little, and you get an ice so icy you can’t get a spoon through it. Al-
though it’s difficult to judge exactly, since measurements and lemons have
changed over the years, Latini’s lemon sorbet would seem to have been
tooth-achingly sweet, not very lemony, and unlikely to freeze very well. He
was making enough to fill venti giarre, or twenty goblets. A giarre was just
over six ounces, so twenty goblets would be nearly four quarts. But he
used, roughly, eight cups of sugar.28 For the same amount of sorbet, we’d
use about four cups. He used just three lemons, but how big and how juicy
were they? We’d use the juice of four or five lemons plus water to make one
quart of lemon sorbet.
Among Latini’s ices was one he called a milk sorbet. He never used the
word gelato.
SORBETTA DI LATTE
Per fare altra Sorbetta di Latte, che prima sia stato cotto, ci vorrà di Dosa
una Carrafa, e meza di Latte, meza d’acqua, trè libre di Zuccaro, oncie
sei di Cedronata, ò Cocuzzata trita; nella Neve, e nel Sale, ti regolerai, come
sopra.
MILK SORBET
To make another sorbet of milk, which first you must cook, you need a
carafe and a half of milk, half of water, three pounds of sugar, six ounces
of candied citron or pumpkin finely cut up; the snow and salt you’ll mea-
sure as above.

Latini’s carrafa was just over half a liter,29 so a carafe and a half of milk plus
a half carafe of water would be a little more than a liter of liquid, mixed
with three pounds of sugar. A mixture that sweet seems unlikely to freeze
well. And why use any water? How rich and creamy was his milk? We don’t
know. Interestingly, this was the only sorbet Latini cooked. Was this an
early ice cream or, more likely, a harbinger of ice creams to come?
When Latini was writing, chocolate was a popular hot drink in Europe.
Spanish conquistadors had first tasted it in the form of the bitter, cold
drink of the Aztecs and rejected it. But after they sweetened it, added Old
World spices like cinnamon and anise, and heated it, they adopted it as
their own. Chocolate was introduced to Spain during the late sixteenth
century, initially as a medicine. It traveled throughout Europe, in the words
of Sophie and Michael Coe, authors of The True History of Chocolate, “from
one court to another, from noble house to noble house, from monastery to
monastery.”30 It was made in special chocolate pots, mixed not only with
sugar and cinnamon but also with chili peppers, almonds, honey, milk,
eggs, musk, bread crumbs, and ground maize. Finally, it was whisked into
a froth with a grooved wooden beater called a molinillo. In the early seven-
teenth century, hot chocolate became a fashionable drink at the Spanish
court. Royals and their guests sipped their chocolate from porcelain cups
on saucers garnished with gold. They drank it first thing in the morning
and in the afternoon, at court and at bullfights, and they dunked their bis-
cuits into it.
Making ices with chocolate was an innovation, and Latini had two
recipes. The first was frozen in tablets or bricks, which, he said, required
more salt and snow to freeze. He called the second ice a chocolate mousse
and said it should be stirred constantly during the freezing process to
make it foam, then served as soon as it was frozen. This was his only com-
ment about the necessity of stirring ices, something future cooks would
emphasize.
Given the many ingredients people added to hot chocolate, it’s interest-
ing that Latini’s chocolate ice recipes simply called for chocolate and sugar.

It’s possible that he was using chocolate to which cinnamon or other spices
had already been added. Or perhaps he preferred his chocolate plain and
simple.
His cinnamon ice had the happy addition of pine nuts. Again, since he
simply listed ingredients, we don’t know exactly how he made the sorbet.
He may have stirred in the pine nuts at the last minute to add crunch, as
we would today. But it’s more likely that he steeped them in the liquid to
add flavor and then strained them out, as most recipes dictated through-
out the next century. Smooth, not chunky, was the preference in ices for
many years.
Latini was a little more explicit about some details. His recipe for straw-
berry sorbet specified that the strawberries be fresh, picked not more than
a day before, and he instructed his readers to be sure to get every bit of the
stones out of the cherries when making his sour cherry sorbet. He also had
a recipe calling for dried cherries when fresh ones were out of season.
One of his more enigmatic recipes calls for robba candita diversa,
which translates to “varied candied things,” most probably lemon, citron,
or pumpkin, as in the milk sorbet. However, although he included the
recipe among the sorbetti, he says the mixture was intended to be frozen
in the tall pyramid shapes so popular at the time; so it may have been
destined to be a glistening icy centerpiece, one of the trionfi, literally “tri-
umphs,” that decorated royal banquet tables, rather than an edible dessert.
In that case, the varied candied things could be almost anything.
Latini was as generous with his ices as he was with his recipes. At one of
his banquets, the last course included an abundance of sorbetti, and he said
that he had them served to guests and servants alike. When he made this
highly unusual gesture, perhaps he was remembering his own days as a
humble servant.
Sugar and Snow in France

Imagine Paris without coffee or cafés or sorbets. It is nearly impossible. Yet
until the mid-seventeenth century, Parisians knew coffee only as an exotic

Middle Eastern beverage; the classic Parisian café did not yet exist; and
ices were a dessert reserved for the privileged few. The three new arrivals
would soon transform life in the City of Light.
Europeans began to hear about coffee from travelers’ accounts of their
experiences in Persia, Turkey, and other Middle Eastern countries where
they first tasted the curious and bitter drink. Often they described it with
less than enthusiasm. Sir Thomas Herbert, the early-seventeenth-century
traveler, wrote of Persia:
Here be coffee-houses, which also are much resorted to, especially in the
evening. The coffee, or coho, is a black drink, or rather broth, seeing they
sip it as hot as their mouth can well suffer out of small China cups; ‘tis
made of the flower of bunny or choavaberry, steeped and well-boiled in
water; much drunk, though it please neither the eye nor taste, being
black and somewhat bitter (or rather relished like burnt crusts), more
wholesome than toothsome, yet (if it be true as they say) comforts raw
stomachs, helps digestion, expels wind, and dispels drowsiness, but of
the greater repute from a tradition they have that it was prepared by
Gabriel as a cordial for Mussulmans.31
Coffee was introduced to the French royal court in the mid-seventeenth

century, but some did not take to it initially. Madame de Sévigné,
whose letters to her daughter so brilliantly described life among French
nobility at the time, thought coffee drinking was nothing more than
a passing fad at first. Then she discovered that, with enough milk and
sugar, this “lait cafeté ou café laité” was “très jolie,” and a great consola-
tion during Lent.32
By the 1670s, coffee drinking was also becoming popular with the pub-
lic. Coffee was sold by street vendors who often dressed up as turbaned
Turks, regardless of their actual country of origin, to emphasize the exotic
nature of the drink. One such vendor was a young Sicilian named
Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli. He was employed by an Armenian man
known as Pascal, who sold coffee in a stall at the popular Saint Germain

Fair in the heart of Paris. When Pascal decided to go to London to seek his
fortune, Procope, as he became known, took over the stall. Later, he joined
the guild of distillateurs-limonadiers and opened a small café on the Rue de
Tournon. In 1686, he moved to the Rue des Fossés-Saint-Germain and
opened the café called Le Procope. Although at the time Parisians could buy
coffee at the fairs, from street vendors, and in a handful of dark and dank
shops, there were few fashionable public places in which to enjoy the new
drink. Procope’s café boasted glittering crystal chandeliers, marble-topped
tables, and shimmering mirrors and was, by all accounts, dazzling. It set
the standard for all that followed.
Just a year after Le Procope opened, the Comédie Française moved
in across the street. (The street name was later changed to the Rue de
l’Ancienne-Comédie.) The café soon attracted writers, actors, and other
artists, as well as audiences from the theater. Procope served coffee, choco-
late, liqueurs, and ices. Although he did not introduce them to Paris, Pro-
cope made ices popular when he gave fashionable Parisians a setting in
which to enjoy them.33 Later, leading intellectuals of the Enlightenment,
including Jean-Jacques Rousseau, Denis Diderot, and Voltaire, made Café
Procope their headquarters. When he was in Paris, Benjamin Franklin was
another of its habitués. Voltaire set one of his plays, L’Écossaise, in a café
modeled on Café Procope.34 Perhaps inspired by the ice cream he enjoyed
there, he is credited with having said, “Ice cream is exquisite. What a pity it
isn’t illegal.”
In 1692, the same year the first volume of Lo scalco alla moderna was
published in Naples, La maison réglée was published in Paris. Written by
Nicolas Audiger, it is a book about running what he called a household of
quality. Audiger was writing toward the end of a long career as a confec-
tioner, distiller, and maître d’hôtel, a position that corresponded to that
of a scalco. When he had started working, more than thirty years earlier,
France was becoming the culinary epicenter of Europe.
Over the years, Audiger served many of the members of the court of
Louis XIV. He worked as a confectioner and liqueuriste for one of the Sun

King’s favorites, the Comtesse de Soissons. He worked for the king’s chief
minister, Colbert, and for Colbert’s son-in-law, the Comte de Saint-Aignan.
Audiger helped prepare festivities at Versailles, Chantilly, and other royal
settings. Eventually he opened a shop as a confectioner and distillateur at
the Place de Palais Royal, and often provided refreshments, including eaux
glacées, or ices, for royal feasts.
Audiger wrote that, early in his career, he went to Italy to learn how to
make “en perfection” the ices, as well as liqueurs and other drinks that
later became so fashionable in Paris.35 He said that, although he was expe-
rienced in French confectionery and distillation and had traveled in Spain,
Holland, and Germany, it was only in Italy that he could perfect his skills.
He learned how to make chocolate, tea, and coffee there, and claimed that
he helped introduce them to France. By the time he wrote his book, they
were all very well known in Paris, but perhaps he was one of those who had
helped to popularize them.
Audiger spent fourteen months in Italy, and after he returned to France,
he tried—ceaselessly and unsuccessfully—to have the king give him the
exclusive right to produce and sell the liqueurs of Italy in France. As he tells
the story in his book, Audiger was on his way back to France in January
1660 when he happened upon some early peas growing in Genoa.36 He
says that he had them gathered up and packaged in a box along with some
rosebuds, and took them back to France. He presented them to the king,
who was impressed with their freshness and flavor and offered Audiger a
monetary reward for the out-of-season treat. Audiger turned it down. He
wanted, instead, the monopoly on producing the Italian drinks. The king
and various court officials smiled on Audiger, but never granted him his
request. He describes his quest in some detail in his book and seems never
to have come to terms with his disappointment. He was furious when a
guild of liqueur makers was established and people who, in Audiger’s
opinion, knew nothing of the craft were allowed to buy their masterships
without undergoing a test of their skills. Procope may have been one of
those who inspired Audiger’s scorn.

La maison réglée, however, is a much greater legacy—if not so profitable
at the time—than the liqueur monopoly would have been. In the book,
Audiger described in detail how a noble household should be run. He dis-
cussed staffing, shopping, budgeting, menu planning, and table setting.
He described the responsibilities of each member of the staff, including
the maître d’hôtel and the redundantly titled officier d’office, both positions
he himself had held. The development of haute cuisine brought about a
division of kitchen labor in large noble households that would later be re-
flected in grand restaurants, and Audiger described the way it was orga-
nized. The large kitchen, or cuisine, was where most foods were prepared.
This was the domain of the head cook, called the écuyer or officier de cuisine;
the roastcook, or rôtisseur; and their assistants and aides. A smaller, cold
kitchen was known as the office and was presided over by the officier d’office.
He and his assistants made salads, pastries, liqueurs, jams, syrups, marzi-
pan, and candy. They were responsible for the wine cellar, the silver, and
the linens. When coffee, tea, and hot chocolate became chic, the officiers
learned how to make and serve them. And when ice cream came along, it,
too, was in their purview.37
In the section of his book devoted to making liqueurs and waters “à la
mode d’Italie,” Audiger gave instructions for distilling liquors and for
making the nonalcoholic drinks called waters. His flavors included orange
flower, lemon, strawberry, currant, raspberry, cherry, apricot, peach, pear,
almond, pomegranate, verjus (literally “green juice,” the sour juice of un-
ripe grapes that is still used in place of lemon juice or vinegar), pine nut,
pistachio, hazelnut, cinnamon, coriander, chervil, and fennel. The word
sorbet was not yet in common use. Audiger used the phrase sorbec de levant,
which would seem to refer to the Middle Eastern origin of sherbets. His
book did not include any recipes specifically for ices. Instead, he wrote
that, to freeze any of the waters into ices, one should double the sugar and
increase the fruits, flowers, or seeds by half in order to make the taste stand
up to the cold. Freezing does make flavors come through less strongly, and
experienced cooks know mixtures should taste a little too strong when

they’re warm if they are to have enough flavor when frozen. Here is Audi-
ger’s lemonade:
POUR FAIRE DE BONNE LIMONADE
Sur une pinte d’eau metez trois jus de citron,38 sept ou huit zestes, et si les
citrons sont gros et bien à jus il n’en faut que deux, avec un quarteron de
sucre ou tout au plus cinq onces. Lorsque le sucre est fondu et le tout bien
incorporé, vous le passerez à la chausse, le ferez rafraicir et le donnerez
à boire.
TO MAKE GOOD LEMONADE
Add the juice of three lemons to a pint of water, along with seven or eight
zests, and if the lemons are fat and full of juice, you’ll only need two, with
a quarter pound of sugar, or at most five ounces. When the sugar has dis-
solved and is completely incorporated, strain it, chill it and offer it to
drink.
To turn it into a lemon sorbet, Audiger would have us double the sugar to
about ten ounces. Weighing sugar with a simple kitchen scale, that’s about
one and a third cups of sugar. So Audiger’s sorbet was sweet but probably
not as sweet as Latini’s. He also added lemon zests, which Latini didn’t
mention, so Audiger’s would have had more flavor.
Unlike Latini, Audiger gave us lengthy freezing instructions. He said
that the waters should be put in containers, covered, and placed in a large
tub at one finger’s distance from each other. Then he filled the tub with
ice that had been crushed well and mixed with salt. He explained that
the containers had to be completely covered with ice and the tub had to
be full. After letting the containers sit for half to three- quarters of an
hour, he opened them and mixed the contents with a spoon. Then, be-
ing careful not to let any of the salted ice get into the containers, he re-
covered them and piled the ice back around and over them. Audiger
instructed his readers to use a tub with a hole cut in the bottom and to
supply it with a plug to let the melting water drain out from time to
time.

Freezing ices was a chilly, laborious task; but neither Latini nor Audiger
discussed that aspect of sorbet making. Having servants or apprentices to
do the grunt work made it much lighter.
Audiger emphasized the importance of stirring the ices as they froze so
their texture would be more like snow than ice. They would also taste bet-
ter, he said, since otherwise the sugar would settle on the sides and bottom
of the container, and the sorbet would be weak and watery. Except for his
frozen chocolate mousse, Latini didn’t mention stirring. Despite their very
different recipes, both Latini and Audiger wanted sorbet to have the con-
sistency of snow.
Audiger had just one recipe for ice cream:
POUR FAIRE DE LA CRÈME GLACÉE
Prenez une chopine de lait, un demi-setier de bonne crème douce, ou bien trois
poissons, avec six ou sept onces de sucre et une demi-cueillerée d’eau de fleur
d’orange, puis la mettrez dans un vaisseau de fer blanc, de terre ou autre pour la
faire glacer.
TO MAKE ICE CREAM
Take a chopine of milk with a demi-setier, or three poissons, of good sweet
cream, with six or seven ounces of sugar and a half spoonful of orange
flower water, then put it in a container of lead, terra cotta, or other mate-
rial to freeze.39
A chopine was sixteen ounces, and a demi-setier or three poissons, about

eight ounces.40 Audiger used more milk than cream (but how thick and
rich were his milk and cream?), and a little more than a cup of sugar to
make less than one quart of ice cream. Today, most recipes for a quart of
ice cream call for from one-half to one cup of sugar. So Audiger’s was on
the sweet side but not achingly so. If he cooked the mixture, he didn’t
tell us.
Audiger made ice pyramids for centerpieces just as Latini did. But un-
like Latini, he gave us explicit directions for making one. He said he
filled a lead mold with fruits or flowers, which he selected carefully and

arranged delicately so that the largest would be at the bottom and the
tiniest at the top. He filled the mold with water and surrounded it
with salted ice until it was frozen. Just before serving, he unmolded the
pyramid by rubbing the outside of the mold with a cloth dipped in boil-
ing water. Then he placed the pyramid on a platter and surrounded it
with individual goblets of eaux glacées. This made a beautiful presenta-
tion on a table of consequence, Audiger noted. The spectacular ice pyra-
mid would also have given the dessert ices arranged around it more
prominence.
The great French chef François Pierre de La Varenne did not have
any recipes for ices or ice creams in his 1651 masterwork, Le vrai cuisinier
françois. But in Le nouveau confiturier, a supplement to a later edition at-
tributed to him, he included two recipes for frozen neiges. The first, for
neige de fleurs d’orange, “orange flower snow,” is very like Audiger’s crème
glacée, except that it called for cream, not milk, and that he used fresh or-
ange flowers when they were available, and a combination of candied
orange flowers and orange flower water when they were not.41 The other
recipe, for neige de coriante, “coriander snow,” is actually an ice. In both
cases, measurements were less than precise. The first recipe called for
sweet cream, no amount specified; two handfuls of sugar; a bed of ice;
handfuls of salt. The second recipe called for two handfuls of coriander,
some water, and a handful or two of sugar as well as the juice and peel of
a lemon.
However, the freezing instructions were specific. The author said the
containers should not touch; they should be a finger’s width apart, just as
Audiger instructed. Rather than stirring the mixture, he shook the ice
cream container from time to time so that the ice cream wouldn’t freeze
into a solid lump of ice. Like Latini and Audiger, he was aiming for the
consistency of snow—hence the name he gives his recipes—rather than
that of ice. He also stated rather emphatically that the ice cream would be
ready in two hours.42 Limiting the freezing time may have also served as a
way to keep it from freezing too hard.

English Creams
One ice cream recipe written in English predates those above. Called an
“icy cream,” it appeared in an unpublished manuscript cookbook by Lady
Anne Fanshawe, the wife of Sir Richard Fanshawe, who was ambassador
to Portugal and then to Spain during the Restoration. The manuscript is
dated 1651–78, and the ice cream recipe is in the section that was written
around 1665–66. Lady Fanshawe returned to England from Madrid in
1666, after the death of her husband. Perhaps she discovered the recipe
in Spain.
TO MAKE ICY CREAM

Take three pints of the best cream, boyle it with a blade of Mace, or else
perfume it with orang flowerwater or Ambergreece, sweeten the cream,
with sugar let it stand till it is quite cold, then put it into Boxes, either of
Silver or tinn then take, Ice chopped into small peeces and putt it into a
tub and set the Boxes in the ice covering them all over, and let them
stand in the Ice two hours, and the Cream Will come to be Ice in the
Boxes, then turne them out into a salver with some of the same Seasoned
Cream, so serve it up at the Table.43
There is just one problem with Fanshawe’s recipe. Without salt, the ice would
not freeze the ice cream. Did she forget to put the salt in the instructions,
but remember it when she had her servants make the ice cream? Did she
receive a faulty recipe from someone without realizing what was wrong? Did
she ever have the ice cream made according to the recipe? We don’t know.
There are similarities among these recipes. Fanshawe, like Latini, called for
cooking the cream (or milk, in Latini’s case). She, Audiger, and La Varenne
all flavored their ice creams with orange flower water. It was the vanilla of
its day. Used frequently in Middle Eastern cookery, orange flower water is
still available, and a small amount adds a lovely flavor to ice cream.
The recipe considered the first published ice cream recipe in English
appeared much later. It was in Mrs. Mary Eales’s Receipts, a book on

confectionery and pastry which was published in 1718. Mrs. Eales,
who is identified as “Confectioner to her late Majesty Queen Anne” on
the title page of the book, was specific about freezing techniques, but
at first reading seems rather cavalier about her mixture.
TO ICE CREAM
Take Tin Ice-Pots, fill them with any Sort of Cream you like, either plain
or sweeten’d, or Fruit in it; shut your Pots very close; to fix Pots you must
allow eighteen or twenty Pound of Ice, breaking the Ice very small; there
will be some great Pieces, which lay at the Bottom and Top: You must
have a Pail, and lay some straw at the Bottom, then lay in your Ice, and
put in amongst it a Pound of Bay-Salt; set in your Pots of Cream, and lay
Ice and Salt between every Pot, that they may not touch; but the Ice must
lie round them on every Side; lay a good deal of Ice on the Top, cover the
Pail with Straw, set it in a Cellar where no Sun or Light comes, it will be
froze in four Hours, but it may stand longer; than take it out just as you
use it; hold it in your Hand and it will flip out. When you wou’d freeze
any Sort of Fruit, either Cherries, Raspberries, Currants, or Strawberries,
fill your Tin-Pots with the Fruit, but as hollow as you can; put to them
Lemmonade, made with Spring-Water and Lemmon-Juice sweeten’d; put
enough in the Pots to make the Fruit hang together, and put them in Ice
as you do Cream.44
However, when Mrs. Eales said “any Sort of Cream you like,” she may have
been referring to her recipes for nonfrozen creams, which immediately pre-
cede the freezing instructions. They included creams flavored with mace
and lemon, with chocolate, and with almonds. She also had a recipe for
trout cream, but, happily, it was named for the basket it was shaped in, not
for an ingredient. Her cream recipes did lack specific amounts. She simply
said to sweeten the cream “as you like it.” But someone who was skilled at
making creams could turn hers into ice creams by following her freezing
instructions.
Finally the stars were aligned. New World ingredients had made their
debut. Science had discovered the secret of freezing. Medical opinion

had come around. And cooks were embracing the chance to innovate.
Latini’s “sorbetta,” Audiger’s “crème glacée,” La Varenne’s “neiges,” Lady
Fanshawe’s “Icy Cream,” and Mrs. Eales’s “Cream” were just the begin-
ning. At the turn of the eighteenth century, people were poised to create
and enjoy all sorts of splendid ices and ice creams.

two
Crème de la Cream
During the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, France set the style in
upper-class European dining and in the making of ices and ice creams. In
fact, the first book completely dedicated to ice cream was written by a
Frenchman, Monsieur (first name unknown) Emy, and published in Paris
in 1768. French cookbooks were being translated and distributed in Eng-
land, Holland, Denmark, Sweden, and Italy. Traveling chefs were dissemi-
nating the French culinary repertoire. Employing a French cook was the
height of fashion, and well-to-do families in England, Russia, and Italy
vied for them. In Sicily, they were called monzu, a word derived from mon-
sieur. Although revolution and upheaval lay ahead on the political front,
the empire of French haute cuisine was growing, and its influence was ex-
panding.
François Massialot was one of the most influential French chefs of the
time. Born in 1660, he cooked for many of France’s nobles and was the au-
thor of Le cuisinier roïal et bourgeois and Nouvelle instruction pour les confi-
tures, les liqueurs, et les fruits, both of which were updated and reissued
several times. His combined works were translated into English and pub-
lished as The Court and Country Cook in 1702, and Le cuisinier roïal et bour-
geois was translated into Italian in 1741. Clearly, he was a man of some
importance.
Yet, like everyone else, Massialot had to contend with the realities of ice
cream making. It was still a difficult and laborious process. Nearly every
ingredient that was needed presented a problem of one kind or another.
The ice business was not yet widely established, so obtaining and storing
26
ice was still expensive. Salt was costly. Sugar had to be purified before it
was used. In an era without refrigeration, milk and cream often curdled
and eggs were not always fresh. Cooks like Massialot stressed the impor-
tance of tasting ingredients such as cream to make sure they were still
fresh before pouring them into a mixture and ruining it. Since the water
supply was also of concern, Massialot noted that the water should come
from a spring or a river and be very clear. In addition, the utensils used for
making ices had not changed in any appreciable way since Latini’s and
Audiger’s time.
Confectioners also had to be frugal. In explaining the process of freez-
ing ices, Massialot wrote, “You’ll find this expensive because of the salt.”
Until modern times, common salt was not so common. The gabelle, or
salt tax, was one of the most hated and inequitable taxes in France.1 The
gabelle’s greatest burden fell to the peasants, but even an elite confectioner
like Massialot could not afford to waste salt. He recommended that, after
making ices, confectioners should collect the water from the melted ice
and boil it to reclaim the dissolved salt. He said that the salt could be used
several more times by repeating the process each time they made ice cream.
Years later, the Italian government’s monopolistic salt policy, too, turned
this basic necessity into an expensive luxury. In 1891, in the first cookbook
written in Italian for the home cook, the monumental La scienza in cucina e
l’arte di mangiar bene (translated into English as Science in the Kitchen and
the Art of Eating Well), author Pellegrino Artusi wrote in his introduction to
making ice creams: “To save money you can re-use the salt by drying it out
on the fire, thus evaporating the water that had resulted from the freezing
process.”2
The 1716 edition of Massialot’s Nouvelle instruction began, as so many
other books of confectionery would in years to come, with a chapter on
sugar: how to select it, clarify it, and cook it to the different stages re-
quired for different types of confections. When Massialot was writing,
sugar was becoming more available and affordable as a result of the use
of slave labor on plantations in the French Caribbean colonies. However,
Crème de la Cream / 27
it was sold in solid loaves that had to be crushed; and it contained impu-
rities, so it had to be clarified before being used. Massialot recommended
choosing the whitest and most beautiful sugar possible because it would
be easier to work with than brown sugar. But, he pointed out, even the
whitest and cleanest sugars still had to be clarified. The techniques he
used to clarify sugar were typical. He suggested two different methods. In
the first he crushed one or more eggs, shell and all, into a pot of water and
whipped the liquid with birch branches before pouring it onto the sugar.
The mixture was then put on the fire and heated to boiling. He stirred
and skimmed the mixture continuously, adding water when needed to
keep it from boiling over, until the foam at the top was no longer black
and dirty, but white. The protein in the egg would attract impurities, so
they could be skimmed off the surface of the mixture. Then he took the
pot off the fire and strained the mixture through a wet white napkin.
Again, being thrifty, he wrote that if one had clarified a large quantity, the
residue of scum and sugar could be put back on the fire with some water
and reclarified to recover a little more sugar.
His second method called for dissolving the sugar in water, adding
beaten egg whites, and cooking the mixture. When it came to a boil, he
added a little cold water to make it settle down, then repeated the pro-
cess. After that, he took it off the fire and let it rest for about a quarter of
an hour. He said a black crust would form on the top, which should be
skimmed off carefully, and then the mixture should be strained. He said
this technique resulted in sugar that was not as clear or as white as the
first, but it was good for making jams. The same technique is still used to
clarify stocks when making consommé or other clear soups.
Massialot then described cuisson du sucre, or sugar cooking, which he
called the foundation of the art of candying. Although thermometers did
exist at the time, it would be years before cooks and confectioners had them
in their kitchens. Nevertheless, they cooked sugar to eight or more different
syrup strengths, or stages, using a variety of methods to judge them. Mas-
28 / Crème de la Cream
sialot listed six stages plus a greater or lesser version of each. They included
the lissé, or “thread”; perlé, “pearl”; soufflé, “blow”; plume, “feather”; cassé,
“crack”; and caramel.3 Other cooks listed even more, one of which was called
the queue de cochon, or “pigtail,” which came after perlé. Yet another was
manus Christi, or “Christ’s hand”; the name is thought to have come from
the hand gesture used to test the syrup, which was considered similar to
that used in the blessing of the Host and chalice during a Mass.4
To test for the lissé stage, Massialot dipped the tip of his second finger
into the hot sugar syrup, then touched his finger to his thumb and drew
the two digits apart. If the syrup was at the petit lissé stage, it would make a
little thread and break. At the grand lissé stage, the thread would be thicker
and stretch farther before breaking. It is no coincidence that, in addition
to the first meaning, “cooking,” the word cuisson also means a “burning
sensation.”
Despite Massialot’s details on sugar cooking, he did not make a sugar
syrup for his ices. He simply flavored water with fruit, flowers, or choco-
late, then stirred in some sugar. In general, sorbets turn out better when
they’re made with a sugar syrup because all the sugar dissolves as it’s
cooked with water. When it’s simply mixed into cold water or fruit juice,
some of it may fail to dissolve, making the mixture less sweet, and often
gritty and icy. Massialot also used more water than we would today. He did
explain that the mixtures had to be stirred from time to time while they
were freezing. But even when churned with a modern ice cream maker, his
eau de framboise glacé, or “raspberry water ice,” is thinner and icier than to-
day’s sorbets. Here is his recipe:
EAU DE FRAMBOISES
Prenez un livre de Framboises bien mûres, mettez-les dans une terrine;
écrasez-les & y mettez une pinte d’eau fraîche avec une demi-livre de sucre, &
vous les laisserez infuser une demi-heure; vous les passerez à la chausse, & la
mettrez glacer comme les autres.5
RASPBERRY WATER
Take a pound of very ripe raspberries and put them in a terrine. Crush
them and add a pint of fresh water, as well as a half pound of sugar. Let
them infuse for half an hour, pass them through a strainer, and ice them
like the others.
In his 1768 book, Emy said the earlier ices, which he called fruits glacés, had
been made with a lot of water, a little fruit, and uncooked sugar; and they
were icy. He stressed the importance of clarifying the sugar and cooking it
to a syrup, generally to the lissé stage, and said the result would be lush,
soft ices rather than icy ones.
Dites Fromage
The vocabulary of ices and ice creams evolved over time. Latini called all of
his sorbette. Audiger called his ice cream crème glacé; his ices were sorbec de
levant. Subsequently, the French used words such as eaux glacés, fruits
glacés, or the simple glace for ices. The word sorbet was not used until the
eighteenth century, when sorbets were more apt to be called sorbets glacés.
The 1767 edition of the Dictionnaire portatif de cuisine, d’office, et de distilla-
tion used the word glace. Although the utensil used for making ices is often
referred to as a sorbetière, the Dictionnaire portatif used two other spellings:
salbotiere and sarbotiere. Emy called it a sarbotiere. The Italians generally
used the word sorbetto for both ices and ice creams into the nineteenth
century. Artusi, whose book was published in 1891, used gelato for both
ices and ice creams. The most common French names for ice creams were
crèmes glacés, neiges, fromages glacés, and mousses.
Massialot called his ice creams fromages glacés, or “frozen cheeses,” al-
though they were not cheeses. The first recipe was a combination of milk,
cream, lemon zest, and sugar. It was cooked, cooled, and then frozen in a
mold. The second, which he titled “Autre Fromage glacé,” called for cream,
a little curdled cheese, orange flower water, and sugar. This one was not
cooked, although he said that in winter it should be. Massialot specified
the amounts of the milk and cream but left the amount of sugar up to the
cook. He simply suggested using a “reasonable” or “sufficient” amount.
He said the flavors could be varied according to season and suggested
using strawberry, raspberry, or fresh orange flowers in summer; and cinna-
mon, chocolate, lemon, or essence of bergamot during the winter months.
The fromages glacés were preceded and followed in his book by recipes for
fresh cheeses. Amid them all, there is the recipe “Fromage à l’Anglois.”
This seems to be the first printed ice cream recipe that calls for egg yolks. It
is basically a crème anglaise, that is, a custard. Here is his recipe:
FROMAGE À L’ANGLOIS
Prenez une chopine de Crême douce, & chopine de lait, demi-livre du Sucre en
poudre; y delayer trois jaunes d’oeufs, & faire boüillir jusqu’à ce que cela soit en
petite boüillie; le descendre du feu, & le verser dans vôtre moule à glace, & le
mettre à la glace l’espace de trois heures; & lorsqu’il sera ferme, vous retirerez
le moule, & le chaufferez un peu, afin de tirer vôtre Fromage plus facilement; ou
bien vous mettrez le moule un moment dans l’eau chaude; ensuite servez-le dans
un Compotier.6
ENGLISH CHEESE
Take a pint of sweet cream, one of milk, and a half a pound of finely sifted
sugar, mix in three egg yolks, and heat it until the mixture is barely at a
boil. Take it off the fire and pour it into your ice cream mold. Put the mix-
ture on ice for three hours, and when it becomes firm, take out the mold
and warm it up a little in order to turn out your Fromage more easily, or
put the mold in hot water for a few seconds. Serve in a compote dish.
The mixture itself would make an acceptable ice cream, apart from the fact
that there is no added flavor, so it would be rather bland. But he did not
call for churning it as it froze, so the texture would not have been as
creamy as we would wish.
Why did he call these fromages, or “cheeses”? An early-nineteenth-century
British traveler thought Parisians used the word indiscriminately. He wrote,
“Fromage or cheese is a lax term at Paris for any substance compressed.
Thus a fromage d’Italie is a Bologna sausage, a fromage glacé is a kind of
ice, &c.”7 Compression, or molding, seems to be the only thing the many ice
creams called fromages glacés have in common. Despite frequent suggestions
that the word fromage was used when the mixture contained more eggs than
a glace, and glace was used when it contained fewer or none, the usage was
contradictory. Massialot was typical. His fromage à l’Anglois was made with
eggs, but his other fromages glacés were not.
Emy said the word fromage was used when the ice creams were molded
into the shape of rounds or wedges of cheese. In fact, nearly all of his ice
cream recipes close by explaining that one could mold the ice cream in
different containers, including cheese molds, in which case it would be
called fromage glacé. He called most of his ice creams glace de crême plus a
flavor—for example, glace de crême à la vanille or glace de crême aux fraises.
He said that, when an ice cream was put in a cheese mold, its name would
be fromage plus the flavor. An ice cream made with pineapple and molded
into a cheese shape would be called fromage d’ananas. But Massialot did
not specify the shape of his molds, and other confectioners filled an as-
sortment of molds with ice creams called fromages. The French chef d’office
Joseph Gilliers, a contemporary of Emy and author of Le Cannameliste
français, filled an asparagus mold with his fromage à l’italienne, for the
white part of the stalks, and his fromage de pistaches for the green. He said
the same mixtures, which he called liqueurs, could be used in an artichoke
mold. Gilliers also made a fromage glacé with fromage. His fromage de parme-
san was made with fresh cream, grated cheese, and sugar and flavored
with coriander, cinnamon, and clove. It was cooked, churned, and frozen
in a mold shaped like a wedge of Parmesan cheese. After turning it out
of the mold, Gilliers used a little burnt sugar on top to simulate the
browned rind of the cheese.
Another French cook, François Menon, also used the term fromage glacé.
In the 1767 translation of Les soupers de la cour, called The Art of Modern
Cookery Displayed, he included directions for making “Fromage à la Crême
glacé. Iced Cream-cheese.” Menon called for the mixture to be “moulded
like a Cheese, which gives it the Name.” He didn’t specify what kind of
mold he used for his “Fromage à la Chantilly glacé. From the Name of the
Place where made.” After turning it out of the mold, he topped it with fla-
vored whipped cream “raised as high as possible,” so perhaps Menon
should be credited with creating the prototype for sundaes with whipped
cream on top. His “Fromage de Beurre glacé. As iced Butter” was most un-
usual. It was made with cream and a dozen egg yolks and flavored with
lemon peel and orange flower water. But it contained no sugar. It was
frozen like the other ice creams; and then the reader was to “ice it in such a
Manner, that you may take it with a Spoon, to serve like Pats of Butter
stamped, and Bits of clean Ice between, to appear as Crystals.”8
The Art of Ice Cream

The names were still evolving, but the techniques for making frozen
desserts had reached new heights by the time Emy wrote his book. This is
the book’s title:
L’Art de Bien Faire les Glaces d’Office; ou Les Vrais Principes Pour
congeler tous les Rafraichissemens. La manière de préparer toutes sortes de
Compositions, la façon de les faire prendre, d’en former des Fruits, Cannelons,
& toutes sortes de Fromages.
Le tout expliqué avec précision selon l’usage actuel.
Avec un traité sur les mousses. Ouvrage très-utile à ceux qui font des Glaces ou
Fromages glacés.
Par M. Emy, Officier.
The title translates as:

The art of making ices for the office; or the real principles behind
freezing all kinds of cold treats. The way to prepare all sorts of mixtures,
how to mold them into the shape of fruits, cannelons and many cheeses.
All explained precisely and according to present usage. Along with
a treatise on mousses. This work is very useful for all those who make
ices and ice creams. By M. Emy, Officier.9
Emy’s book was published in 1768. In his introduction, he said that,
although in earlier years ices and ice creams had graced the finest tables,
they were not very good. Echoing Latini and Audiger, he believed the
texture of ices should be like snow. Declaring that his own ices were
“parfaites,” Emy promised that, if the reader paid attention and read
carefully, he too could, in very little time, achieve perfection.
Until this point, recipes for ices and ice creams were few and often
seemed like works in process. Emy’s book brims with confidence. He knew
exactly what he was doing, having done it many times before, and he
was ready to share his knowledge with others. According to the title
page, Emy was an officier, and as such would have been in charge of the of-
fice. Gilliers and some others used the title chef d’office rather than the
repetitive officier d’office. Since prerevolutionary France was essentially pre-
restaurant France, it is likely that Emy worked for a large household, per-
haps for a member of the aristocracy. He said he was writing for other
officiers and for limonadiers, in other words, for professionals. No doubt he
was responsible for teaching apprentices, since his writing was always in-
structive, and he often anticipated and answered questions as if he had
been asked them many times before.
We do not know much about Emy. We do not know the date or place of
his birth or even his first name. We don’t know anything about his family,
his education, or his marital status. We don’t know whether he was tall or
short, slender or stout. However, we do know he was a wonderfully tal-
ented and experienced confectioner and a man of strong opinions. Al-
though he was a perfectionist about his craft, moderation and pragmatism
were ingrained in him. He always counseled against excess and for disci-
pline.
L’Art de bien faire les glaces d’office contained recipes for ices, ice creams,
and frozen mousses in every flavor, from ambergris, the aromatic whale
secretion that played a minor culinary role well into the nineteenth cen-
tury, to verjus. But Emy’s book was much more than a recipe book; it was
a manual for ice cream makers. In it, Emy discussed the history of ices
and ice creams, the techniques used to make them, and the utensils that
were required. He stressed the importance of using the best ingredients
and offered tips on judging their quality. He explained what to do when
ices failed to freeze properly. He wrote about health issues and described
New World foods and their usage. Emy believed there was a season for
everything—even ices. He thought it imprudent to serve ices all year round,
believing they should be reserved for the spring and summer months.
They would be more precious for having desired them for six months, he
wrote, just as fresh peas and strawberries tasted sweeter when they finally
reappeared. The ice cream one made in season would taste better because
of the fruit, and because of the anticipation.
Like all good cooks, Emy was serious about his ingredients, starting
with the most basic ones—water and sugar. He called sugar “sel doux”
(sweet salt) and said it had to be well clarified and then combined with
water and cooked into a syrup to make the best ices, which he called
“precieux rafraichissemens.”10 He believed that if sugar were simply
stirred into the water or fruit juice when making ices, it might fail to dis-
solve and result in dry, sandy ices. Emy, like Massialot and others, ex-
plained how to test for the different stages of sugar syrups. But his
directions were more precise than most of the others. He recommended
cooling the syrup for two or three hours before using it with fruits such
as oranges, limes, citrons, and lemons, because hot syrup would make
the ices taste bitter. Similarly, he advised, to avoid bitterness one should
not infuse the zests of the fruits in the syrup for more than five or six
minutes.
Emy made ices and ice creams in more flavors than any of his contem-
poraries and, indeed, in many flavors seldom if ever tasted today. He used
a master recipe followed by instructions on the variations for different fla-
vors. Although his master ice cream recipe was quite simple, it covered
three and a half pages because he included advice about technique and de-
scribed the possible consequences of failing to follow his instructions
properly. Here is his recipe:
MANIERE DE PRÉPARER LA CRÊME
Il faut quatre jaunes d’oeufs pour une pinte de crême, environ un quarteron de
sucre, mettez quatre jaunes d’oeufs frais dans une poële ou poëlon, un peu de su-
cre en pain, battez le tout, mêlez ensuite la crême peu-á-peu pour délayer les
jaunes d’oeufs: tout étant ensemble, mettez sur un feu doux pour faire épaissir
cette crême sans qu’elle bouille, c’est-á-dire qu’elle ne fasse que fumer, ce qui fait
évaporer la partie séreuse qui est considérée comme de l’eau. Lorsque la crême
s’en trouve séparée, elle est bien plus grasse & délicate; faites attention de la bien
tourner avec une cuiller de bois ou d’argent, tournez également & par-tout,
parce que le jaune d’oeuf s’attache à la poële, & forme des petits grumeleaux qui
empêchent la crême de bien épaissir; & lorsqu’on la fait prendre, elle graine;
telles précautions que vous puissiez prendre après ne pourront y remédier, & la
congelation ne sera pas heureuse, parce que l’oeuf qui s’est coagulé sur le feu, se
durcit à la glace.
Tournez donc la crême, comme je le dis, jusqu’a ce qu’elle soit bien épaisse,
comme une bouillie claire; ne la laissez pas bouillir, fassiez-vous une heure
à la tourner, parce que c’est de cette premiere préparation que dépend tout
le fini.
Si le feu poussoit trop vîte, mettez de la cendre dessus, & laissez épaissir;
goûtez s’il y a assez de sucre: lorsque vous serez certain qu’elle est bien, ôtez-
la du feu, elle épaissie encore en refroidissant; passez-la dans un tamis, &
faites refroidir, remuez de tems à autre pour empêcher qu’il ne se forme une
peau épaisse dessus, & dans le fond une espece de lait clair, ce qui désunit les
parties.
Voilà en général la meilleure façon de préparer toutes sortes de crêmes
cuites; il ne faut plus que vous dire comment donner les différens goûts. Je ren-
verrai à cet Article pour éviter un nombre de répétitions qui seroient inutiles;
faites seulement attention à cet Article, pour prévenir tous inconvéniens qui
pourroient arriver à la crême: en suivant de point en point, on sera sûr de bien
réussir.11
HOW TO MAKE ICE CREAM
You will need four egg yolks for a pint of cream and about a quarter
pound of sugar. Put the four fresh egg yolks in a pot with a small loaf of
sugar, and beat, then mix in the cream little by little to dilute the egg
yolks; when it is all mixed together, put it on a low fire to thicken the
cream without letting it boil, that is to say it should barely simmer, which
makes the serous, or watery, part evaporate. When the cream has sepa-
rated, it is far more fatty and delicate; pay attention and stir it well with a
wooden or silver spoon, turn it evenly and all around, because the yolk
sticks to the pot and makes little curds that prevent the cream from
thickening well; and when it takes, it’s grainy; the precautions that you
might take afterward cannot remedy it & the freezing won’t go happily,
because the egg that has coagulated while cooking will harden while
freezing.
Stir the cream, as I’ve said, until it is thick, like a clear stew, even if it
takes you an hour, because it’s on this first step that the end result de-
pends.
If the fire heats too fast, sprinkle some cinders on it & let the cream
thicken; taste to see if it has enough sugar; when you are certain that it is
ready, take it off the fire, it will thicken more as it chills; pass through a
sieve, & chill it, stir it from time to time to prevent its forming a thick
skin on the top & a sort of clear milk on the bottom, which results in sep-
arate parts.
That is, generally, the best way to prepare all sorts of cooked creams;
all that is left is to tell you how to make the different flavors. I will refer
back to this Article to avoid a number of repetitions that would be use-
less; pay attention only to this Article, to prevent all the inconve-
niences that occur with cream: in following point by point, one will
be sure to succeed.
The recipes for specific ice cream flavors explained how much of the flavor-
ing or fruit to add, as well as when and how to add it. Emy often included
his thoughts on the fruit or flavoring, and occasionally he also commented
on the way other officiers made the creams, and whether he agreed with
them. He told his readers to taste frequently while they cooked and pointed
out that the flavors must be strong enough to stand up to the cold of ices.
He also suggested that cooks wash their mouths out between tastes so that
one flavor would not influence another.
Emy and other confectioners stored their ices and ice creams in a uten-
sil called a cave, also known as an ice safe, freezer box, freezing box, or
small icebox. Its design evolved and changed over time, but basically it was
a simple oblong box made of metal and lined with sheet iron or zinc. The
space between the two layers was filled with charcoal, sawdust, or fibers for
insulation. Available in a variety of sizes, caves had movable tin shelves to
allow for storage of either several small ice cream molds or a few tall ones,
surrounded by ice and salt. They also had holes near the bottom to allow
melted ice to drain out. Intended to keep items frozen for a couple of hours
or even overnight, provided one did not open them frequently during that
time, caves allowed confectioners to make ice creams ahead of time and
keep them frozen until it was time to unmold and serve them. They could
also unmold and decorate the ices and then place them back in the cave to
firm up before serving. Some small caves had handles, and confectioners
used them to transport ice cream to picnics and garden parties.
Not So Plain Vanilla

Vanilla was not as ubiquitous a flavor then as it is now. It came to Europe,
originally from Mexico, in the sixteenth century but wasn’t commonly
used until the mid-nineteenth century, when a method of artificial polli-
nation was developed and commercial cultivation was made possible.12 So
although Emy and his contemporaries did make vanilla ice cream—with
vanilla beans rather than extract—it would be another century before it
became the standby we know and love. Emy said vanilla had a very agree-
able flavor and was a great help to confectioners. But, he said, you must se-
lect vanilla beans that are big, fat, and healthy with a pleasant fragrance.
Warning that unscrupulous dealers often tried to pass old, dry vanilla
beans off as fresh by soaking them in oil, he said that to avoid being
tricked, one had to smell the beans. Oil-soaked beans looked fresh, he
pointed out, but were never as fragrant as fresh ones.
Emy made ice creams with cinnamon, cloves, anise, saffron, oranges
from Malta, orange flowers, and raspberries. He made an ice cream with
a spice mixture he called houacaca that was sold in Paris in powdered
form and was the color of cinnamon or Spanish tobacco. He thought it
came from Portugal, and said he had been told it was composed of cin-
namon and ambergris, and it warmed the stomach. Emy was, apparently,
the first to make glace de crême aux truffes. The truffles in the recipe are
not chocolate truffles, nor are they the bittersweet chocolate ice cream
Italians call tartufo. They are true truffles, the fungi that grow under-
ground, are hunted by pigs or dogs, and are prized for their intense,
earthy aroma and taste. Emy prefaced his recipe by saying truffles might
be white, gray, or black, and that those from Piedmont tasted like garlic.
His recipe called for a quarter pound of truffles along with his standard
cream, sugar, and egg mixture; it was made in the usual manner. He did
not comment on its flavor.
Another oddity of the era was Gilliers’s neige d’artichaux, or artichoke ice
cream. It was made with pistachios and candied orange, along with arti-
chokes, and quite probably the finished product tasted less like artichokes
than like pistachios and oranges. Almost from the beginning, confection-
ers have pushed the ice cream envelope. Vincenzo Corrado, author of Il cre-
denziere di buon gusto, published in 1778, said there was no vegetable that a
credenziere could not turn into an ice. Some confectioners seemed deter-
mined to prove him right.
Emy was meticulous about the fruits and flowers he used in his recipes.
His favorite fruit was the pineapple. He called it the king of fruits both
for its flavor, which, he said, surpassed that of any other fruit, and for its
crown of leaves, a mark of royalty. He said it was unknown (to Europe-
ans) until the seventeenth century. You could tell the fruit was ripe when
it gave off a sweet, strong scent, he explained, and it had to be used at its
peak of ripeness, because if it were kept more than three or four days, it
would lose its flavor and fragrance. He made a pineapple ice by grating
the fruit, straining it, and then mixing it with a sugar syrup and a little
lemon juice. These three in the right proportions, he wrote, made a per-
fect ice.
If the pineapple was king to Emy, the strawberry was queen, for its
delicious taste, agreeable aroma, and delicate flesh. Were it as rare as the
pineapple and as difficult to grow, said Emy, it would be more sought after
and costly, because it was not possible to eat a more perfect fruit. Although
he advised adding a little lemon juice to many of his ices to heighten their
flavor, he thought this was not a good idea with strawberries. When straw-
berries were not at their best, he said, one should add a little currant juice
instead, because it blended more gracefully with the taste of strawberries.
He topped his strawberry ice cream with more “belles fraises” (beautiful
strawberries).13
Emy often named and described different varieties of a fruit and speci-
fied which variety he preferred. He thought muscats were the only grapes
worth using for ices, but said they were difficult to find in Paris. He liked
oranges from Malta better than those of Provence because the Maltese
were sweeter. He said pomegranates from France were as tasteless as
water; those from warmer countries were superior. Because he was so par-
ticular about flavors and freshness, he often began a recipe by telling his
readers to choose the ripest nectarines, or to select some beautiful freshly
picked violets, or to choose good ripe cherries. The better your fruit or
flowers, he said, the better your ices. The fruit should not be too ripe or
too green, neither spoiled nor flawed. It is clear that many of the ingredi-
ents available at the time were not pure and fresh. Emy warned of choco-
late and nuts gone moldy, lemons that were black in the middle, sugar
that tasted dirty or old. When explaining how to make glaces de crème,
Emy said the most important thing to do was to taste the cream, espe-
cially in summer, because it was subject to souring. When in doubt, don’t
use it, he advised.
Emy made several different nut ice creams but always strained the nuts
out of the mixture after letting them infuse long enough to give it flavor, as
did most other confectioners of the time. His filbert ice cream called for
pralined filberts, that is, nuts cooked in a sugar syrup, then chopped. He
said cashew nuts were shaped like a hare’s kidney and were very good for
the stomach. He used both sweet and bitter almonds for his almond ice
cream, and made another he called glace de crême de Strasbourg with peach
stones in place of almonds. When he made cherry or apricot ices, he in-
fused the ground pits of the fruits in sugar syrup, along with the fruits
themselves, for the most intense flavor. Then he strained the mixture.
Crumbled cookies, macaroons, and even bread crumbs all found their
way into ice creams as well, but the results were strained and turned into
smooth ice creams, rather than the crunchy, chunky ones we enjoy today.
Emy was the first to make an ice cream with rye bread crumbs, but again,
after he steeped the crumbs in the mixture, he strained them out. Other
confectioners, probably following his lead, made brown bread ice cream
the same way, and it became especially popular in England. Emy did, how-
ever, suggest sprinkling dry biscuit or macaroon crumbs atop some ice
creams just before serving, so he had a bit of crunchiness in his repertoire.
Chocolate, coffee, and tea were the three important new beverages in
seventeenth-century Europe, and they were all used to make unfrozen
creams. Menon made creams with all three: “Crême de Chocolat,” “Crême
de Caffé,” and “Crême d’Herbages de ce que l’on veut,” which was trans-
lated as “With Garden-Herbs of what kind you please.”14 The herbs he
suggested were tea, aniseed, chervil, tarragon, celery, and parsley. But
these were all creams, not ice creams. It took some time before all three of
the new beverages were transformed into frozen creams and ices.
Emy made chocolate and coffee ice creams and mousses and chocolate
ices, but he didn’t use tea. He introduced his recipe “Glace de Crême au
Cacao” by explaining that cacao was the nut with which one makes choco-
late. He described four types, with different shapes and degrees of bitter-
ness and fattiness, and said all could be used to make ice cream. He said it
was necessary to understand how to distinguish among them, and that it
was important to choose large heavy ones with no green or raw taste or
mold. One bought cacao at a spice shop or from chocolate makers, either
roasted or not, according to Emy. Naturally, he included detailed instruc-
tions for roasting it.
His recipe “Glace de Crême au Cacao” was more complex than his usual
crêmes glacés. It was also unusual in its use of egg whites rather than yolks.
He started by making a glace royale, which is an icing sugar made with
stiffly beaten egg whites and sugar. It is still used in decorating cakes. Emy
mixed cream into it and cooked it slowly, stirring it carefully until it thick-
ened. Then he added two ounces of roasted cacao and cooked the mixture
in a bain marie, or warm water bath, until the flavor of the chocolate per-
meated the cream. After an hour and a half to two hours, he strained the
mixture, then chilled it and froze it. He suggested adding a little amber-
gris, cinnamon, or vanilla, and said he didn’t think it was possible to make
a better ice cream of its type.
Emy also made what he called a glace de crême au chocolat blanc, but it was
not made with white chocolate. He said it was made the same way as his
glace de crême au cacao, except that, before putting the cream on the fire, he
added a half grain of ambergris, half a vanilla bean, and two grains of cin-
namon. He said it would be “delicieux” (his italics).
His recipe for chocolate ice, “Glace de Chocolat a l’Eau,” was less com-
plicated. He simply melted some bon chocolat de santé, or “good chocolate
of health,” mixed it with sugar syrup cooked to the petit lissé stage, strained
it, and froze it. He said that if one wished, one could use chocolat à vanille
and add vanilla, clove, and lemon. He added that these made very tasty
chocolate ices; and although vanilla, clove, and lemon were warm to the
stomach, they were very good for those with cold temperaments. Accord-
ing to the 1767 Dictionnaire portatif de cuisine, chocolat de santé was made
with fewer of the warming ingredients or spices that could be harmful to
people of a warm temperament. The dictionary also reported that people
were making chocolate with an “infinity” of ingredients that its American
inventors had never imagined.
Chocolate ices dated back to Latini’s day, but coffee ices were late in
arriving. Even though ice cream had been closely associated with cafés,
apparently no one thought to use coffee as an ice cream flavoring until
the eighteenth century. Emy had two recipes, one for glace de crême au
caffé blanc, or “white coffee ice cream,” and one for glace de crême au caffé
brun, or “brown coffee ice cream.” His white coffee ice cream was made
with the glace royale like the chocolate ice creams. He steeped a quarter
pound of coffee beans in the mixture, strained them out, and froze the
ice cream. Steeping the beans and then straining them out gives ice cream
an intense coffee flavor but only a whisper of coffee color. For his brown
coffee ice cream, Emy reverted to his earlier preparation and simply fla-
vored his mixture with a quarter pound of brewed and then clarified
coffee. Gilliers also made coffee ice cream by adding strong, well-ground
coffee to his basic ice cream mixture. He did not make a white coffee
version.
The first to make a tea ice cream seems to have been Mr. Borella (first
name unknown), identified on the title page of his 1772 book, The Court
and Country Confectioner, as “head confectioner to the Spanish Ambassa-
dor in England.” The recipe follows his general instructions for judging
the proportion of eggs to cream in making cream ices:
TEA CREAM ICES
make tea very strong in a tea-pot, have your cream ready mixt with the
proper quantity of sugar and yolks of eggs, pass your cream through a
sieve, pass likewise your tea over it, mix the whole well with a spoon,
when that is done, put in it the sabotiere and make it congeal according to
the usual method.15
The Art of Compromise

Emy was a professional, and he addressed the enduring problem of all pro-
fessional cooks: how to remain true to one’s own standards and still satisfy
one’s masters or, today, customers. Although he disapproved of some ingre-
dients and techniques, he knew that officiers might be called upon to use
them, so he explained how to do so most effectively.
Emy preferred making his ice creams with cooked cream because its
water evaporated during the cooking process, and the result was an ice
cream that was fat, soft, and delicate, like un beurre glacé, “frozen butter.”
Nevertheless, he gave directions for making uncooked ice creams because
many officiers served them. If the uncooked ice cream’s color was not
changed by its flavoring, he called it a glace de crème vierge, or “virgin ice
cream.” If its color was changed, he called it a glace de crème naturelle, or
“natural ice cream.” Both could be prepared with beaten egg whites added
for a light, delicate texture, he said. The recipes repeated his earlier admo-
nitions about the problems involved in using uncooked cream and ad-
vised that, if one were to make them, one had to use very fine sugar and
make sure it was mixed in very well.
Emy and the other confectioners of the time made ices and ice creams
according to the seasons. Coffee, chocolate, cinnamon, and other spices
flavored wintertime ice creams; berries, fruits, and flowers were used in
summer, when they were fresh and perfectly ripe. But when his superiors
wanted strawberry or raspberry ice cream in the middle of winter, Emy
used preserves. Many of his fruit ice and ice cream recipes were followed
by another titled “En Hiver,” or “In Winter,” that explained how to use
marmalade made from the same fruit to approximate the taste of the ice
cream out of season. Of course, Emy would have used preserves he or his
assistants had made themselves the previous summer. when the fruit was
at its best. Surprisingly, one can make excellent ice creams with good mar-
malades and jams. The key is the quality of the preserves.
Just as he had to bow to his employers’ wishes for out-of-season ice
cream, Emy had to accommodate their desire for alcohol in their ices and
ice creams. He said it was impossible to make good ices with wines and
spirits. In fact, he wrote six pages of explanation, complete with experi-
ments, to prove that they did not freeze properly and would result in di-
luted ices. Wines were bad and spirits were worse, according to Emy.
Freezing diminished their taste, quality, and fragrance. The only possible
exceptions were maraschino liqueur; l’eau de créole, or rum; a ratifia or
cordial made with orange flowers; and muscat wine. He thought it was
better to simply drink the wines and liqueurs at a normal temperature
than to turn them into bad ices. But he said that, because he was afraid
some people would insist on having them regardless of his explanations,
he would provide instructions for doing it correctly. And he did. In an-
other section of the book, after repeating that he did not recommend the
practice, he offered several recipes using the wines and liqueurs he had
previously named. He said he did so because he wanted his book to be
useful, serving all people and all tastes. Emy knew that officiers had to
please their masters, and he wanted to help them. At the same time, he
made it very clear that his own standards were higher and flatly stated
that he would “not answer for the quality of these concoctions.”
Grand Delights and Deceptions

Eighteenth-century confectioners not only made ices and ice creams in all
sorts of flavors but also molded them into a profusion of shapes. Surviving
molds (now collectible antiques) and illustrations in early confectionery
books reveal an imaginative assortment of shapes and sizes. There are
peaches, pears, pomegranates, asparagus spears and bunches, cornichons,
crawfish, boar heads, salmon heads, whole salmon, hams, and many more.
To turn the ices out, one dipped the mold briefly in hot water. After the ice
was turned out of the mold, confectioners often put it back in the cave to
firm up, since the heat of the water softened the outer surface of the ice.
Emy said returning it to the cave also gave the ice or ice cream a faint fuzzi-
ness, which he liked because it resembled the natural texture of a fruit
such as a peach or apricot.
After ices were frozen and unmolded, they were often painted and deco-
rated. Menon wrote, “When ready to serve, have the proper Colour of the
Fruit ready, which you colour with a Pencil to imitate nature; the best
method is to have a natural one, or one properly painted for a pattern.”16
Imitating nature was important. Another confectioner instructed his read-
ers that, when preparing ice cream molded to resemble a fish, the belly had
to be a paler shade than the back. Confectioners suggested having the col-
ors ready in small pots with a light and dark version of each color at hand
for nuance, along with paintbrushes and a container of water for rinsing
them. (Some writers used the word pencil; others referred to paintbrushes;
some called them camel’s hair pencils.)
At the time, confectioners blended their own colors from a variety of
vegetable and animal sources. To make red, they blended cochineal, ex-
tracted from insects, or carmine, a pigment made with cochineal and other
ingredients, with water and a little sugar syrup. Emy explained that water
alone would soak into the ices too much. Yellow was made from gomme-
gutte, a product of the gamboge tree. Saffron was also a source of yellow
coloring. Violet for plums was made from a mixture of carmine and indigo,
a blue dye obtained from plants. Green was often made from spinach that
had been blanched and put through a sieve. This was so common that
recipes often simply called for “spinach green” without any further expla-
nation. Sometimes, instead of being painted on, color was mixed into the
ices when they were being made. Emy suggested tinting pistachio ice
cream with spinach and reassured his readers that it wouldn’t affect the
taste. Burnt sugar and chocolate were both used for brown tints. Fresh
cream or pounded, colored sugar brushed lightly over the surface of
molded peach or apricot ice cream gave them the soft, fuzzy exterior of the
natural fruits. Some confectioners painted powdered colors onto the in-
side of molds before filling them with ice cream to give the unmolded ice
cream the proper color for serving.17
Emy was of two minds when it came to painting his ices and ice creams.
On the one hand, he thought nothing offered more pleasure to the diner
than to see the ices painted in the colors nature gave the fruits from which
they were made. On the other hand, he said, some people thought the col-
ors were poisonous; and since foods should inspire desire rather than fear,
it was better not to paint them. But, again, he explained how to do so be-
cause an officier was bound to be asked to make them.
Presentation was of utmost importance to the confectioners. They tucked
real fruit leaves and stems into the tops of molded fruit ices. They arranged
orange tree branches alongside orange flower ice creams and topped pine-
apple ice with the fruit’s crown. They filled scooped-out oranges with orange
ice and called them oranges en surprise. Meringue eggs were cut in half, filled
with ice cream, and put back together. Walnut ice cream was served in walnut
shells; chestnut ice cream, in chestnut shells. Gilliers made ice cream eggs
by freezing saffron-tinted ice in small round molds; then, when they were
ready, he unmolded them and put them in the center of egg-shaped molds
filled with white ice cream and froze them again. Sliced, they would look
just like hard-cooked eggs. He colored pistachio ice cream with spinach to
imitate sorrel, and arranged the ice cream eggs on it, either whole or cut in
quarters. Confectioners also made almond paste containers in the shape of
baskets, boxes, or fruits and sent them to the table filled with ice cream.
Menon made small covered buckets out of sugar paste to be filled with ice
cream, and he suggested the form of snuff boxes might be used as well. He
wrote that “these small Dishes, although of no Consequence of themselves,
shew the Ingenuity, and Delight the Workman takes in his Business, as
those Things require a good deal of Time and Care.”18
When ice creams were not molded or spooned into fanciful containers,
they might be served in small glass dishes called tasses à glaces. Rather than
being given the rounded scoop shape we are familiar with, the ice creams
were formed into an elongated egg or oval shape with a spoon and drawn
up as high as possible into a point. Emy said serving them that way took
longer, implying they would start to melt, and it was more convenient to
have them molded.
Some of the molded ices looked so realistic that diners could be de-
ceived into thinking they were about to eat a fresh peach rather than peach
ice cream, or a spear of asparagus, not ice cream shaped like asparagus.
This dining trompe l’oeil was sometimes an intentional joke on the part of
the confectioner and sometimes an inadvertent deception. Diners’ reac-
tions to the trickery revealed much about their character. One traveler in
Sicily described such an event in a letter:
The desert [sic] consisted of a great variety of fruits, and still a greater of
ices: these were so disguised in the shapes of peaches, figs, oranges, nuts,
&c. that a person unaccustomed to ices might very easily have been taken
in, as an honest sea-officer was lately at the house of a certain minister of
your acquaintance, not less distinguished for the elegance of his table,
than the exact formality and subordination to be observed at it. After the
second course was removed, and the ices, in the shape of various fruits
and sweetmeats, advanced by way of rear-guard; one of the servants car-
ried the figure of a fine large peach to the captain, who, unacquainted
with deceit of any kind, never doubted that it was a real one; and cutting
it through the middle, in a moment had one large half of it in his mouth;
at first he long looked grave, and blew up his cheeks to give it more room;
but the violence of the cold soon getting the better of his patience, he
began to tumble it about from side to side in his mouth, his eyes rushing
out of water, till at last, able to hold no longer, he spit it out upon his
plate, exclaiming with a horrid oath, “A painted snowball, by G-d!” and
wiping away his tears with his napkin, he turned in a rage to the Italian
servant that had helped him, with a “D-n your macaroni eyes, you son of
a b—, what did you mean by that?”—The fellow, who did not under-
stand a word of it, could not forbear smiling, which still convinced the
captain the more that it was a trick; and he was just going to throw the
rest of the snowball in his face, but was prevented by one of the company;
when recovering from his passion, and thinking the object unworthy of
it, he only added in a softer tone, “Very well, neighbour, I only wish I had
you on board ship for half an hour, you should have a dozen before you
could say Jack Robinson, for all your painted cheeks.”19
On another occasion, the trickery was intentional, the skill of the confec-
tioners was appreciated, and the joke was enjoyed. Dr. John Moore, author of
A View of Society and Manners in Italy, wrote that he, along with King Ferdi-
nand IV of Naples, his wife, Queen Maria Carolina, and others paid a call on
the sisters of the San Gregorio Armeno Convent in Naples one day. The roy-
als and their entourage were surprised when they were ushered in and saw
a table covered, and every appearance of a most plentiful cold repast,

consisting of several joints of meat, hams, fowl, fish and various other
dishes. It seemed rather ill-judged to have prepared a feast of such a solid
nature immediately after dinner; for those royal visits were made in the
afternoon. The Lady Abbess, however, earnestly pressed their Majesties
to sit down, with which they complied, and their example was followed
by the Archduchess and some of the ladies; the nuns stood behind to
serve their Royal guests. The Queen chose a slice of cold turkey, which,
on being cut up, turned out a large piece of lemon ice, of the shape and
appearance of a roasted turkey. All the other dishes were ices of various
kinds, disguised under the forms of joints of meat, fish, and fowl, as
above mentioned.20
Moore reported that the guests and the nuns alike all laughed heartily at
the clever joke.
three
Ingenious Foreigners
and Others
Italians were celebrated for their ices, and, in turn, they celebrated ices.
Italian poets and novelists wrote paeans to ices. Italian confectioners and
even nuns delighted in fooling diners by sending ices to the table dis-
guised as slices of turkey, bunches of asparagus, and lush, ripe peaches. Yet
Italians did not give us the valuable printed guides to their art that French
confectioners such as Emy and Gilliers did. Just two eighteenth-century
Italian books dealt with ices, and they were written by a physician and a
Benedictine monk rather than a cook or a confectioner.
The Neapolitan physician and author Filippo Baldini wrote a treatise on
the health benefits of ices and ice creams called De sorbetti, which was first
published in 1775. The book has no recipes; rather, it is one long argument
in favor of eating ices and ice creams. Emy had discussed their health ben-
efits and drawbacks in his own judicious way in L’Art de bien faire les glaces
d’office just a few years earlier. He believed eating too much ice cream could
be a problem, but thought that if one ate slowly and prudently it would do
no harm. Emy said that overindulgence could stop perspiration and cause
colics and other illnesses, but that ices and ice creams were good for those
with a strong and nervous temperament. He often commented that a par-
ticular ice cream was good for someone with a cold stomach or that an-
other might prove warm to the stomach but could be tolerated. In his
strongest endorsement of the health value of ices, he reported that when a
tax was imposed on ice and people ate fewer ices as a result, the incidence
of common diseases went up. He attributed the increase in disease to the
decrease in the consumption of ices.
50
Baldini was much more enthusiastic about their benefits. He saw ices
and ice cream as cure-alls. The combination of sugar, salt, and cold was in-
finitely beneficial to our bodies, according to Baldini. He thought that if
the salt from the melting ice and salt mixture used in freezing got into the
ice cream, it was all to the good. As to sugar, he thought it was nearly per-
fect, and cited the example of a man who lived to be one hundred as a re-
sult of consuming large quantities of sugar every day.
Although he introduced one section of his book with the words “Sor-
betti o Gelati,” Baldini used sorbetti throughout, whether referring to
items made with milk, cream, or even butter, or those made with fruit
juices or flavored waters. He called ices made from lemons, citrons, straw-
berries, and pineapples sorbetti subacidi, since the fruits are acidic. Sorbetto
made from lemons was good for those with fevers or weakness of the
stomach, he wrote, and citron sorbetto conserved health and prolonged
life. Baldini, like Emy, was enamored of the new pineapple fruit. The sec-
ond edition of the book, published in 1784, concluded with a fifteen-page
section extolling its merits. He said that pineapple sorbetto restored vigor
and calmed fevers.
Ices made with chocolate, cinnamon, coffee, pistachios, or pine nuts
were sorbetti aromatici, or “aromatic sorbets,” according to Baldini. The
cinnamon was one of the most valuable, he said. It relieved pain, was
calming, increased perspiration, and improved circulation. It was an excel-
lent cordial, and it had proved very successful in treating many maladies.
Chocolate sorbetto was nearly as good. Baldini explained that the chocolate
used to make it consisted of cocoa, cinnamon, sugar, and vanilla, all of
which contained plenty of essential oils. As a result, ices made with choco-
late were particularly nourishing. They were an effective remedy for atro-
phy, scurvy, and the pains of gout. In addition, he said he had personally
witnessed the way chocolate sorbetto raised the spirits of hypochondriacs
and melancholics. In recent years medical studies have discovered many
health benefits in chocolate consumption. No doubt if he were alive today,
Baldini would find an enthusiastic following.
Ingenious Foreigners and Others / 51

Baldini titled the section on sorbetti made with milk “De Sorbetti Latti-
ginosi,” or “Of Milky Ices.” He differentiated between ice creams made
with milk from asses, cows, goats, and sheep and commented on the nu-
merous health benefits of them all. Asses’ milk sorbetti purified blood;
goats’ milk sorbetti were good for persistent diarrhea, hemorrhages, and
many other atrocious ailments. Cows’ milk sorbetti were excellent for a va-
riety of ills from paralysis to scurvy. In his experience, he reported, they
never failed to have a positive impact and to lessen violent symptoms. Fi-
nally, sheep’s milk sorbetti provided good nourishment to emaciated bodies
and were helpful against diarrhea, dysentery, hemorrhages, and scurvy.1
Opinion had reversed. The diseases once thought to have been caused by
ices—paralysis, dysentery, hemorrhages, scurvy—were now thought to be
cured by them.
The only Italian book of the time that specifically described the duties of
the credenziere, the equivalent of the French officier, was published in 1778. Il
credenziere di buon gusto, or The Confectioner of Good Taste, was written by
Vincenzo Corrado, a Benedictine monk who was born in Oria, a small town
in Puglia, and educated by the Celestines of the Saint Peter Monastery at
Maiella, in the Abruzzo region. After he took his vows, he traveled through-
out Italy with the padre generale, Cherubino Brancone, studying and record-
ing local culture and cuisine. He settled in Naples and wrote Il cuoco galante
(The Gallant Cook), first published anonymously in 1773. His books at-
tempted to document and elevate Italian cuisine and confectionery at a
time when they were still heavily influenced by the French.2
Il credenziere di buon gusto included a chapter on ices and ice cream,
both of which Corrado referred to as sorbetti. He did not use the word
gelato. Like Baldini, Corrado used the terms subacidi and sorbetti latticinosi
(their spellings differed). Corrado said that the latticinosi, or milk-based
sorbetti, required less sugar than the acid fruit ones. He called ices noble
frozen beverages, although it was clear that they were eaten rather than
drunk, and he said making them took a lot of practice. Like Emy, Corrado
stressed stirring the mixtures continuously so as to make a smooth ice or
52 / Ingenious Foreigners and Others

ice cream. His ice cream recipes usually specified cow’s milk and some-
times called for a combination of milk and cream. A few recipes added
butter as well, along with more eggs than Emy used. They would have
been very rich ice creams. He used a sugar syrup to make ices, as did Emy
and most other confectioners. Corrado’s ices and ice creams also included
some of the same flavors as Emy’s—coffee, chocolate, strawberry, pista-
chio, and pineapple, which he called sorbetto di ananas frutto Americano, or
“American pineapple fruit sorbet,” using the French word for pineapple
rather than the Italian, ananasso.
He also featured recipes for sorbetti that were considered typically Neapoli-
tan.3 Among them were a pomegranate ice, a jasmine ice, and sorbetto di
caroselle. He explained that the word caroselle was a Neapolitan term for
fresh fennel seeds. In addition to the crushed fennel seed, the ice was
made with lemon juice and sugar syrup. He also made sorbetto di torrone.
Torrone candies are Italian nougats made with egg whites, honey, and al-
monds. They are frequently a part of Christmas feasting, and Italian-
American children often find small boxes of them in the toes of their
Christmas stockings. Corrado replicated the flavor of torrone candies with
cow’s milk, eggs, sugar, almonds, coriander, and cinnamon water. This is
Corrado’s recipe for butter ice cream:
SORBETTO BUTIRATO
In tre libre di latte di vacca, cotto con sei gialli d’uova ci si metterà una libra di
butirro; ed una e mezza di zucchero a maturatura; e condito il tutto con acqua
di canella, si farà congelare, e mantecare.4
BUTTER ICE CREAM

Cook thirty-six ounces of cow’s milk with six egg yolks, add twelve ounces
of butter and eighteen ounces of refined sugar; flavor the mixture with
cinnamon extract, freeze and whip.5
The ice cream that results, mixed in a present-day ice cream maker rather
than whipped by hand, has a grainy, coarse texture as a result of tiny bits

of butter that remain unincorporated into the ice cream. It leaves a greasy
feel in the mouth. Made with cinnamon sticks rather than the now-
uncommon cinnamon extract, it is quite flavorful.
Cinnamon in various forms was popular among the Italians. In addi-
tion to flavoring the butter and egg ice creams with it, Corrado used it as
the main flavor of two different ices—a red cinnamon sorbetto and a
white one. He made the red by steeping crushed cinnamon in boiling
water, then straining it, adding sugar syrup, and freezing it. Just before
serving it, he added some oil of cinnamon. He made the white with a
mixture of sugar syrup, water, and cinnamon water along with several
drops of cinnamon oil. He said it had to be worked well to become
smooth and white.
His sorbetto di candito d’uova, or “sorbet of candied eggs,” may sound
more appealing if we give it the name a similar ice is known by today—
zabaglione (or zabaione) gelato, or frozen zabaglione. The original unfrozen
version of zabaglione is made by mixing egg yolks with sugar or sugar
syrup, then adding marsala wine and whisking the mixture in a double
boiler until it becomes light and foamy and increases in volume. Often
served warm for dessert, it is sometimes prepared tableside with great
fanfare in restaurants. Corrado’s frozen version called for thirty egg
yolks cooked with three pounds of sugar syrup until thickened. Then the
mixture was strained, whipped until cold, and frozen. He suggested fla-
voring it with cinnamon extract or oil of cinnamon. In the nineteenth cen-
tury, confectioners in London called a comparable preparation a bomba.
Today, frozen zabaglione is usually made with marsala or rum, and whipped
cream is often blended in to lighten the mixture.
Corrado made another whipped ice, which he called a spuma. The word
means “foam,” and the ingredients were whipped and the foam gathered
up and placed on a strainer to drain off excess moisture. Then it was frozen.
This is the same technique—minus the freezing—that had been used for
many years to make light, frothy desserts called snows or snow creams.
Corrado’s spume recipes included a frozen chocolate spuma, a frozen milk

spuma, and one he called spume varie, which he said could be made with a
variety of flavors, such as cinnamon or coffee. Spume were probably a pred-
ecessor of the ice cream now called spumone or spumoni. Today the word is
used to describe a molded ice cream dessert including two or three flavors
of ice cream, at least one of which is made with whipped cream. The
whipped cream makes for a lighter, frothier ice cream. Often cherries or
nuts are mixed into one of the flavors.
Corrado did not describe molding or decorating ices in any great detail.
He simply said that the sorbetti could be molded in pezzi, small fruit-
shaped molds, or in stracchini, larger cheese-style molds. The latter re-
quired more sugar than the former, according to Corrado. He concluded
his chapter with the comment that he had said enough about sorbetti and
would leave further discussion to the professional confectioners, those
who were so talented they could turn nearly any vegetable into a sorbet.
Ice Cream in England

Until the mid-seventeenth century, most cookbooks were written by men
for professional cooks, who were almost exclusively male. Then some,
like François Menon, began writing for women and their cooks and
housekeepers.6 But in the late seventeenth century, women began pub-
lishing cookbooks for women, both for ladies with servants and for home
cooks. Hannah Glasse, who was the author of one of the most successful
eighteenth-century English cookbooks, The Art of Cookery Made Plain
and Easy, wrote for the home cook rather than for the elite or for profes-
sionals. In her introduction she revealed her great disdain for “French
tricks,” and said it was the folly of the age to prefer a “French booby” to
a “good English cook.”7
Perhaps ice cream did not come under her heading of good English
cooking, because Glasse left that to the professional confectioners. In her
1762 book, The Compleat Confectioner, she wrote, “Ice cream is a thing
used in all deserts [sic], as it is to be had both winter and summer, and
what in London is always to be had at the confectioners.”8 The Compleat

Confectioner was less than complete when it came to ice cream recipes.
The book had just one; it began: “Take two pewter basons [sic], one larger
than the other; the inward one must have a close cover, into which you
put your cream, and mix it with what you think proper, to give it a flavour
and colour, as rasberries [sic], &c. then sweeten it to your palate, cover it
close.”9 She went on with directions for freezing. When the ice cream was
ready to be served, she suggested, one could divide it into four parts and
color one yellow, one red, and one green, and leave the fourth white, per-
haps flavoring it with orange flower water. She suggested using saffron,
cochineal, or any sort of fruit for the red and yellow shades. For the green,
she wrote, “there are several sorts of juice; all must be well flavoured with
different sorts of fruit.” Few would be able to produce ice cream using
Glasse’s recipe, so it was fortunate that it could be had so readily from
confectioners.
Another Englishwoman, Elizabeth Raffald, also limited herself to one
ice cream recipe in her 1769 cookbook, The Experienced English Housekeeper.
However, it was a more complete one. As the title of her book suggested,
Raffald had been employed as a housekeeper. She had worked for an
upper-class family in the English countryside; later, she moved to Man-
chester, where she ran a confectionery shop and an employment agency
for servants, in addition to writing her book and raising a family. Seven
editions of the book were published in her lifetime, and it remained in
print until well into the nineteenth century.
One could make ice cream from her recipe because it is much more in-
structive than Glasse’s. That may be why the editors of the 1796 edition of
Glasse’s The Art of Cookery (published after her death) decided to use Raf-
fald’s recipe under the heading “To make Ice Cream.” Apart from a few
word changes, the only difference was that Mrs. Raffald dipped her ice
cream mold in warm water to release the ice cream, while The Art of Cook-
ery directed the reader to dip the mold in “cold spring water.” This was not
the only time Raffald’s recipe was used without attribution. Here is Mrs.
Raffald’s recipe:

TO MAKE ICE CREAM
Pare, stone, and scald twelve ripe apricots, beat them in a fine marble
mortar. Put to them six ounces of double-refined sugar, a pint of scalding
cream, work it through a hair sieve. Put it into a tin that has a close cover,
set it in a tub of ice broken small and a large quantity of salt put amongst
it. When you see your cream grow thick round the edges of your tin, stir
it, and set it in again till it all grows quite thick. When your cream is all
froze up, take it out of your tin and put it in the mould you intend it to be
turned out of, then put on the lid. Have ready another tub with ice and
salt in as before, put your mould in the middle and lay your ice under and
over it, let it stand four or five hours. Dip your tin in warm water when
you turn it out. If it be summer you must not turn it out till the moment
you want it. You may use any sort of fruit if you have not apricots, only
observe to work it fine.10
The first English confectionery book to include a whole chapter on ices

and ice creams (including the recipe for tea ice cream in chapter 2) was
The Court and Country Confectioner or, the House-Keeper’s Guide by Borella,
first published in 1770. Little is known about Borella, but in the first edi-
tion of his book he called himself an “ingenious foreigner,” suggesting
that he immigrated to London to find employment. The second edition,
published in 1772, reported that he was “now head confectioner to the
Spanish ambassador in England.” Borella wrote that he had many years
of experience working as a confectioner for noble families abroad and
had lived several years in England, “in some of the most distinguished
families as confectioner.” He dedicated the book to “the Ladies of Great
Britain” and wrote in “The Author’s Address to the House-Keepers of Great-
Britain” that “there are few or no receipts in confectionary and distilling but
what may be easily and successfully practised by the English house-keeper.”11
Borella offered housekeepers a dozen recipes for fruit and flower ices
and fourteen recipes for what he called “cream ices,” along with instruc-
tions for freezing and molding. His master ice cream recipe, “Pistachio
Nuts Cream Ices,” called for four egg yolks for each pint of cream, along

with “some pounded loaf sugar.” His subsequent cream ice recipes ex-
plained how to vary the pistachio recipe to make chocolate or apricot or
other flavors. The master recipe included general directions and propor-
tions to be applied to the other recipes, warnings about pitfalls, and
instructions to ensure success. For example, he pointed out that the mix-
ture should be cooked only until it “offers to boil.” If it actually boiled, he
warned, it could turn into whey. He also advised that the cream should be
very fresh and sweet; otherwise as soon as it “would feel the warmth it
would all turn into curds and whey.”12
He said that both ices and ice creams could be made with preserved fruits
instead of fresh ones. But unlike Emy, he did not comment on seasonality
or say he considered preserves a second-rate option. His ice cream flavors
included pistachio, chocolate, strawberry, brown bread, currant, and peach.
He advised that the brown bread ice cream should be made with finely
sifted crumbs because that would make it “infinitely more agreeable to the
mouth.” In addition to tea, he made both coffee and white coffee ice creams;
the white coffee was made by putting roasted coffee beans in a “fine cloth,
which you tye as a bag, and throw it quite hot in your cream.”13
Borella’s ice cream recipes were highly regarded, if imitation is any indi-
cation. In 1800, thirty years after Hannah Glasse’s death, a new edition of
her book, titled The Complete Confectioner, or, Housekeeper’s Guide, was pub-
lished under her name “with considerable additions and corrections by
Maria Wilson.” Wilson was not otherwise identified. Apparently recogniz-
ing the need to expand the ice cream section, Wilson appropriated Borella’s
recipes for both ices and cream ices. She copied the subtitle of his book,
and she even used his explanatory remarks on freezing and molding.
Borella had a unique and engaging writing style, one that was easily recog-
nizable. For example, he introduced his comments on making ices with
preserved fruit by writing, “There are none of the ices which we have di-
rected you how to make with fresh gathered fruit, but may be made also
with that same sort of fruit after it has been preserved.”14 Wilson used the
same introduction.

At the time, cookbook authors frequently borrowed recipes from one
another without attribution. Borella was considered unusual because
he did credit Glasse and Raffald for cake recipes he used in his book. His
brown bread ice cream recipe is thought to have been a variation on Emy’s
rye bread ice cream; however, he did not credit Emy. Frederick Nutt, author
of a book that was also titled The Complete Confectioner, picked up Gilliers’s
recipe for Parmesan cheese ice cream.15 A certain amount of plagiarism, or
borrowing, was accepted at the time. Some considered recipes to be simi-
lar to folktales, public property to be shared with everyone rather than
owned by an individual. However, many cookbook writers made strong
claims of originality in the introductions to their works and stated em-
phatically that none of their recipes were copied. Clearly, they protested
too much for people who accepted borrowing without a qualm. Even al-
lowing for more relaxed standards than today’s, Wilson’s use of Borella’s
work was extreme.
Borella was not the only confectioner who went to England to practice
his craft. Later, one of the ripple effects of the French Revolution was to
spread the secrets of confectionery far and wide. Of course, cooks traveled
before the Revolution, but they traveled in greater numbers afterward.
When French and Italian confectioners working in France lost their posi-
tions with noble households, many of them went to England or America in
search of employment. They found it in upper-class households, in cafés,
restaurants, confectionery shops, and tea shops. Once established, they
shared their knowledge with other cooks and confectioners. Some of them
wrote cookbooks and spread their skills even farther. An Italian confec-
tioner who had a long and illustrious career in London, Guglielmo (later
changed to William) Jarrin, wrote, “The art of the Confectioner, in common
with almost every other art, has been greatly improved by the aid of mod-
ern chemistry; the events of the French Revolution, also, which deprived
many ingenious men of their situations in noble families, and compelled
them to seek a subsistence by laying before the public the secrets of Confec-
tionery, have done much towards the perfection of this agreeable art.”16

Foreigners, ingenious or not, were frequently the ones who made the ice
cream and eventually even owned the shops in London. They advertised
goods in the “true Parisian style of excellence” or ices “in the best Italian
manner.”17 In addition, some English confectioners traveled to France or
Italy to perfect their skills and then returned to practice them in London.
The famous Gunter’s Tea Shop was a case in point. Founded by an Italian
confectioner, Domenic Negri, in 1757, the shop was named after Negri’s
partner, James Gunter, who eventually took it over. The shop was located
in Berkeley Square, later to become famous for the song “A Nightingale
Sang in Berkeley Square.” Gunter’s elegant patrons liked to enjoy their ices
outdoors under the shade of the plane trees in the square. The gentlemen
lounged outside, chatting to each other, while the ladies sat waiting in
their carriages for waiters to bring their ice cream to them.18
In 1815, Gunter sent his son Robert to Tortoni’s Café in Paris to learn
more about making ices. At the time, Tortoni’s was the most stylish café in
the city and was reputed to have the best ices. Some people thought Robert
Gunter’s visit to Paris indicated that the Gunters were not yet expert in the
art of ices. Captain Rees Howell Gronow, an Englishman who spent years
in Paris, wrote that Gunter had to study in Paris because “our London ices
and creams were acknowledged, by the English as well as foreigners, to be
detestable.”19 However, Gunter’s was popular among people who had the
means to be discriminating, and many other confectioners in London
served ices and ice creams, so it is more likely that he went to Paris simply
to learn about the newest trends and to acquire new recipes.
Two years later, Jarrin went to London and began working at Gunter’s.
Gunter’s set the standard in London for many years thereafter, and the
ices served there were considered to be excellent. Gunter’s supplied ices
and ice creams for the dining tables of London’s upper class for decades.
When the journalist George Sala described an evening party in his 1859
book, Twice Round the Clock, he did not have to explain who or what
Gunter’s was. He merely wrote, “How the horses champ! how the dresses
rustle! how the jewels shine! and what fair women and brave men are here

congregated! . . . Messrs. Gunter’s men have brought the ices; there are
flirtations in the conservatories, and squeezings of hands interchanged on
the stairs.”20 The shop continued in operation until the 1930s, and Lon-
doners remembered it fondly for many more years. In a 1974 novel titled
Tea at Gunter’s, the leading character looked back nostalgically on the era
between the two world wars, when she and members of her family regu-
larly met at Gunter’s for tea and “jolly good” ices.21 Gunter’s symbolized
the lost style and elegance of an earlier time.
Ices in Writing
Several of the confectioners who were employed by Negri or Gunter went
on to write cookbooks with significant chapters on ice creams. They all
proudly noted their association with the shop in their books, which in-
clude The Complete Confectioner by Frederick Nutt, first published in 1789;
The Italian Confectioner by William Jarrin, first published in 1820; Gunter’s
Confectioner’s Oracle by William Gunter, a son of James, published in 1830;
and The Modern Confectioner by William Jeanes, published in 1861, then
reprinted as Gunter’s Modern Confectioner in 1871.
William Gunter, from whom one might have expected the best treatise
on confectionery in general and ices and ice creams in particular, wrote the
most frivolous and self-indulgent book. Filled with asides, gossip, dreams,
and name-dropping, it was also humorous and entertaining, sometimes
unwittingly so. In addition to recipes, the book included thoughts on ex-
ercise, digestion, and the stomach. One section of the book was supposed
to be a dictionary of raw materials in use by confectioners. It started with
A for apple, and skipped B because it “is to us an empty letter.” C was a
fourteen-page treatise on coffee, in French. Although the section was in
quotation marks, Gunter did not name its source. The coffee entry de-
scribed the plant and its origins, its introduction to Paris, and the story
of Café Procope. The anonymous writer said medical opinion held that
coffee excited the brain, and observed that great writers, such as Voltaire,
drank a lot of it. The dictionary skipped D and E. The letter F was for flour.

Then Gunter wrote, “I now skip a number of useless letters until I arrive
at P.” Pears, spirits, sugar, and truffles completed the entire dictionary
section.
The book’s ice cream recipes were equally cavalier. The master recipe,
which he titled “Creams for Icing,” called for thirteen egg yolks, one and
three-quarter pints of cream, flavor, and “some loaf-sugar.” To turn that
into a coffee ice cream, Gunter said, one could throw in some roasted cof-
fee berries. To make chocolate ice cream, he called for adding chocolate,
vanilla, cinnamon, almond, and liqueur. He did not specify amounts. Here
is his recipe for fruit ice creams in its entirety:
Fruit ice-creams,
Are made by adding a portion of the strained juice to the sugar in pow-
der. Use a little lemon-juice to all.22
Emy, who was so specific in his choices that he preferred oranges from
Malta to those from Provence and thought currant juice complemented
strawberries better than lemon juice, would have been appalled at Gunter’s
lack of attention to detail.
Nutt, Jarrin, and Jeanes were serious about their work and confident
about their own abilities. They all considered previous books on confec-
tionery to be inferior to their own and said so in their introductions. Nutt,
who had started as an apprentice at the shop in the early days, wrote in the
lengthy subtitle to his book that it included “250 cheap and fashionable
receipts. The result of many years experience with the celebrated Negri and
Witten.” (Witten was one of Negri’s early partners.) Nutt was scornful of
Mrs. Glasse, calling her work a “spurious production” in the 1789 edition
of his book. In its fourth edition, dated 1807, he took the opportunity
to remark, “only one work, except the present, was ever presented to the
world, on the Art of Confectionary; that production has already met with
the contempt which it justly deserved.”23
Jarrin was born in Italy in 1784 in a small town near Parma and eventu-
ally made his way to Paris. After his time at Gunter’s, he opened his own

confectionery and catering business. His book, The Italian Confectioner,
was reissued with numerous changes ten times over the years.24 In the
preface to the 1823 edition, citing his twenty years of experience, he wrote
that his book would be “found to contain every important particular
which relates to, or is connected with, confectionery; including a variety
of articles, entirely new, and describing processes little, if at all, known in
England.”25
Like Nutt, Jarrin held existing confectionery books in low regard. But
Jarrin did not disparage anyone personally; he simply said his book would
make up for the defects of other works. He said the existing works were
“very imperfect” and “totally silent on matters of the first importance.” In
fact, there was “not any treatise in the English language, which can be of
essential use to the Confectioner.”26
Jeanes was identified on the title page of the 1861 edition of The
Modern Confectioner as “William Jeanes, Chief Confectioner at Messrs.
Gunter’s, Confectioners to Her Majesty, Berkeley Square.” In his preface,
he noted that confectionery, “like other processes of manufacture,” had
changed in recent years with advances in chemistry as well as new fash-
ions and changing tastes. As a result, what was once popular and refined
was now “obsolete and in bad taste.” Jeanes praised the work of the
famed French chef Marie Antoine Carême, saying that his “was almost
the only treatise that offered any real assistance to the young or inexperi-
enced practitioner.” However, he reported, English tastes differed from
those of the continent. Then he addressed Jarrin’s work: “Jarrin (who was
formerly employed at our establishment) wrote the Italian Confectioner in
1820. Some of the recipes given in his work were those formerly used by
us, but they have since been remodeled or supplanted by fresh ones, to
suit modern tastes. As given in his work, many of the recipes are entirely
wrong, and several of the utensils he describes are old-fashioned articles
that have long since been worn out or thrown aside to make way for
superior articles.”27 Although Jarrin had died in 1848, another edition of
his book was published in 1861, the same year Jeanes’s book came out.

Perhaps Jeanes was responding to the threat of competition. Still his crit-
icisms were harsh, particularly since his recipes were so nearly identical
to those of Jarrin.
So Much in Common
It is not surprising that there were some similarities among the Gunter
alumni’s ice cream recipes, since they had all worked at the same shop and
catered to the same fashionable clientele. But since their books span more
than half a century, it is remarkable that there are so few differences. De-
spite the fact that ice cream makers with cranks were introduced in 1843,
not even Jeanes seems to have used them. From the 1807 edition of Nutt’s
book to Jarrin’s 1827 edition and, finally, the 1861 edition of Jeanes’s book,
the directions for freezing hardly changed. They still used freezing pots,
or sorbetières. Both Jarrin and Jeanes specified using pewter ones rather
than tin because pewter prevented the contents of the vessel from congeal-
ing too quickly. According to Jarrin, pewter allowed “time enough to mix
them thoroughly; for on this circumstance, in a great measure, depends
the excellence of the ice. Tin vessels occasion too rapid a congelation, and
do not afford time to well mix the materials.”28 Jeanes said of the pots,
“They should be Pewter, and not tin, as the former metal prevents the con-
tents freezing quickly into lumps, and consequently allows time for mixing
the ingredients well together.”29
Nutt, Jarrin, and Jeanes still turned the freezing pot around in the ice
using the handles at the top and then opened the pot at intervals to
scrape the frozen mixture from the sides and then stirred the contents
together. In their directions they differed slightly as to the intervals at
which the pots should be opened and stirred. Nutt specified every ten
minutes. Jarrin said every three. Jeanes recommended every five. How-
ever, they aimed for the same result. Nutt specified that it be mixed until
“your cream is like butter, and as thick.” Jeanes said to blend until “the
whole is as smooth as butter.” Jarrin simply said to mix “till your ice is
completed.”

Both Jarrin and Jeanes said it was untrue that freezing made mixtures
taste less sweet. The problem, they said, was that the sugar wasn’t mixed in
well enough; it sank to the bottom and gave the ice cream a tart taste. Both
recommended thorough mixing and stirring to prevent that, as well as to
eliminate lumps. They said lumps had been a problem in the past. Jarrin
and Jeanes shared a similar work ethic. Speaking of the tedious process of
turning and stirring the mixture, Jarrin warned his reader, “Do not spare
your labour, for on this part of the operation, as is said before, very much
depends.”30 Jeanes said, “If you wish to produce satisfactory Ices, consid-
erable labour and attention must be bestowed on them. They must be thor-
oughly mixed and stirred, in order to prevent lumps.”31
Jarrin, in his 1844 edition, and Jeanes, in his 1861 edition, recom-
mended the use of the saccharometer, a new instrument that had been de-
veloped for the beer and wine industries. The device was used to measure
the amount of sugar in a solution. It gave confectioners not only a more
exact measurement than the manual tests but also one less painful to their
fingertips.
As for the recipes, the greatest differences were between Nutt and the oth-
ers, rather than between Jarrin and Jeanes. For example, Nutt made many of
his ices and ice creams with jams, jellies, or preserved fruit. Other confec-
tioners did the same, but generally said they were doing so only out of season
or as an alternative. Nutt’s first recipes under his ice cream heading—
barberry, raspberry, strawberry, apricot, currant—were all made with pre-
serves. Later he listed fresh versions, as if the preserved ones were his first
choice and the fresh ones his second. Many of his water ices were made
with preserves, jellies, or “essences.” He used them in small amounts as
flavorings for ices and other confections. Jarrin and Jeanes called for ripe
fruits in their recipes, and substituted preserved fruits or marmalades only
in winter. In his instructions on making “winter ices,” Jeanes noted that
unsweetened preserved fruit was better for water ices, but wrote that he
preferred jam or marmalade for making cream ices in winter. In addition
Nutt made his cream ices with a sugar syrup rather than loaf sugar.

Nutt departed from standard practice by putting a bit of crunch into
some of his ice cream mixtures. Up until his day, the desired consistency of
most ice creams was smooth and creamy. To make his burnt filbert and his
burnt almond ice creams, he mixed roasted nuts with the cream mixture to
get the maximum nut flavor, then he strained out the soggy nuts. Just be-
fore the ice cream was frozen, he added fresh nuts. This is still the best way
to get both the flavor of nuts and their crunch into the mixture. Similarly,
he added crumbs to his brown bread ice cream just before molding it. Emy
strained out his rye bread crumbs.
Nutt’s recipe for “royal” ice cream may have been inspired by Borella’s
recipe of the same name. The recipes have in common citrus peels and
spices such as cinnamon and coriander. Borella strained his mixture be-
fore molding it. Nutt added citron, lemon, and orange peel as well as pista-
chio nuts prior to molding his.
ROYAL ICE CREAM

Take the yolks of ten eggs and two whole eggs; beat them up well with
your spoon; then take the rind of one lemon, two gills of syrup, one pint
of cream, a little spice, and a little orange flower water;32 mix them all well
and put them over the fire, stirring them all the time with your spoon;
when you find it grows thick take it off, and pass it through a sieve; put it
into a freezing pot, freeze it, and take a little citron, and lemon and or-
ange peel with a few pistachio nuts blanched; cut them all and mince
them with your ice before you put them in your moulds.33
Soon other confectioners began adding bits of cookies, bread crumbs, can-
died fruits, and chopped nuts to their ice creams and not straining them
out. When iced puddings came into vogue, all manner of tasty additions
found their way into ice cream.
Nutt, Jarrin, and Jeanes all had similar recipes for punch water ice,
which was to become wildly popular in America by the end of the nine-
teenth century. Nutt’s recipe called for oranges, lemons, sugar syrup, and
rum. Jarrin flavored a lemon ice with white rum. Jeanes offered the options

of either rum or a combination of brandy and rum. He also made a Roman
punch ice by adding beaten egg whites and sugar to a lemon water ice,
then mixing in “one wine-glass of Rum, one of Brandy, and one tumbler of
Champagne.”34 Clearly, Emy’s admonitions against adding liquors to ices
had had little or no impact.
Despite Jeanes’s claim of superiority, his recipes for ices and ice creams dif-
fered from Jarrin’s only in minor details. For example, they both made a
Champagne water ice with a bottle of Champagne, sugar, and the juice of
lemons. Jarrin used six. Jeanes used seven. Jeanes preferred morello cherries
for his cherry ice, while Jarrin liked Kentish ones. Jarrin added pounded apri-
cot kernels to his apricot water ice. Jeanes did not. Jeanes added beaten egg
white to his lemon ice, and Jarrin did not. They both molded ices in the
shape of the fruits from which they were made, and both said that the natu-
ral stone of the fruit could be inserted in the mold after being “well cleaned.”
To make the basic custard for ice creams, they each began with a pint of
“good” cream and a slice of lemon peel. Jeanes added seven or eight egg
yolks and “half a pound of pounded sugar (or what suits your taste).” Jar-
rin called for eight egg yolks and “half a pound of pounded sugar, more or
less, according to taste.” They both said it was possible to use half milk
and half cream, along with two or three extra eggs, but that using all new
cream and fewer eggs made better custard.
Sometimes Jeanes and Jarrin differed mainly in the titles they gave their
recipes. For example, they both made ice cream with green tea. Jarrin called
his “Tea Ice Cream” and specified “the finest and strongest green tea.”
Jeanes named his “Green Tea Ice Cream” and called for the “best Green
Tea.” Jarrin made “White Coffee Ice Cream” by steeping roasted coffee
beans, which he called “berries,” in hot cream, then straining them out
and sweetening the mixture. He wrote, “You may likewise make it with a
strong infusion of coffee, but then it will take the colour of coffee.”35 Jeanes
made “Coffee Ice Cream” the same way and concluded his recipe by writ-
ing, “Some make it with ground coffee, well strained, but the Cream has
then a disagreeable brown colour.”36

A Sincere Form of Flattery
Nutt, Jarrin, and Jeanes all had an unusual recipe that may have been bor-
rowed or adapted from Borella’s recipe for muscadine ice. Muscadine is a
type of grape. However, Borella’s muscadine ice was not made with grapes;
it was made with elderflowers. He directed his reader to infuse elderflow-
ers in hot water and then add the strained infusion to a mixture for lemon
ice. Nutt, Jarrin, and Jeanes all called their recipes “Grape Water Ice,” and
each one was nearly the same as Borella’s. They all infused the flowers the
same way, then added the strained mixture to lemon juice and sugar
syrup—in other words, to the ingredients that make a lemon ice. The ice
tastes like a lemon sorbet with an added floral scent reminiscent of some
teas. This is Jarrin’s recipe:
GRAPE WATER ICE
Take a handful of dried elder flowers, put them into a freezing pot, and
cover them with boiling water; let them stand for half an hour, strain
them through a sieve, and add two lemons; sweeten it to your liking;
when frozen, add a glass of white wine, but mix it only a little at a time,
then put it in your moulds.37
In 1885, Agnes B. Marshall included a similar recipe in The Book of Ices.

Marshall called hers “Grape Ice Water (Eau de Grappes).” She used elder-
flower water rather than the elderflowers themselves, mixed it with her
lemon ice water, then added two glasses of sherry. Borella did not add
liquor to his. Nor did Nutt, who, uniquely, molded his into the shape of a
bunch of grapes. Jeanes added a glass of Madeira. Not one of the recipes
called for grapes.
Elderflowers and elderberries have been used for teas, wines, jellies,
syrups, and vinegars for many years. Some believe the flowers have a
muscatel-like flavor,38 so it is possible that the chefs named their ices “mus-
cadine” and then “grape” because the flavor reminded them of the wine.
Barbara K. Wheaton, in her book Victorian Ices & Ice Cream, suggested that

the problem may have been that someone mistranslated the French name
grappes de sureau, which means elderflowers, not, as might be assumed,
grapes.39 Or, possibly, Borella named his “muscadine” after the muscatel-
like fragrance of the elderflowers, and everyone else translated muscadine
into “grape.” In addition to the muscadine ice, Borella’s book included a
grape ice recipe made with ripe grapes. Maria Wilson included both recipes
in her edition of Glasse’s book. Since Agnes Marshall’s era, recipes for el-
derflower ice have been called just that, and most recipes for grape ices call
for grapes.
Frozen Pudding
Frozen puddings became popular during the nineteenth century, and
Jeanes was one of the first to offer recipes for them. His “Plombiere, or Ice
Pudding” was made with cream and milk along with ten egg yolks and two
whole eggs, mixed spices (a typical combination of the time consisted of
allspice, cloves, cinnamon, nutmeg, ginger, and possibly coriander),40
sugar, vanilla, a glass of maraschino liqueur, and one of brandy. His was a
smooth ice cream, but soon candied fruit was added to plombières before
molding. His “Nesselrode Pudding” was made the same way except for the
addition of diced preserved fruit soaked in brandy. Neither followed what
would become the classic recipes.
Larousse gastronomique and most other sources define plombière as an
almond-flavored ice cream containing candied fruits that often have been
steeped in kirsch. It is sometimes enriched with whipped cream. The name
is thought to have come from the French word plomb, or “lead,” for the
lead molds in which the ice creams were shaped. Some sources cite the city
of Plombières-les-Bains as the source of the name, and say the ice cream
was created for Napoleon III when he was there meeting with the Italian
diplomat Count Camillo Benso di Cavour regarding the expulsion of Aus-
trian troops from the Italian peninsula. However since this event took
place in 1858, years after Balzac mentioned plombière as a specialty of
Tortoni’s, the lead mold is likely the source of the name.

“Nesselrode” dishes are supposed to be made with chestnut purée or
chestnuts, although recipes vary. They are named after a Russian count,
Karl Vasilyevich Nesselrode, a prominent nineteenth-century diplomat.
His chef, M. Mouy, is said to have created the original, nonfrozen Nessel-
rode custard, which was made with chestnut purée, candied fruits, cur-
rants, sultanas, and whipped cream. The custard has served as a pudding,
a pie, and a dessert sauce, as well as being frozen. The British food histo-
rian Ivan Day believes frozen Nesselrode pudding may have originated as
a sly joke intended to poke fun at the traditional English plum pudding,
which it resembles when it is served turned out of a mold.41
Jeanes’s plombière had no candied fruits or almond flavoring; his Nessel-
rode ice cream contained no chestnuts. But he was not alone in varying from
the classic definitions. Other chefs have stirred figs, dates, peaches, pista-
chios, walnuts, macaroons, dry cakes, citron, maraschino liqueur, rum, and
other ingredients into ice creams and called them variously plombières, Nes-
selrodes, and, perhaps most appropriately, frozen puddings.
Jarrin made a “bomba ice,” which was very similar to Corrado’s candied
egg ice, or frozen zabaglione. He used the yolks of sixteen fresh eggs to a
pint of water along with a glass of noyau or maraschino liqueur, and sugar
syrup “to your liking.” Noyau liqueur tastes of almond but is usually made
from the kernels of apricots or peaches. Jarrin directed his reader to cook
the mixture, whipping it with a whisk “as if you were whipping the whites
of eggs.” When it was ready to boil, he took it off the fire and continued
whipping it until it became “a light froth.” Today, instructions usually call
for whipping until the mixture cools and doubles in volume.
Jeanes’s recipe was similar but called for larger quantities: three half
pints of water, twenty-five “new-laid eggs,” two glasses of maraschino or
noyau, along with a pint of syrup. They both suggested freezing the bomba
in a mold and filling the center of the mold with a different ice cream. Ini-
tially, they did so by filling the mold, then scooping out the ice cream
in the middle and replacing it with another kind. Jarrin wrote, “You can
mask this ice by cutting out with a spoon the middle of the ice, and filling

up the pot with cream ice of any other kind or colour.”42 Later, molds were
designed to create a hollow center that could be filled with different ices
or ice creams.
The word bomb was used for ices made in molds that did, in fact, resem-
ble bombs. In the late nineteenth century, Victorians made joke ices in the
shape of anarchists’ bombs complete with flames erupting from the tops.
The editors of The Encyclopædia of Practical Cookery wrote, “It is remarkable
how much inclined some culinary practitioners are to introduce the arts of
warfare into their peaceful and uneventful occupations. The Bomb-ice is
just one of these remarkable productions, having no more than a very fan-
ciful resemblance to the bomb-shell from which it is designed.” Some of
the bombs were intended for one serving; other, larger ones were sliced
and served. The confectioners were skilled bomb-makers, according to the
encyclopedia editors, who wrote, “The flame which should issue from the
aperture of a live bomb-shell was imitated with spun barley sugar, and
with excellent effect.”43 The practice was a clear indication that Italian con-
fectioners were not the only ones who had fun playing with their ice
creams.
Paris Fashion
When Gunter went to Tortoni’s to learn more about ices, he went to one of
the most famous and renowned cafés in Paris. Gronow called it “the center
of pleasure, gallantry, and entertainment.” He wrote, “Towards the end of
the first Empire, and during the return of the Bourbons, and Louis
Philippe’s reign, this establishment was so much in vogue that it was diffi-
cult to get an ice there; after the opera and theatres were over, the Boule-
vards were literally choked up by the carriages of the great people of the
court and the Faubourg St. Germain bringing guests to Tortoni’s.”44
Located at the corner of the boulevard des Italiens and the rue Taitbout,
the café was named after its owner, a Neapolitan whose first name is not
mentioned in contemporary accounts. He had been headwaiter at the café
when it was owned by his fellow countryman M. Velloni (here, too, no first

name is mentioned). After Tortoni took it over, in 1803 or 1804, the café be-
came a raging success. In the morning, stockbrokers breakfasted there; late
in the afternoon, artists sipped absinthe and showed off their latest works
there; and at night, tout le monde went to Tortoni’s for ices. In 1843, Jules
Janin, author of The American in Paris, wrote, “At eleven o’clock in the eve-
ning, the Café Tortoni is no longer a place for eating, it is a saloon for sher-
bet and ices. . . . The most elegant beauties, and the most agreeable young
men, hasten to this last rendezvous of the evening; for Tortoni’s, they aban-
don the unfinished Opera; they leave the theatre before the last stab.”45
Tortoni’s was immortalized in paintings by Manet and Guérard, in sto-
ries and books by Balzac, de Maupassant, and Poe, and in an Offenbach
operetta. A Harper’s magazine article published in 1889 called it the “cen-
tre of fashion.”46 Its patrons included Manet, Baudelaire, Rossini, Flaubert,
Talleyrand, and Balzac. Tortoni’s even has a namesake: in 1858, Café Tor-
toni opened in Buenos Aires. Named in homage to the Parisian café, it is
now the oldest café in the city and one of the most famous.
Although contemporary writers called Tortoni’s ices the best in Paris,
most did not reveal a great deal about the way they were made, what the
most popular flavors were, or how they were served. However, in his novel
Splendeurs et misères des courtisanes, first published in 1839, Balzac gave us a
description of one of Tortoni’s ice creams: “At the end of the meal, the ices
called plombières were served. As everyone knows, this sort of ice contains
delicate preserved fruits, placed on the surface without affecting the ice’s
pyramid form, and is served in a small glass.” Balzac added that ices had
been ordered from the famous establishment at the corner of the rue Tait-
bout and the boulevard: Tortoni’s.47 Perhaps Tortoni invented the plombière.
Today, one dessert bearing the Tortoni name still exists—biscuit Tortoni.
Admittedly, no one has yet succeeded in tracing its origins directly to the
Paris café. The frothy frozen mousse may have originated there and then
crossed the ocean to become an American favorite. Or, since it seems to be
better known in the United States than in France, it may have been an
American creation named in honor of M. Tortoni.

Why was it called a “biscuit”? The term came to be used during the eigh-
teenth century for frozen desserts that contained crushed biscuits, or
cookies. Macaroons, nuts, or cakes that had been grated or finely chopped
were also blended into some mixtures. Some were simply ice cream with
cookie or cake crumbs folded into the mixture. Others were frozen
mousses made with whipped cream or a stiffly beaten meringue or both,
along with a flavoring. They were frozen, without being churned, in paper
cups or molds. Their names included biscuits glacés, biscuit cream ices, bis-
cuit ice creams, biscuits Americana, and even bisque ice creams or bisques.
The last is odd, since the word is the name of a French soup typically made
with shellfish. Perhaps it was a spelling error, or it may have been a mis-
guided attempt to make a humble biscuit seem more sophisticated. The
authors of a British confectionery book cited a menu listing of “bisque
glaze” and called it “nomenclature gone mad with a vengeance.”48
However biscuit Tortoni originated, it became nearly ubiquitous on
the most fashionable American restaurant menus in the early twentieth
century. Later it was a common dessert at more modest Italian-American
restaurants in the Northeast. Since it was easy to prepare and did not re-
quire an ice cream maker, it became an extremely popular home dessert
as well. Although it has faded from favor in recent years, recipes for bis-
cuit Tortoni abound in cookbooks from the nineteenth century to the
present, and everyone from Fannie Farmer to Julia Child has one. This is
my version:
BISCUIT TORTONI
One-half cup crushed amaretti cookies
One cup heavy cream
One-quarter cup confectioner’s sugar
Three tablespoons rum, amaretto, or Frangelico liqueur
Two egg whites
Crushed cookies or finely chopped almonds for garnish

Grind cookies to fine crumbs (but not a powder).
In a medium-size bowl, whip cream with sugar until cream forms soft
peaks. Carefully fold in crushed cookies and rum. In another bowl, beat
the egg whites until they form stiff peaks. Gently fold into cream mixture.
Spoon the mixture into paper-lined cupcake tins, swirling the mixture
into peaks. Sprinkle with cookie crumbs or almonds. Cover with plastic
wrap and freeze until firm.
Makes 12.
When the Paris café closed in 1893, the Atlantic Monthly magazine ran an
article titled “The End of Tortoni’s.” Its author, Stoddard Dewey, attrib-
uted the demise of Tortoni’s to the disappearance of the elites who had the
leisure to while away their lives in cafés, to a general lowering of standards,
and to the “melting sunlight of democracy.” He blamed the growing influ-
ence of the British, and the English-style teashops that had become popu-
lar in Paris. Bemoaning the fact that brasseries and beer were replacing
absinthe and ices, Dewey wrote, “Fashion, literature and art, and the green
devil [absinthe] continue to exist; but they are not as they were, and the
putting up of the shutters at Tortoni’s is the sign of an age that has
passed.”49

four
The Land of Ice Cream
England lagged behind the continent in ice cream making, and America
lagged behind England. In America, until well after the Revolutionary
War, ice cream was a rarity. Pastry chefs and confectioners were few and
far between. Ice for freezing was not always available and was difficult to
store, even for those who had icehouses. Sugar was expensive. Making
ice cream was also, as we know, a physically taxing, time-consuming job.
Even wealthy households with servants seldom served ice cream. It was
not until the middle of the nineteenth century that ice cream was avail-
able to the average American, and even then it was a special treat.
In the mid-eighteenth century, simply eating ice cream was such an un-
usual pleasure that those who did have it often mentioned it in their jour-
nals and letters. When Maryland governor Thomas Bladen and his wife
served ice cream at a dinner in 1744, one of the guests, William Black,
wrote in his journal that the dinner was most elegant; it included a great
variety of dishes, “after which came a Dessert no less Curious; Among the
Rarities of which it was Compos’d, was some fine Ice Cream which, with
the Strawberries and Milk, eat most Deliciously.”1 In Italy or France, a
table covered with trompe l’oeil ices was worth mentioning. In America, a
simple dish of ice cream was noteworthy.
America’s founding families enjoyed ice cream. After the Revolutionary
War ended, George Washington bought a “Cream Machine for Making
Ice.” Thomas Jefferson’s papers include eight recipes written in his own
hand, one of which is for vanilla ice cream. On the other side of the paper,
75
he wrote out a recipe for biscuit de Savoy, a cookie he liked to eat with his
ice cream. He probably wrote the recipes sometime after his diplomatic
service in Paris in the late 1780s.
This is one of the first ice cream recipes written by an American.
ICE CREAM
2. bottles of good cream.
6. yolks of eggs.
1 2 lb. sugar
⁄
mix the yolks & sugar
put the cream on a fire in a casserole, first putting in a stick of Vanilla.
when near boiling take it off & pour it gently into the mixture of eggs &
sugar.
stir it well.
put it on the fire again stirring it thoroughly with a spoon to prevent its
sticking to the casserole.
when near boiling take it off and strain it thro’ a towel.
put it in the Sabottiere [sic]
then set it in ice an hour before it is to be served. put into the ice a
handful of salt.
put salt on the coverlid of the Sabotiere & cover the whole with ice.
leave it still half a quarter of an hour.
then turn the Sabotiere in the ice 10 minutes
open it to loosen with a spatula the ice from the inner sides of the
Sabotiere.
shut it & replace it in the ice
open it from time to time to detach the ice from the sides
when well taken (prise) stir it well with the Spatula.
put it in moulds, justling it well down on the knee.
then put the mould into the same bucket of ice.
leave it there to the moment of serving it.
to withdraw it, immerse the mould in warm water, turning it well till it
will come out & turn it into a plate.2
76 / The Land of Ice Cream

Jefferson could have found recipes for ice cream in English or European
cookbooks of the day, but not in an American one. No American cook-
books were published until the end of the eighteenth century, and the first
ones had no recipes for ice cream. The dearth of cookbooks is not remark-
able, since only about one hundred books a year were published in Amer-
ica before 1842, when advances in printing technology revolutionized the
industry. But many people brought cookbooks by authors such as Hannah
Glasse and Elizabeth Raffald with them to America, and reprints of Eng-
lish books were published in America in the eighteenth century. An Amer-
ican edition of the English Art of Cookery by Richard Briggs, published in
Philadelphia in 1792 with the title The New Art of Cookery, was one of the
first to include a recipe for ice cream. However, it was Raffald’s recipe,
though he did not attribute the recipe to her any more than the editors
of Glasse’s work had. The first true American cookbook, American Cookery
by Amelia Simmons, was published in 1796, twenty years after the Ameri-
can Revolution. It did not include any recipes for ice cream.
The Virginia House-Wife by Mary Randolph, published in 1824, was the
first American cookbook with a significant section on ice cream. The book
became the most influential American cookbook of the nineteenth century
and was especially popular in the South. Randolph’s Southern specialties
included catfish soup, “Chicken Pudding—a favourite Virginia dish,” and
barbecued “shote,” which she said was “the name given in the southern
states to a fat young hog.” Randolph also had recipes from other regions
and other countries. She had a recipe for “Gaspacho—Spanish,” and one
for “Dough Nuts—A Yankee cake.”3
She had many recipes for ices and ice creams. She made a fruit ice from
lemonade and said the same recipe could be used to make ices with the
juice of morello cherries or currants. Her ice cream recipes included al-
mond, chocolate, citron, coconut, raspberry, strawberry, vanilla, and cof-
fee. The coffee ice cream was a white coffee; she wrote, “If properly done, it
will not be discoloured.” She also said that, after the coffee was strained
out of the ice cream mixture, it could be dried and used to make coffee,
The Land of Ice Cream / 77

“allowing more for the quantity of water, than if it had not gone through
this process.” Oddly, among her ice cream recipes was one for frozen oys-
ter cream. This was simply oyster soup, strained and frozen. She did not
explain when or, more important, why it would be served. Here is one
of her more appealing recipes.
PEACH CREAM
Get fine soft peaches perfectly ripe, peel them, take out the stones, and
put them in a China bowl; sprinkle some sugar on, and chop them very
small with a silver spoon—if the peaches be sufficiently ripe, they will be-
come a smooth pulp; add as much cream or rich milk as you have
peaches; put more sugar, and freeze it.4
In a section titled “Observations on ice creams,” she explained how to

freeze ice cream and specified that it was best made in a freezer twelve
or fourteen inches deep and eight or ten wide. She said this size facilitated
freezing “by giving a larger surface for the ice to form.” However, the nar-
row cylindrical shape was still the norm for most ice cream makers, or sor-
betières. Randolph’s no-nonsense approach to cooking was evident in her
statement “It is the practice with some indolent cooks, to set the freezer
containing the cream, in a tub with ice and salt, and put it in the ice house;
it will certainly freeze there; but not until the water particles have sub-
sided, and by the separation destroyed the cream.” She explained that
instead it was necessary to turn and mix the ice cream well to make it
smooth, before packing it in molds.5
Randolph was from a well-to-do family and was a distant cousin to the
Jeffersons. After her marriage, she and her husband settled at his James
River, Virginia, plantation, where she became a celebrated hostess. When
the family met with reverses and had to sell their home, she ran a board-
inghouse in Richmond and later wrote her very successful cookbook.
Randolph and her family were exceptional. The average American family
did not have an icehouse and did not make ice cream in the early nine-
teenth century. It was not until the end of the century that the increased

availability of ice, advances in ice cream freezer design, and more afford-
able ingredients made it feasible for ordinary Americans to make ice
cream at home.
Public Pleasures
In the meantime Americans could enjoy ice cream at confectioners’ shops,
pleasure gardens (also known as ice cream gardens), and ice cream sa-
loons in cities such as Philadelphia, Boston, and especially New York.
French or Italian confectioners who had left political upheaval behind of-
ten ran the shops, just as they had in London. One of the earliest ads fea-
turing ice cream ran in the New York Gazette in 1777. In the ad, a
confectioner named Philip Lenzi, who had come to America from London,
promised that ice cream “may be had almost every day.”
The French gastronome and author of The Physiology of Taste, Jean An-
thelme Brillat-Savarin, visited America and wrote that a Captain Collet
had earned a great deal of money in New York in 1794 and 1795 by mak-
ing ices “for the inhabitants of that commercial town.” Brillat-Savarin
described the reaction of women to the ice cream: “It was the ladies,
above all, who could not get enough of a pleasure so new to them as
frozen food; nothing was more amusing than to watch the little gri-
maces they made while savoring it. It was especially difficult for them to
understand how anything could stay so cold in the summer heat of
ninety degrees.”6
Despite the patronizing tone of his remarks, they tell us that ice cream
was still relatively novel in late-eighteenth-century America. In America,
it would be a long time before ice cream was, in Hannah Glasse’s words,
“always to be had at the confectioners.” In 1815, Francis Guerin, newly ar-
rived from France, opened a café on Broadway and served ice cream only in
summer.7 In 1827, members of the Del-Monico family from Switzerland
opened a confectionery shop on William Street in downtown New York
City. Delmonico’s, the name modified by a sign painter, would become the
finest restaurant in America in years to come. But initially, the family ran a

small café that became known for its cakes, coffee, chocolate, bonbons,
and fancy ice creams.8
In 1818, Eleanor Parkinson opened a confectionery shop in Philadel-
phia, and her husband, George Parkinson, opened a tavern next door.
The shop was so successful that her husband joined her, and together
they ran one of the city’s most prominent businesses. Their son would
later found the country’s first culinary trade magazine, the Confectioners’
Journal. Parkinson’s confectionery shop became renowned for the quality
of its ice cream and helped make Philadelphia ice cream famous.9 In the
preface to her cookbook, The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-Cook, and
Baker, first published in 1844, Mrs. Parkinson referred to the shop
as “the oldest, most extensive and successful confectionery establish-
ment in the country.” In her introduction to the section on making ices
and ice creams, she noted that “Philadelphia has for a long time enjoyed
a pre-eminent reputation in the manufacture of these delicious com-
pounds.” But she warned her readers against using inferior ingredients
or thickeners and said, “Use cream entirely, and on no account mingle
the slightest quantity of milk, which detracts materially from the rich-
ness and smoothness of the ices.” Philadelphia ice cream would come to
be known as ice cream made, as Parkinson advised, entirely with
cream.10
Her book included nearly fifty recipes for ices and ice cream, along with
instructions for freezing and molding. However, as she acknowledged,
most of the recipes were not original. She wrote, “We have consulted every
authority, French or English, within our reach; but the basis of our little
work is to be found in Read’s Confectioner, a late London publication.”
Read was George Read, an English confectioner. One ice cream recipe that
was original to Parkinson called for egg whites rather than egg yolks.
Whites do appear in ice cream recipes from time to time. In fact, Emy used
stiffly beaten egg whites in some of his ice creams and said that they made
light, delicate creams. But the practice is not typical. This is Parkinson’s
own recipe.

BRAHMA ICE
One quart of cream, the whites of ten eggs, one and a half pounds of
powdered sugar [today’s finely granulated sugar] of the best quality; mix
the whole in a tin saucepan; put it on the fire, stirring constantly, until it
boils once, then add two wine-glasses of Curaçao, half a glass of orange-
flower water; put it into the pot, and freeze.11
What is strange about the recipe is the inordinate amount of sugar Parkin-
son used. When weighed on an ordinary kitchen scale, a pound and a half
of sugar amounts to about three cups. Similar recipes called for one-half
pound, or one cup. When brahma ice is made with one cup of sugar, it is
as sweet as anyone would wish. The combination of orange flower water
and orange liqueur gives it a complex bittersweet, rather than fresh orange,
flavor. The texture is light and silky smooth.
Pleasure, or ice cream, gardens began as adjuncts to taverns. They were
small outdoor areas where patrons could enjoy their drinks and a light
meal. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, they had become com-
mercial spaces where for a small admission charge people could stroll, lis-
ten to music, and enjoy such popular refreshments as ice cream, pound
cake, and lemonade. According to contemporary reports, vanilla and
lemon ice creams were the most common flavors, along with strawberry “if
in season.”12 Although most writers did not describe the ice creams served
in pleasure gardens except to note the flavors, one, lamenting the closing
of Contoit’s New York Pleasure Garden, wrote that the ice cream was made
from “soft-boiled egg sweetened with brown sugar!” And served with
“iron spoons that nobody would carry off wrapped up by mistake in his
handkerchief.”13
New York’s pleasure gardens were located in then-rural settings in what
is now downtown Manhattan. When the Vauxhall Garden was opened in
1805 near Astor Place in New York, it was thought to be too far out of town
to attract customers. However, town soon caught up to it, and it was suc-
cessful for years. Although the gardens differed in their particulars, most

featured shaded walkways, flowers, and trees, often with cages holding
singing birds hanging from the branches. Initially, the gardens attracted
the genteel and the fashionable. Ladies who would not have been seen in
other public venues felt comfortable strolling in such elegant settings. De-
scribing one New York garden, a writer recalled, “Small neatly fitted up
boxes to represent mystic bowers were ranged along the fences, for the
special accommodation of female visitors who desired refreshments, while
benches and chairs were scattered under the trees for the use of male patrons
who chose to sip their brandy and smoke their principe in the open air.”14
Similar gardens had been popular in London for years, and American
pleasure gardens were patterned and named after them. Vauxhall, one of
London’s most fashionable gardens, attracted thousands of visitors on
summer evenings. It was famous for its balloon ascents, as well as for the
quality of its music and refreshments. Vauxhall became a generic name for
pleasure gardens in America. There was a Vauxhall Garden in Philadel-
phia, and Boston’s Washington Garden was referred to as a “Boston Vaux-
hall.” New York boasted several Vauxhall Gardens at different times and in
different locations, although a British travel writer of the day called New
York’s pleasure gardens “poor imitations of those near London.”15
Gradually, the gardens evolved into entertainment centers lit by colored
lanterns with bandstands, theatrical presentations, displays of sculpture,
illuminated fountains, panoramas, fireworks, sports, dancing, drinks, and
refreshments. Thomas A. Janvier’s In Old New York described one of the
gardens as it was in the late nineteenth century: “Its dazzle of lamps in the
arbors and shrubbery, and its fire-works and fire-balloons, and its music,
and the performances of that killing comedian Twaits . . . to say nothing
of the palate-tickling things to eat and to drink which there abounded—
’twas as gay a place of recreation as was to be found at that period of an
evening anywhere in the civilized world.”16
Some pleasure gardens served liquor, and others professed not to, but,
according to Abram C. Dayton’s Last Days of Knickerbocker Life in New York,
“a quarter slyly dropped into a sable palm would ensure a moderate supply

of cognac to be poured over the lemon ice, which gentlemen almost always
preferred to the more luscious vanilla, to the great surprise of their fair
companions.”17
New York’s pleasure gardens did not welcome blacks, except as servers.
In fact, according to a news report, “Among the number of ice cream gar-
dens in this city, there was none in which the sable race could find admis-
sion and refreshment.” So in 1821 William Alexander Brown, a free man of
color and a former ship’s steward, created a pleasure garden at 38 Thomas
Street on the West Side. It was in a primarily white, affluent neighbor-
hood. A contemporary news account referred to the garden as the “African
Grove,” a place where “the ebony lads and lasses could obtain ice cream,
ice punch, and hear music from the big drum and the clarionet.” Unfortu-
nately, it did not last long. Less than a month after its opening, complaints
from neighbors, thought to have been brought on by negative news cover-
age, forced its closure. Brown later became a pioneer in operating inclu-
sive, integrated theaters. However, assaults by whites finally forced him
out of that business as well. He was alleged to have responded by erecting
a sign that read: “Whites Do Not Know How to Behave at Entertainments
Designed for Ladies and Gentlemen of Colour.”18
In Philadelphia, black cooks and caterers opened their own confec-
tionery and catering businesses and pleasure gardens in response to dis-
crimination. One of the first is thought to have been Monsieur (first name
unknown) Collot, a French-Creole confectioner who came to the city from
Haiti after a slave rebellion.19
By the middle of the nineteenth century, working-class whites were vis-
iting pleasure gardens, usually at night or on Sunday, their only day off. In
Manhattan, the working class patronized gardens located in the Bowery
area, while gardens located in the Broadway area attracted a more well-to-
do crowd. In 1852, the Southern writer William Bobo called one garden “a
sort of ice-creamery, and general rendezvous for the Bowery fashionables,
who assemble, mostly at night—not having time during the day like the
Broadway dandies.”20 By then, the upper classes had started to desert the

gardens rather than hobnob with the working classes. According to the
New York Herald, by 1856, when Vauxhall Garden closed, “the fashionables
had deserted it and the democracy of society took it altogether to them-
selves.”21
As pleasure gardens changed, newspaper accounts of drinking, unruly
crowds, and a riot at one garden altered the public’s perception of them.
They were no longer seen as resorts for genteel ladies and gentlemen, but
rather as playgrounds for boisterous crowds. When designs for Central
Park were being evaluated in the 1850s, the pleasure garden model was
considered and rejected. Although the working classes enjoyed the lively
diversions it offered, and Irish American and German American newspa-
pers argued for it, the prevailing view was that it was too commercial, per-
haps too democratic. In an 1857 New York Times editorial, a writer opined,
“Better the Park would never be made at all if it is to become the resort of
rapscallions.”22 The “claptrap and gewgaw” of pleasure gardens, as an-
other contemporary account described their attractions,23 no longer ap-
pealed to the upper echelons of society, who, following the lead of
European trendsetters, preferred picturesque natural landscapes. The cho-
sen Greensward Plan, designed by Frederick Law Olmstead and Calvert
Vaux, was a model of the rustic and picturesque.
London’s pleasure gardens had begun their downward spiral earlier,
and the city’s famed Vauxhall Garden was shut down permanently in
1858. During the same year, the last pleasure garden to be built in New
York, the Palace Garden, opened on Fourteenth Street near Sixth Avenue.
According to its advertising, it was designed to appeal to the “refined,
fashionable and the intellectual.”24 Instead, it attracted housemaids and
their young charges and other members of the working classes. When the
elite stayed away, the owners of the garden added children’s attractions,
built a new amphitheater, and welcomed circuses to serve their new cus-
tomers. But the Palace Garden lasted just four years. One factor in its de-
mise may have been that it did not sell liquor, which made profitability
much less likely. But it was also simply the end of the era. Pleasure

gardens were fast disappearing and being replaced by such entertain-
ments as vaudeville and amusement parks.
Saloons for Ice Cream

In addition to being served in the pleasure gardens, ice cream was sold in
ice cream saloons and ice creameries. Like the pleasure gardens, different
shops catered to different customers, from the most fashionable to the
least. George Foster, a flamboyant writer for the New York Tribune in the
mid-nineteenth century, wrote about their differences in his columns on
life in the city, which were later reprinted in the books New York in Slices
and New York by Gas-Light. Describing an elegant Broadway shop, he re-
ported that its entrance was dominated by long counters laden with cakes,
fruits, and confectionery. The dining area was located up a few steps at the
back of the shop, and ladies occupied most of the tables. Although it was
daytime, the room was dimly lit, he wrote, adding, “Ladies love such sub-
dued atmospheres, unless they are very young and handsome.”25
The ladies were unlikely to go hungry in such a shop because, in addition
to ice cream, they could enjoy tea, coffee, chocolate, sandwiches, oysters,
porterhouse steaks, and sherry cobblers. The cobblers were then-fashionable
drinks made with sherry, sugar, lemon, and ice and served decorated with
fruit. Sherry cobblers were generally sipped through a straw, a practice some
proper Victorian ladies thought altogether shocking.
“Quite a different set of customers,” Foster reported, frequented the
“Patent Steam Ice-Cream Saloon,” so-called because the ice cream was
made in a steam-driven freezer. Foster joked that the ice cream must be
warm, then described the customers as the wives and daughters of “the
substantial tradesmen, mechanics and artisans of the city, the great mid-
dle class.” He wrote, “They are altogether a pleasant sight, this glorious
autumn afternoon, sitting at these handsome tables, every matron at-
tended by a ‘little horde’ of hungry expectants, clinging full of hope and
confidence to mama’s knee—hope that they will get now and then a
spoonful of the delicious Patent Steam Ice-Cream, (which after all, dear

reader, is not warm,)—and confidence that their reasonable expectations
will not be disappointed.”26 At night, the class distinctions at the various
ice cream saloons were even more evident. Foster reported:
The Broadway establishments are generally fitted up in a style of exag-
gerated finery, which has a grand effect from the street, but is a little too
glaring and crushing when you are within. At night, when the gaudy cur-
tains, silver paper, and gilded mirrors are highly illuminated by gaslight,
the scene rises to splendor itself or at any rate to that which most people
are willing to accept for it, and never know the difference. In the sultry
summer evenings, every one of these fashionable Ice-Cream Saloons is
crowded with throngs of well-dressed men and women, belonging for
the most part to the great middle classes; while the establishments in the
Bowery are crammed to the very threshold with the b’hoys and their
buxom and rosy sweethearts, their veins leaping with the fire of health
and youth, and their round cheeks glowing with happiness.27
Finally, he wrote, there was “no lack of ice-cream shops of a lower grade
than those of which we have been speaking—where, although the com-
pany is not ‘picked,’ the pockets of the unwary visitor generally are.”28
The Ice Harvest

During the first half of the nineteenth century, several events, inventions,
and innovations brought about enormous changes in the production and
consumption of ice cream. The invention of ice cream freezers with built-
in churns, the expansion of the sugar industry, and especially the develop-
ment of the ice business all helped make ice cream a household word and a
family treat. Ice, the winter crop of frozen ponds, lakes, and rivers, gave
America its favorite summer dessert.
For years, ice had been harvested and used to chill drinks, preserve food,
and freeze ice cream. But it had been limited to those few who could afford
it and had the means to store it. Jefferson had an icehouse at Monticello
that, like most built in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries,

was more like an ice cellar. It was dug into the ground on the coldest side
of the house, under the north terrace. It could hold sixty-two wagonloads
of ice, which was taken from the Rivanna River in winter and used
throughout much of the year. In 1815, the supply lasted until October 15.29
The British confectioner William Jeanes included advice on building
icehouses in his 1861 book, The Modern Confectioner: A Practical Guide. He
wrote, “In America, almost every small farmer enjoys the luxury of an Ice-
house. In this country they are unknown, except in large establishments.”
Jeanes discussed materials, sites, and insulation in some detail and sug-
gested walls measuring from fourteen to eighteen inches thick. “If you
have a cool dairy, let your Ice-house be built at the side of this, entering
from the dairy,” he advised. “This arrangement serves a double purpose:
the Ice cools the dairy in the warm months, and the low temperature of the
place does not thaw so quickly the frozen mass within.” Warning that the
icehouse must be as nearly airtight as possible, he said, “The great thing to
guard against being the admission of warm air” (italics in the original).30
Actually, Jeanes was wrong. In addition to having good drainage to keep
meltwater away from solid ice, the great thing was to have good ventilation
so that warm air could be released. Icehouse construction continued to
evolve in the nineteenth century, and as people better understood freez-
ing, they built aboveground icehouses with good ventilation and drainage,
often painting them white to reflect the sun’s rays. Sawdust or straw was
used to insulate the ice. Prosperous farmers or homeowners with ponds or
lakes on their properties often had small icehouses. In some communities,
neighbors joined together to cut ice, and they stored it in communal ice-
houses.31 The owner of a lakefront hotel might build an icehouse so he
could cut ice in winter to supply his business. Some harvested ice and sold
it to local businesses, restaurants, confectionery shops, or hotels. But it
was not a big business until the middle of the nineteenth century, decades
after Frederick Tudor first shipped ice from Boston to Martinique in 1806.
Tudor was a member of a prominent Boston family and was expected to
attend Harvard University, as his father and older brother had done. But

he had other ideas. He left school and drifted for a few years. He served a
brief apprenticeship, traveled a bit, notably to Havana, and spent time at
the family farm in Saugus, outside Boston. There the family had an ice-
house where they stored ice from their pond and, in summer, made their
own ice cream.
Tudor saw his future in the clear ice from the pond. Remembering the
intense summer heat of Havana, he decided that supplying the West In-
dies with ice would be a successful business. Few agreed with him. No one
wanted to invest in the enterprise. Nevertheless, in 1806 he managed to
get the exclusive right to sell ice in Martinique, harvested enough to fill a
ship, insulated the ice with hay, and set sail from Boston on February 13.
The ship arrived on March 5 with much of the ice intact. However, accord-
ing to Gavin Weightman, author of The Frozen-Water Trade, when Tudor
landed in Saint-Pierre, then the island’s capital city, he discovered that his
brothers, who had gone ahead to make arrangements, had not managed to
secure an icehouse. There was nowhere to store the ice. People were not ea-
ger to buy it, since they did not know how to store it or what to do with it.
Tudor, probably recalling the ice cream his family made every summer, per-
suaded the owner of a restaurant called the Tivoli Garden to use the ice to
make ice cream and sell it. Tudor provided the ice, the restaurateur pro-
vided the cream mixture, and together they made ice cream. Afterward,
Tudor wrote in a letter to his brother-in-law, “The Tivoli man rec’d for these
creams the first night $300; after this he was humble as a mushroom.”32
The Saint-Pierre newspaper reported on the momentous occasion: “It
will be a remarkable epoch in the history of luxury and enterprise that on
the 6th March ice creams have been eaten in Martinique probably for the
first time since the settlement of the country. And this too in a volcanic
land lying 14 degrees north of the equator.”33
Although Tudor’s initial foray into the business lost money, it proved ice
could be shipped successfully. It took years, but eventually the business be-
came profitable and Tudor became known as the “Ice King.” One secret of
his success was that he was not content to simply wait for ice to form and

then harvest it. He and his associate, Nathaniel Wyeth, developed innovative
techniques and equipment that made the process efficient and lucrative.
They improved on the design and effectiveness of icehouses and ice-
harvesting tools. They were the first to use horse-drawn ice plows to cut
regularly sized blocks of ice, which stored better than irregular ones. They
pioneered the technique called “sinking the pond,” in which holes were
drilled into the ice to allow the water below to wash over the ice. The fresh
water froze quickly and the ice became that much thicker. They discovered
that sawdust was an excellent insulator, and found a reliable source at
Maine lumber mills, where, previously, it had been considered worthless.
The ice trade opened up a new market for lumber companies.
In 1833, Tudor shipped ice from Boston to Calcutta, to the amazement
and delight of all concerned, especially the British, who suffered in India’s
heat. The Tuscany sailed from Boston on May 12 and docked in Calcutta on
September 13 with enough ice to supply the city for up to sixty days, ac-
cording to an ad in the local newspaper.34 When regular shipments were
established, ships carried American ice to India and returned with holds
full of goods, including Indian jute, which New England mills turned into
rope, fabrics, and sacks. Closer to home, ships brought ice to Southern
states and returned loaded with cotton for Northern textile mills. Previ-
ously, the ships had sailed south with rocks in their hold for ballast. Al-
though the North’s blockade of Southern ports during the Civil War
interrupted the Southern ice trade, it increased the Indian trade in both
ice and cotton. Providing ice to the Union Army also became a profitable
business.
Naturally, Tudor’s success generated competition. Others entered the
business, and soon large wooden icehouses lined the shores of New York’s
and New England’s lakes, ponds, and rivers. One of Tudor’s rivals began
harvesting ice from Wenham Lake, north of Boston, in 1845 and selling it
in London. When he displayed a large block of the ice in the window of his
office in the heart of London, passersby were amazed at its clarity and its
apparent longevity. It seemed the ice never melted. Unbeknownst to them,

a fresh block of ice was substituted for a melting one whenever necessary.
The ice was so clear many Londoners believed it was glass and had to
touch it to be convinced otherwise. Wenham Lake ice became so renowned
that it became a generic name for ice, much as Vauxhall had for pleasure
gardens. Later, a lake in Norway was renamed Wenham Lake so that its ice
would sell well in London.
When he was seventy-five, in 1859, Frederick Tudor created a public
pleasure garden he called Maolis on land he had bought in the town of
Nahant, north of Boston, then a fashionable seaside resort. The pleasure
garden’s many attractions included picnic areas, a teahouse, a dance hall, a
“Witch House” where children could delight in being frightened, a bowl-
ing alley, a bear den, and an ice cream pavilion. It was not a big financial
success, but it gave him much enjoyment in his last years. He died at the
age of eighty, five years after opening it.
For years, the natural ice industry continued to thrive in America. In
1879, it was estimated that eight million tons of ice was harvested annu-
ally. The industry employed thousands of workers, some year round,
many more during the winter ice harvest season. Ice was harvested from
ponds, lakes, and rivers from Maine to California, and was transported
to other parts of the world on ships, barges, trains, and horse- drawn
wagons. Ice created and transformed businesses. Toolmakers devised a
vast array of implements for harvesting and delivering ice. Ice boxes be-
came must-have appliances both for businesses and homes. (Confus-
ingly, they were often called refrigerators.) Meat could be slaughtered
and shipped from Chicago across the country in railroad cars loaded
with ice rather than being delivered on the hoof. Milwaukee’s beer could
be brewed year round rather than only in the winter, thanks to the natu-
ral ice supply. California’s fruits and vegetables reached Chicago’s mar-
kets in ice-cooled railroad cars. Butter was sent by rail from the Midwest
to New York, then by ship to Europe.35 Ice was used in medical practices,
especially for treating feverish patients. In cities, ice depots held large
stores of ice throughout the year. The iceman filled his wagon there and

delivered the dripping blocks to homes and businesses daily or even
more frequently. By the last quarter of the century, ice was available
nearly everywhere, and, as a result, so was ice cream. The May 13, 1887,
edition of the Clinton Public newspaper, of Clinton, Illinois, reported
that the new West Side Bakery and Confectionery had ice cream for sale
“every day.”
The same year, nearly two million tons of ice was harvested in Maine.36
Jennie Everson, who was born in Dresden, Maine, in 1890, wrote that, as a
young girl, she had been able to see eleven commercial icehouses from the
front lawn of her riverside home. They varied in size, but the capacity of a
commercial icehouse ranged from 15,000 to 50,000 tons of ice.37 In addi-
tion to the commercial houses, many families in the area had their own
small icehouses, which were frequently filled with leftover ice from the
commercial operations.
Despite the plethora of natural ice and the scope of the business, a num-
ber of inventors were experimenting with making ice artificially. Some ma-
chines used compressed air; others used ether or ammonia. However, the
early machines were flawed. Occasionally one would explode, a fact that
the natural ice industry exploited. The machines used corrosive chemicals,
and oil sometimes got into the ice and ruined it. Artificially made ice was
not cost-effective compared to natural ice. Most important, the public had
plenty of natural ice and believed that artificially made ice was not quite
real and not really necessary. When a machine that made ice artificially
was demonstrated at the 1862 International Exhibition in London, some
visitors thought the ice was produced through a sort of magic trick. They
did not take it seriously. However, the Indian government did, and ordered
one for the use of Her Majesty’s troops, thus foreshadowing an end to the
natural ice trade to India.38
During the American Civil War, the artificial ice business gained from
the blockade that ended shipments from the North to the South. When
Southerners could not get natural ice, they turned to artificially made ice
to supply their needs. A Frenchman, Ferdinand Carré, had designed and

patented a steam-driven ice-making plant that used vaporized ammonia.
His machines helped the South get the ice it required during the war and
proved that the business had possibilities.
The new machines did not capture a significant portion of the ice busi-
ness quickly, yet they were harbingers of changes to come. In the late nine-
teenth century, the natural ice industry began to face many new challenges.
During mild winters, there was not enough ice even in the far reaches of
Maine to supply the ever-growing demand. Waters near growing cities
were becoming polluted and could no longer be used for ice. At the same
time, mechanical refrigeration continued to improve and became more
cost-effective. The tide was turning, although not everyone recognized it.
In 1895, the president of New York’s Knickerbocker Ice Company, Robert
Maclay, said of the machine-made ice business, “The cost of manufactur-
ing such ice, even without the additional cost of making a chemically pure
article, precludes the prospect of ever bringing it profitably into competi-
tion with ice formed by nature’s own hand.”39
Others predicted the future more accurately. In August 1894, an early is-
sue of the New England Kitchen, a magazine published by the Boston Cook-
ing School, summed up the situation concisely in an article titled “Ice and
Ices.” After explaining that the problem of oil in artificially produced ice
had been overcome, the article stated:
Thus to-day in most large cities we are offered a choice between natural
and artificial ice, at about the same cost. . . .
The probability is that every year manufactured ice will gain a stronger
hold, for there is a constant increase in the demand for ice, because of the
larger population of the country, and the same cause interferes with the
natural ice supply.40
In 1920, according to the U.S. Census Bureau, forty million tons of ice
was produced artificially and only fifteen million tons of natural ice was
harvested.41 The change would have taken place even sooner had it not
been delayed by the U.S. government’s need for ammonia for ammunition

during World War I. After the war, the industry swiftly gained ground, and
the once-thriving natural ice business failed.
The Price of Sugar

Another impediment to widespread ice cream making prior to the nine-
teenth century was the high cost of sugar. However, happily for ice cream
makers, at the same time that ice became more available and affordable,
sugar prices began to fall and sugar changed from a luxury item to a staple.
In the eighteenth century, sugar was expensive, and its quality varied de-
pending on the level of clarification, from the coarsest brown sugar to re-
fined white sugar. It was sold in hard loaves or cones that had to be broken
up, pounded, and sifted before being used. Some used a mortar and pestle;
others recommended rolling the sugar loaf with a bottle, then sifting it,
because they thought this method wasted less sugar than pounding it in a
mortar. The origin of the sugar was also a factor. For example, Elizabeth E.
Lea, in Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young Housekeepers,
warned, “You should always clarify white Havana sugar.”42 Since even
most refined sugar still contained many impurities, both confectioners’
books and cookbooks written for home cooks included detailed instruc-
tions on how to clarify it, just as confectioners’ books had. In her instruc-
tions for making jellies, author Eliza Leslie told her readers that sugar “will
be improved in clearness by passing it through a flannel bag. Skim off the
brown scum, all the time it is boiling.”43
To save money, some homemakers bought different grades of sugar and
put them to different uses. Catharine Beecher, sister of Harriet Beecher
Stowe and author of Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book, published in
1850, recommended keeping four qualities of sugar on hand: “Refined loaf
for tea, crushed sugar for the nicest preserves and to use with fruit, nice
brown sugar for coffee, and common brown for cooking and more com-
mon use.” Storing sugar was also a challenge. Miss Beecher warned that
sugars should not be bought by the barrel, because “the brown is apt to
turn to molasses, and run out on the floor.” She said that loaf sugar could

be stored in its paper on a shelf, but that the others should be kept in
“close covered kegs, or covered wooden articles made for the purpose.”44
Making a virtue of necessity, many cooks sweetened cakes and cookies
with molasses rather than sugar.
As the cultivation of sugar spread throughout the Caribbean, originally
by means of slave labor, the price began to drop and use began to increase.
In 1700, according to Sidney Mintz, author of Sweetness and Power, per
capita sugar consumption in England was four pounds per year. By 1800,
it had gone up to eighteen pounds.45 Between 1840 and 1850, the price
dropped by 30 percent, and it fell another 25 percent in the next two de-
cades.46 By the latter half of the nineteenth century, even poor English
families could afford sugar for their tea. American sugar consumption
lagged behind England’s, but according to Wendy Woloson, author of
Refined Tastes, by the early 1870s Americans were consuming almost forty-
one pounds of sugar per person, per year.47 The British were up to a re-
markable ninety pounds per person in the 1890s.48
Another factor behind the plummeting price of cane sugar was the de-
velopment of beet sugar. Although the process of producing sugar from
beets had been known for some time, it had not been used to any great de-
gree. In 1812, when the Napoleonic wars cut off France’s sugar supplies,
Napoleon ordered the cultivation of sugar beets and the production of
beet sugar. For the first time, beet sugar became a factor in the market and,
by vastly increasing the sugar supply, helped drive down the price. Beets,
unlike sugarcane, can be grown in temperate climates, and in the late nine-
teenth century they became a significant crop for the United States. In ad-
dition, Hawaiian cane sugar plantations were by then adding substantially
to the sugar supply. By 1906, the United States and its territories were
producing more than three hundred thousand tons of sugar annually.
The United States would soon become a key world producer.49
Sugar-refining methods were also improving. During the latter half of
the nineteenth century, industrialization was changing the way many prod-
ucts were made and distributed. In the sugar industry, steam-powered

machines, centrifuges, evaporators, and other improvements in refining
equipment and methods were making the process more efficient and less
expensive. They also resulted in sugar that was ready to use without further
clarification, thus saving time and effort. By the turn of the twentieth cen-
tury, sugar was an easy-to-use, affordable, ordinary household product. In
fact, it was so affordable that an article in the American Kitchen Magazine
suggested that Marie Antoinette’s directive was an idea whose time had
come. According to the writer, who was not named, “sugar is so cheap in
this world that you can make cake which shall contain more calories,—more
of that which sustains life,—which will be cheaper than the bread which
you can make from the same weight of good wheat flour.” The article went
on to say, “So, had she lived a hundred and twenty years longer, poor Marie
Antoinette would be justified in her ejaculation.”50
Stirring the Pot

Toward the middle of the nineteenth century, when the natural ice indus-
try was still gaining strength, another big improvement in ice cream mak-
ing occurred. The sorbetière had been in use for nearly two centuries, even
though it was difficult to operate. Then several people invented new and
improved ice cream freezers, at roughly the same time. Their biggest ad-
vantage was that they were all designed to stir the ice cream mixture with-
out opening the pot. Each had a crank on the outside of the container,
which was attached to a dasher, or churn, on the inside. The person mak-
ing the ice cream turned the crank, and inside the pot the ice cream was
mixed to the smooth, snowy consistency that everyone from Emy to Jarrin
had recommended.
An American woman from Philadelphia, Nancy Johnson, invented the
first such ice cream freezer in 1843. Intended for home use, it looked like a
sorbetière but had an outer crank and an inner dasher. Little is known
about Johnson, and many reports have stated that she never patented her
invention. She did. Her “Artificial Freezer” received patent number 3,254
on September 9, 1843. Her application began: “Be it known that I, Nancy

M. Johnson, of the city of Philadelphia and State of Pennsylvania, have in-
vented a new and useful Improvement in the Art of Producing Artificial
Ices, and that the following is a full and exact description of the machinery
for carrying into effect the said improvement.” She went on to describe the
way the freezer was constructed and how its internal “wings,” or dasher,
worked. She also explained that her device used less salt and ice because
its outer tub had a diameter only three or four inches larger than the
freezer. The application concluded:
What I claim as new in this my invention and for which I desire to obtain
Letters Patent is—The above described revolving curved beater with its
vertical axis, in combination with a freezing apparatus as above de-
scribed and adapted to the purpose herein set forth. Nancy M. Johnson.
In the presence of—John Thompson, Samuel Day.
Five years later, Eber C. Seaman, a New Jersey Quaker, invented a crank-
turned ice cream machine. His made large batches and was intended to al-
low professional confectioners to turn out more ice cream faster. It, too,
helped lower the price of ice cream production. He later developed a
smaller version for home use.51
Thomas Masters was an English confectioner to the Royal Zoological
Gardens and to the Royal Polytechnic Institution, as well as something of
an inventor. He also devised an ice cream maker, but his produced its own
ice in addition to churning the ice cream. Masters, who was skilled at at-
tracting publicity, demonstrated it at London’s Crystal Palace, as well as
before the Queen. He described his ice cream maker in his 1844 book, ti-
tled The Ice Book: Being a Compendious & Concise History of Everything Con-
nected with Ice from its First Introduction into Europe as an Article of Luxury to
the Present Time: With an Account of the Artificial Manner of Producing Pure
& Solid Ice, and A Valuable Collection of the Most Approved Recipes for Making
Superior Water Ices and Ice Creams at a Few Minutes’ Notice. The book ex-
plained how to make ice with his machine and his chemical mixtures, as
well as how to make ice cream. It had descriptions and diagrams of his

ice- and ice-cream-making equipment, wine chillers, and knife-polishing
machines. It included a chapter with recipes for more than four dozen ice
creams and ices, some flavored with “nectar (a delicious beverage, pre-
pared only by the author).” Masters claimed his machine could make ice
cream in four or five minutes, and that “no mansion can be henceforward
complete without it.”52 He said the machine could also be used to chill
wine and churn butter. He wrote, “Any lady or gentleman having the
same apparatus in their breakfast-room in the morning, may have butter
for their own breakfast, with only a little beneficial exercise being re-
quired for its production.”53
Masters believed that producing ice with his machine would have an
enormous impact on the ice business. In fact, he wrote, “we anticipate
nothing less from it than the speedy and entire abandonment of the pres-
ent traffic in natural ice.”54 Despite his undeniable confidence and market-
ing skill, his timing was not perfect. Wenham Lake ice was poised to
capture the British public’s fancy at the time. Artificially made ice was not
yet popular or even trusted. In addition, critics claimed that his devices
used corrosive materials and required constant attention. But he was one
of the first to make ice cream with artificially made ice.
It was years before the new freezers completely replaced the old sor-
betières, including those in professional kitchens. When Charles Ranhofer,
chef at Delmonico’s, wrote The Epicurean, a cookbook for professionals, in
1893, his instructions for ice cream making showed four different types
and sizes of freezers. Two of the four were old-style sorbetières, one with a
two- to three-quart capacity, and the other with an unspecified but
smaller, probably one-quart, capacity. The other two were machines with
exterior cranks and interior dashers. One turned out thirty quarts of ice
cream at a time; the other, twelve to eighteen quarts. Both could be oper-
ated by hand or by steam. The implication was that all four were in use in
professional kitchens at the same time.
During the latter half of the nineteenth century, most of the new ice
cream machines still used natural ice and salt for freezing, and initially

even the larger professional machines were hand cranked. Before long, as
designs evolved and improved, some were run by pedal, then by horse,
then by steam power. Advertisements in trade publications such as the
Confectioners’ Journal showed a steady progression of modifications and
changes in the machines over the next several years. The ad copy promised
that the new machines could freeze a forty-quart can in thirty minutes, a
twenty-four-quart can in twenty-five minutes, and an eighteen-quart can
in twenty minutes. An 1875 ad for Thomas Mills and Brother featured a
forty-quart machine for ninety dollars and a boiler, engine, and patent ice
cream freezer complete for six hundred dollars. A smaller ad for a horizon-
tal ice cream freezer promised that it would “save Ice enough in one season
to pay for the Machine.” Most of the machines were intended for use in ice
cream saloons, hotels, and confectioners’ shops. There were also ads for
freezers for the home that made one or two quarts at a time.
In the early 1920s, the writers of a British cookbook for confectioners
called All about Ices, Jellies, and Creams, wrote that the “old-fashioned” type
of freezer was “the most generally used, and is in many respects the most
useful, especially for small quantities.” The illustration accompanying the
text was of a sorbetière-style freezer. The authors also preferred natural ice
to artificial. They said that there were many types of freezers on the mar-
ket, “all of them claiming to be the best. If one is to believe all that is said
of them, they all use the minimum amount of ice, with comparatively little
labour, and give the best possible results.”55
Wholesale Operations
Until the middle of the nineteenth century, ice cream making was a local
business. Confectioners and cooks made small amounts of ice cream
and sold them directly to their customers or occasionally to a local hotel
or caterer. But ice cream, like so many other products, was about to
become a large-scale commercial enterprise. Many factors were respon-
sible for the change. The improvements in freezers, the plentiful supply
of ice, and the low cost of sugar were all responsible for expanding

production. Now, with the advent of the railroad, distribution was about
to be transformed.
The first ice cream wholesaler in America was Jacob Fussell, a Quaker
from Maryland. Fussell was a Baltimore milk dealer, a businessman rather
than a dairyman. He bought milk, butter, and cream from Pennsylvania
Dutch farmers in York County; had them shipped, packed in ice, in North-
ern Central Railroad cars to Baltimore; and sold them to city dwellers.
They were glad to have fresh-from-the-countryside milk rather than prob-
lematic city milk, and business was good. However, during the summer of
1851, Fussell found himself with an oversupply of cream. Rather than let it
go sour, he made some ice cream and sold it. It proved to be popular, no
doubt partly because he sold it for twenty-five cents a quart rather than the
sixty cents a quart the city’s confectioners charged.
Quick to see the possibilities in the ice cream business, Fussell opened a
factory in Seven Valleys, Pennsylvania, near the source of his cream. His
listing in the 1853–1854 Baltimore City Directory read: “Fussell Jacob, Jr.
country produce dealer (ice cream at 25 cts. per quart, delivered in moulds
or otherwise, day or night).”56 In 1854, he moved his operation to Balti-
more, having decided that it was better to be close to the customers than to
the supply. Over the next few years, he added factories in Washington, D.C.,
Boston, and, in 1863, New York. He was the first significant wholesale
dealer in New York. When he arrived in the city, a committee from the Asso-
ciated Confectioners of New York welcomed him by warning that, if he did
not agree to abide by their price-fixing scheme, they would put him out of
business. Fussell refused, and although he suffered retaliation from some
suppliers, he prevailed. Fussell believed in open, transparent pricing rather
than secret backroom deals. He priced his ice cream at one dollar a gallon
for those who bought more than five gallons, one dollar and twenty cents
for those who bought less. He sold to hotels, festivals, and churches for one
dollar a gallon. He summed up his pricing philosophy in this statement:
“While there must be no discounts, no donations or no subterfuge used to
gain customers, we may be allowed discretionary liberty with churches and

benevolent objects, but not to intimate this liberality beforehand with a
view of gaining an order.”57
Clearly a man of principle in addition to being an astute businessman,
Fussell was an ardent abolitionist whose fiery speeches sometimes en-
raged audiences and put him at risk. Nevertheless, he worked with the Un-
derground Railroad to help slaves escape, and, after the Civil War, he
financed a housing development for newly freed slaves. As his business de-
veloped and prospered, Fussell took on partners and protégés, one of
whom, James Horton, took over the business in 1874. The J. M. Horton Ice
Cream Company became the first company to ship ice cream to foreign
ports. On Christmas Day, 1891, the steamer Hamburg American Packet left
New York for a voyage around the world with a thousand bricks of Horton
ice cream in its hold.58 Thereafter ice cream was always on the dessert
menu on transatlantic steamships. Horton’s company was bought out by a
division of the Borden Company in 1928.
The wholesale ice cream business began in England at about the same
time that it did in the United States, but under different circumstances.
Carlo Gatti was born into a prosperous family in the Italian-speaking
Swiss canton of Ticino in 1817. As a young man, he made his way to Paris,
where, in winter, he sold chestnuts and gaufres, a wafflelike pastry and the
precursor to the ice cream cone. In 1847, he went to London and began
selling gaufres in the Italian quarter. He soon opened a café in the hall of
Hungerford Market. With its plate-glass windows, marble tables, plush
red velvet seats, and, most important, ice cream at prices the general pub-
lic could afford, the café soon attracted a large following.
However, Gatti did not limit himself to running a café. He soon be-
came the first mass manufacturer of ice cream in England and, by 1858,
claimed to sell up to ten thousand penny ices a day. He formed a com-
pany to import ice from Norway and, by the 1870s, owned more than
sixty ice wagons. Over time he, often in partnership with family mem-
bers and compatriots, opened other cafés, restaurants, music halls, a
chocolate company, and a pastry shop. He also aided and encouraged

other Swiss and Italian immigrants and helped them set up businesses
of their own. Gatti was only sixty-one when he died in 1878, but some of
the family business interests survived until 1981.59
However, the wholesale ice cream business was most successful in the
United States. After the Civil War, as food production became increasingly
commercialized, America assumed ice cream leadership. European confec-
tioners began to look across the Atlantic for ideas. They bought American
ice cream makers, copied American ice cream products, and referred to
America as the “land of ice cream.”60 After years of living in the shadow of
Europe, America now set the standard. In 1875, according to the Confec-
tioners’ Journal, thirty Philadelphia confectioners were large enough to be
considered wholesalers. In 1892, Pennsylvania State University became
the first university to offer a course in commercial ice cream making. Ads
for American ice cream freezers ran in French and Italian publications. Au-
thor Pellegrino Artusi recommended the new American ice cream makers
in his classic Italian book La scienza in cucina e l’arte di mangiar bene, first
published in 1891. In its English-language edition, the passage reads:
“And today, thanks to the American ice cream makers, which have triple
action and need no spatula, making ice cream has become so much easier
and faster that it would be a shame not to enjoy much more frequently the
sensual pleasure of this delicious food.”61
Giuseppe Ciocca, in his 1907 book, Il pasticciere e confettiere moderno,
pointed out that American ice cream makers did not need to be opened to
stir the mixture, and that they made a very light, soft gelato. The noted
Italian food historians Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari, writing
in Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History, explained the decline of Italian ice
cream making and the rise of American by pointing out that professional
Italian ice cream makers lacked the capital to invest in new equipment at
the turn of the century, and that few had artificial refrigeration until well
into the 1920s. They quoted a famous Italian cook and writer, Amadeo
Pettini, who consoled himself on Italy’s loss of ice cream hegemony with
the statement “Whatever the technical procedure might be in the future,

the historical fact is that we were the first to introduce ice cream to civi-
lization, and Italians were for centuries the foremost ice-cream makers in
the world.”62
The achievements of the American ice cream business did not please
everyone. In particular, confectioners saw the wholesalers’ success as a
threat to their own and took advantage of every opportunity to cast asper-
sions on wholesalers’ products. The editor of an 1883 issue of the Confec-
tioners’ Journal counseled a man who was interested in entering the ice
cream business:
Your whole aim and effort, as a beginner, should be to make an honest ar-
ticle, pure and unadulterated, as to ingredients; and a quart for a quart,
not a sham-puffed-up article with no soul or body in it. People don’t
want to pay for atmospheric air instead of ice cream. My advice is for you
to let the slop-shop, Cheap-John-Factorymen’s processes severely alone;
do not try to make the fraudulent and depraved wares of the factories,
pinch-back creams, church fair and charity creams, boarding-house and
almshouse creams, which are no creams but only frothy, watery slop and
slush and still viler “flavorings,” whose make up is only known to the
devil’s chemical emissaries.63
But the traditionalists were fighting a losing battle. Wholesalers, ice cream
saloons, drugstore soda fountains, and street vendors were all making ice
cream a democratic product rather than an exclusive one. The era of the
elite confectioner was nearing an end.

five
Screaming for Ice Cream
When ice cream peddlers began appearing on city streets in the early nine-
teenth century, children were no doubt delighted. Adults had a more am-
biguous reaction; initially welcoming, their response quickly turned sour.
Before long, they questioned the quality of the ice cream, the cleanliness of
the vendor, and the health problems associated with ice cream made in
less-than-pristine environments. When vendors cried their products in
the streets, the noise offended some ears. Fashionable confectioners and
ice cream shopkeepers disdained the peddlers. Social reformers didn’t ap-
prove of them, because they believed the poor should not waste what little
money they had on such frivolities. The fact that by the latter part of the
century many, if not most, of the peddlers were immigrants also raised is-
sues of prejudice and cultural misapprehensions. For ice cream peddlers,
life was anything but sweet.
Peddlers had begun selling ice cream on American city streets in the
early part of the nineteenth century, with some coming to the city from
the surrounding countryside to hawk their products. At first, their ice
cream was praised, albeit faintly. In 1850, a writer in the Philadelphia
area, identified only as “an Observer,” published a book called City Cries
about the city’s various street vendors. Under “Ice Cream!” he wrote,
“The countryman . . . sells an excellent article. It is really country ice
cream, fresh from the farm, and although cried and sold in the streets, the
market, and the public squares, it will please the most fastidious palate.”
The “loudest criers of ice cream,” according to the author, were blacks
who carried tin cans of lemon and vanilla ice creams on their shoulders.
103
He had not tasted their ice cream, he admitted, but said he had been
told that, although “the African article will not bear a comparison with
Parkinson’s [the highly regarded Philadelphia confectionery shop], it is
by no means unpalatable.”1
In London, where everything from apples to eels was hawked on the
streets, ice cream was still not well known in 1851, when Henry Mayhew,
the renowned chronicler of street life in Victorian England, asked a ped-
dler about it. The peddler replied in astonishment, “Ices in the streets!
Aye, and there’ll be jellies next, and then mock turtle, and then the real
ticket, sir. . . . Penny glasses of champagne, I shouldn’t wonder.”2
When, despite the peddler’s skepticism, ice cream was sold in the streets,
those who tasted it for the first time sometimes found the experience dis-
tressing. Mayhew wrote about a street seller at the Smithfield Market in
London who had a handsome pie-cart drawn by a pony, from which he sold
pies, milk, and ice cream, crying, “Raspberry cream! Iced raspberry-cream,
ha’penny a glass!” Mayhew wrote:
This street-seller had a capital trade. Street-ices, or rather ice-creams,
were somewhat of a failure last year, more especially in Greenwich-park,
but this year they seem likely to succeed. The Smithfield man sold them
in very small glasses, which he merely dipped into a vessel at his feet, and
so filled them with cream. The consumers had to use their fingers instead
of a spoon, and no few seemed puzzled how to eat their ice, and were
grievously troubled by its getting among their teeth. I heard one drover
mutter that he felt “as if it had snowed in his belly!”3
In the second half of the century, the street vending of ice cream ex-
panded rapidly as a result of an influx of immigrants from Italy. Destitute
Italians were flooding into American and English cities, fleeing the politi-
cal upheaval and poverty of their home. Rural Italy, in particular, had suf-
fered as a result of revolution and changes in the feudal system. Even after
the establishment of the new Italian state in 1861, peasants and laborers
faced many hardships, and many sought a better life in other countries,
104 / Screaming for Ice Cream

particularly England and the United States. When they arrived, they faced
all the problems of finding their way in a foreign land, along with wide-
spread prejudice against immigrants. Prominent politicians and writers
used language such as “good-for-nothing mongrels,” “small, swarthy,
black-haired, long-skulled people,” and “human flotsam”4 to describe
them. A widely published turn-of-the-century poem titled “Unguarded
Gates” railed against the “wild, motley throng” that was arriving in Amer-
ica with its “tiger passions, . . . strange tongues,” and “accents of men-
ace.”5 In 1891, when a local mob in New Orleans shot and killed a group of
Sicilians who had just been acquitted of a murder, the New York Times de-
scribed the Sicilians as “sneaking and cowardly” in its coverage of the
event.6 The anti-immigration fervor culminated in the Immigration Act
of 1924, which effectively slowed the immigration of newcomers from
southern and eastern Europe to a trickle.7
The Italians who had arrived in America between the 1860s and the
1920s were most often poor, illiterate young men and boys from rural
southern Italy. Ill-prepared for life in the new country, they were met with
not only the xenophobia of Americans but also mistreatment at the hands
of their fellow countrymen. Most of the Italian immigrants were con-
trolled by men called padroni, or bosses, Italians who had immigrated ear-
lier, who spoke English, and who used their experience to dominate and
profit from the newcomers. Acting as middlemen, the padroni helped the
newcomers find work and housing. However, the housing was usually in a
crowded tenement with a dozen or more sharing a room, and the work was
no better. In return for their services, the padroni either extracted a portion
of the immigrants’ pay or took the entire amount and gave them back
an allowance. In addition, the padroni received commissions from employ-
ers and tenement owners. Although there were exceptions, many padroni
abused their power, took advantage of the fact that the immigrants did not
speak English, and overcharged them for the services they provided. Dr.
Egisto Rossi, of the Italian Immigration Bureau in New York, quoted in a
1901 immigration report, said, “The padrone system, or bossism, can be
Screaming for Ice Cream / 105

defined as the forced tribute which the newly arrived pays to those who
are already acquainted with the ways and language of the country.”8
Since most of the immigrants did not have a trade, they went to work as
laborers or peddlers of small plaster statues. Some became organ grinders,
a job that required no musical ability. The organ grinders simply cranked a
wheel on the organ to make music, and, in theory, passersby paid them for
the pleasure of listening. In practice, so many took up the trade that they
became a nuisance, and some people began giving them money not to play
or to play elsewhere. The police, too, were quick to tell them to move on. As
a result, the bosses had newcomers take up ice cream vending instead of
organ grinding. Making and selling ice cream was a practical alternative
because supplies had become cheaper and more readily available. It was
relatively easy to mix the ice cream, freeze it in a simple ice cream maker
with ice and salt, pack it into containers surrounded by more ice and salt,
load it onto a cart, and push it around the city. Generally, the padroni sup-
plied the ice cream and the carts. The workers went out with carts full of
ice cream and were expected to come back with empty carts and all the
money they had earned.
Italians who emigrated to England in the latter half of the nineteenth
century fared no better than their counterparts in America. Mostly men
and boys, they walked from Italy to France and crossed the English Chan-
nel by ferry. Most were from rural areas and became street vendors in
British urban centers. As in America, they started out as organ grinders or
statue sellers, but by the 1880s they were selling food. Since many of the
padroni had come from chestnut-growing regions in Italy, they imported
chestnuts, fitted barrows with small braziers, and sent men and boys off to
sell hot roasted chestnuts in winter. In summer, again like their compatri-
ots in America, they made ice cream at night in the cellars of the Italian
quarter, froze it in the morning, and loaded the ice-packed buckets onto
the pushcarts and barrows to be cried in the streets. If the ice cream ven-
dors returned at the end of the day with less money than expected, they
had to answer for it. Sometimes, street toughs would pretend they wanted

to buy a dish of ice cream and then, when the vendor opened the pail, they
would toss dirt or stones into it, ruining his supply and subjecting him to
punishment at the hands of his master.
Though Italian vendors in England were controlled by padroni, the sys-
tem differed from that in America, according to Terri Colpi, author of The
Italian Factor. Rather than acting as middlemen, the padroni were the em-
ployers in England. They recruited the immigrants, housed them, and put
them under two- to three-year contracts. Generally, the contracts stated
that a padrone would feed, clothe, and house the immigrant; in return, the
latter would turn over all his earnings to the padrone. At the end of the
contract’s term, the padrone was supposed to give the immigrant a lump
sum of from eight to ten pounds. The workers were housed in squalid,
overcrowded apartments, according to contemporary news reports. In
1875, a British newspaper reported on their living conditions: “The accom-
modation is wretched in the extreme, all sanitary laws being set at defi-
ance. Some of the sleeping rooms contain as many as sixteen beds, upon
each of which three or four boys lie huddled together, dreaming of the
sunny skies of their native country.”9
The padroni held the workers’ passports, so men could not return to
Italy before their contracts were up. Although some bosses treated workers
fairly, many did not. Some never paid them their promised wages. Tragi-
cally, many of these immigrants were young children, sent to England by
parents who couldn’t afford to feed them and who hoped they would be
well cared for by a fatherly padrone. Instead, as Colpi put it, “at its worst,
this process could become virtual slavery.”10
The system largely died out at the end of the nineteenth century, both in
the United States and in England, in part because by then most of the men
had fulfilled their contracts, become acclimated, and learned to speak Eng-
lish. Many had either sent for their wives or gone back to Italy, married, and
returned. Newly arrived immigrants were able to find the help and support
they needed within the Italian community, often in neighborhoods made
up of people from their home region if not their village. Ultimately, family

connections replaced the padroni system. In addition, authorities in Eng-
land, the United States, and Italy passed laws regulating child migration
and labor after the abuses were publicized.
Recipes for Disaster

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, a flurry of news reports and
books revealed that many of the foods whose safety Americans took for
granted actually were contaminated or adulterated or both. The public
learned that its meats were tainted, its dairy products were unclean, and
foods such as tea, jams, spices, mustard, coffee, and candies contained
such dangerous ingredients as lead, copper, and mercury. Indeed, it was
said that, whereas once a young woman might have wanted her beau to
prove his love by buying her candy, now she might think he was plotting
her death if he gave her such a gift.11
The milk supply was especially vulnerable. As cities became more popu-
lated, cows were housed in crowded pens and fed refuse from city distill-
eries. Their milk became known as “swill milk.” Legislation controlling
the feeding and housing of cows began to be passed in many cities by the
1860s. But the American milk supply was not pasteurized until the 1890s,
and until then bacteria in the milk frequently caused outbreaks of scarlet
fever, diphtheria, and bovine tuberculosis. Ice cream containing such milk
would be contaminated whether it was made in a fashionable shop or a
teeming tenement. But the latter was more vulnerable. Hygiene was gener-
ally lacking. No one inspected the premises for cleanliness or made sure
the cooks’ hands and equipment were washed. If there was not enough
ice and salt for proper refrigeration, the ice cream mixture would become
rancid. “Sour milk, sweetened, for ice cream,” was a typical description of
the vendors’ ice cream.12
The manner in which their ice cream was eaten was also an invitation to
contamination. The vendors carried small glasses called penny-licks that
they filled and handed to customers. The customers would either lick the
ice cream out of the glass or push it out with their fingers. When they

returned the empty glass, the vendor would give it a swish through a
bucket of water and a wipe on a rag he carried, and fill it up for the next
customer.
By the end of the century, several forces converged and led to the regula-
tion, inspection, and labeling of many foods and transformed the way
some products were made and sold, both in the United States and in Eng-
land. The pure food movement, a grassroots interest group that began in
the 1870s in reaction to publicity about food adulteration, supported the
passage of legislation regulating food production. A Pure Food and Drug
Act was passed in 1906. The new awareness of bacteria and the impor-
tance of cleanliness, coupled with publicity about the immigrants’ terrible
living conditions, also had an enormous impact on ice cream vending both
in the United States and in England.
After chemists in England found dangerous levels of bacteria in ice
cream and in the water used for washing licking glasses, the London
County Council prohibited the manufacture of any ices and ice creams in
any “shed, room or place used as a living room.”13 The chemists’ reports
were widely publicized, and the news hurt all ice cream makers. P. Michael,
a British confectioner and author of Ices and Soda Fountain Drinks, wrote
that the news caused “a great drop in the sale of ice cream, even in the
best-kept shops.” Michael, who was more sympathetic to the plight of
the Italian peddlers than some of his colleagues were, wrote, “Perhaps
the finest thing brought about by this scandal was the breaking up of the
‘boss system’ in the various Italian quarters throughout the kingdom,
where poor agricultural and very ignorant and illiterate lads, fresh from
Italy, lived under cruel bosses and under nauseating conditions at a very
miserable wage, which was often replaced by kicks and bullying, espe-
cially if the day’s takings had been very low, in spite of the weather being
bad.”14
In Philadelphia in 1908, Mary Engle Pennington, a bacteriological
chemist who had earned a doctorate in chemistry from the University of
Pennsylvania, was put in charge of ensuring the safety of the city’s milk

and dairy products. She convinced ice cream peddlers of the need for im-
proved cleanliness by showing them slides of bacteria growing in their
buckets. They agreed to begin boiling their pots and ladles. She also
worked with dairy farmers to improve their standards. Her work was one
of the reasons that Philadelphia ice cream and other dairy products had
such a positive reputation.15
In New York in 1906, the National Consumer’s League issued a report,
“Manufacturing of Foods in the Tenements,” describing the making of ice
cream, candy, and macaroni in New York’s crowded apartments. It told of a
man making macaroni in an apartment where his child lay sick with diph-
theria. He would hold the child and then, without washing his hands, pull
the macaroni from the machine, drape it over racks to dry, and later sell it
up and down the streets. Other foods were made under similar conditions.
In addition to its concerns about health issues, the league was worried
about the well-being of the children who lived, and often worked, in the
tenements. The report stated, “It is not only that home-work in any food
trade is dangerous to the health of the community when there is no super-
vision or restriction by law, but like all home-work it is poorly paid and
there are no limits to hours of work or to the number of children that may
be engaged in it.”16
Shortly thereafter, New York passed laws regulating work in homes and
specifically prohibited the making of ice cream in tenements. Additionally,
the city began to regulate and license peddlers and their carts. Ice cream
vendors had to buy their ice cream from wholesalers and sell it either in
shops or from a licensed cart. To operate a cart, vendors had to pay a li-
cense fee of a minimum of ten dollars, depending on the location. Two
kinds of licenses were issued: traveling and stationary. The traveling li-
censes were issued to peddlers in less crowded districts; the stationary, in
congested neighborhoods. According to Ralph Selitzer, a historian for the
dairy industry and author of The Dairy Industry in America, the vendor
made about $5.00 a day; but after paying a rental fee of $1.50 for his cart
and $2.50 for his ice cream, he would wind up with only $1.00. Some

wholesalers let the vendors use the pushcarts for nothing as long as they
used only that wholesaler’s ice cream.17
Doing the Hokeypokey

Clearly there was a bias against the Italian vendors, and not all the con-
cern expressed about the quality and safety of their ice cream was altruis-
tic. The scorn that shop owners, wholesale ice cream makers, and others
heaped on street vendors often had more to do with prejudice and fear of
competition than concern over the spread of germs. An article in the May
26, 1901, edition of the New York Herald described poor, ragged children
crowding around an ice cream pushcart: “From morning until night the
children stuff themselves. . . . Where does the money come from? . . .
Thriftless, but affectionate, is the lower class parent. Shoes the child must
do without, for the father has not quite enough money to purchase them.
But here is five cents to buy hokey-pokey. That much he can afford.”18
Hokeypokey was a derogatory term used to describe a type of ice cream the
peddlers sold, as well as the vendors themselves. It may have originated with
the Italian-speaking vendors’ cry of “Ecco un poco,” or “Here’s a little,” as it
was heard and repeated by their English-speaking customers. Or it may have
come from the phrase used by magicians and jugglers in blasphemous imita-
tion of a Latin phrase used in the Catholic Mass. Hocus-pocus was a corrup-
tion of “Hoc est corpus meum,” or “This is my body,” which was recited
during the holiest moment of the Mass. At the time, street vendors and
street performers were regarded as tricksters and charlatans. They were ac-
cused, sometimes justly, of cheating or, as the expression of the time went,
hocusing—watering their milk or selling meat pies made from cats or dogs.
Ice cream vendors were no more highly regarded, and it would have been
natural for them to have been given the same derogatory nickname.
Confectioners were always contemptuous of the street peddlers. As early
as May 1878, in an issue of the Confectioners’ Journal, editor James Parkin-
son, a confectioner himself, wrote from Paris, “In Europe, as in America, I
find also that ice creams are hawked about the streets. The low-priced stuff

which is sold in all countries to the poor, I regret to say, is apt to be adul-
terated with ingredients which sacrifice health to cheapness. . . . There is
entire safety only in purchasing from first-class manufacturers.”19
In a book titled Ices: Plain and Decorated, published at the turn of the
twentieth century, Frederick T. Vine, a British confectioner, wrote of the
making of ice cream:
Without a doubt there is no more profitable branch of the confectionery
art than this, and there is no reason why confectioners should not prac-
tice and excel in it, and put into their pockets what too often goes into
that of the swarthy sons of Italy, who annually visit us with their gaudily-
painted barrows and questionable ices. That these cheap ices are appreci-
ated by the populace cannot be gainsaid, or we should not be so regularly
invaded by these foreigners in such increasing numbers; and there can be
no question of the trade proving a profitable one, or, one may depend
upon it, they would not keep coming.20
Vine was writing for fellow confectioners, not for the general public, but
his description of the men was a common one. The more privileged mem-
bers of society looked down on the ice cream vendors, which may be why
they became known as “hokeypokey men.”
Over time, hokeypokey lost its pejorative associations and became part of
a popular children’s rhyme with many different variations:
Hokeypokey, penny a lump.
Freeze your belly and make you jump!
Hokeypokey, sweet and cold.
For a penny, new or old.
It also became a popular song and dance:
The Hokeypokey
You put your right foot in,
You put your right foot out;

You put your right foot in,
And you shake it all about.
You do the hokeypokey,
And you turn yourself around.
That’s what it’s all about!
You put your left foot in . . .
Earlier, the British author Andrew Tuer had drawn a distinction be-
tween penny-lick ices and hokeypokeys in his 1885 book, Old London Street
Cries. Oddly enough, Tuer, unlike other writers, did not attribute hokey-
pokeys to Italian vendors. However, he explained the differences between
the two novelties, and his observations about their advantages and ingre-
dients are noteworthy.
The buyers of the so-called penny ices sold in the London streets during
the summer months are charged only a halfpenny; and the numerous
vendors, usually Italians, need no cry; for the street gamins and errand
boys buzz around their barrows like flies about a sugar barrel. For obvi-
ous reasons, spoons are not lent. The soft and half-frozen delicacy is
consumed by the combined aid of tongue and fingers. Parti-coloured
Neapolitan ices, vended by unmistakable natives of Whitechapel or the
New Cut, whose curious cry of “Okey Pokey” originated no one knows
how, have lately appeared in the streets. Hokey-pokey is of a firmer make
and probably stiffer material than the penny ice of the Italians, which it
rivals in public favour; and it is built up of variously flavoured layers. Sold
in halfpenny and also penny paper-covered squares, kept until wanted in
a circular metal refrigerating pot surrounded by broken ice, Hokey-pokey
has the advantage over its rival eaten from glasses, inasmuch as it can be
carried away by the purchaser and consumed at leisure. Besides being
variously flavoured, Hokey-pokey is dreadfully sweet, dreadfully cold,
and hard as a brick. It is whispered that the not unwholesome Swede
turnip [rutabaga], crushed into pulp, has been known to form its base, in
lieu of more expensive supplies from the cow, whose complex elaboration
of cream from turnips is thus unceremoniously abridged.21

Hokeypokeys were slices cut from bricks of ice cream. Michael de-
scribed them as “cheap Neapolitan ices, which, in their turn, are small
slices, generally 2 in. by 2 in. by 1⁄2 in. thick, cut from the large brick,
packed in white paper, and then in the container.”22 The bricks were gen-
erally about eighteen inches long, twelve inches wide, and two and a half
to three inches deep. The flavors were arranged lengthwise in a mold with
tin dividers, which were removed once the ice cream was packed into the
mold. They were usually layered with three different flavors of ice cream,
and each crosswise slice would reveal all three. Michael said they cost one
or two pennies, and that children could buy half a slice for half the price.
After it was cut, the children would wonder how the colors “got in like
that.”23 The wrapped slices were sold to ice cream vendors. Whole bricks
were sold to ice cream shops to be sliced and served, and also to house-
holders, who had to rush home to serve them to their families before the
ice cream melted.
Although rutabaga seems far-fetched, it is impossible to know ex-
actly what went into either penny-licks or hokeypokeys in the earliest
days. But when the vendors were required to buy their ice cream from
wholesalers, recipes began to be published in trade papers and books.
An American book titled Dispenser’s Formulary included four different
recipes for hokeypokey. Three of the four called for cornstarch or gelatin
or both; the other ingredients were simply milk, sugar, and a flavor ex-
tract. One recipe called for eggs. The fourth recipe, and the most com-
plete one, follows:
HOKEY POKEY
Into a bright and perfectly clean basin put 1 pound of fine sugar and 1
dozen eggs; mix these well together; then add and stir in 2 quarts of
fresh cream or milk, 1 spoonful of salt and 1 tablespoon of extract of
vanilla; set the mixture on the fire and stir constantly till it thickens, but
not curdles; strain into an earthen pan, cool, and stir into it 1 ounce of
gelatin, dissolved in milk or water; now pour it into the freezer and work
slowly during the whole process till it becomes well frozen; then remove

the dasher and pack the cream firmly in brick molds and bury them in
ice and salt until the cream is thoroughly frozen and hard; then turn
them from the molds in the usual way and keep them in the ice cave or
in a can imbedded in ice, or it may be cut with a knife, dipped in warm
water, into suitable squares, wrapped in waxed paper and put in boxes
and kept in the ice cave ready for sale.24
The American Ice Cream Trade Journal offered a brick recipe with the fol-
lowing ingredients for the peddlers’ trade:
FIVE CENT BRICKS

3 gallons of milk
1 2 gallons of cream
1⁄
1 gallon of condensed milk
8 pounds of sugar
12 ounces of gelatine [sic]
4 ounces (or more) of vanilla extract 25
In none of the recipes do the ingredients sacrifice “health to cheapness.”

They are perfectly adequate, though not first quality, assuming the recipe
was followed as written. The gelatin and cornstarch were intended to help
thicken a mixture that generally contained more milk than cream. Michael’s
opinion that the best gelatin was “free from arsenic and other undesirable
chemicals” is not particularly reassuring.26 Nonetheless, gelatin became a
common ingredient in commercial and even homemade ice creams, as did
cornstarch and condensed milk. Confectioners and wholesalers alike soon
learned how to make less expensive versions of ice cream treats for different
markets. In fact, Michael advised ice cream makers to “decide what prices
your customers are likely to pay for the bricks, so that you will know
whether to make a cream, milk, or sherbet one.”27
In a book titled Thirty-six Years an Ice Cream Maker, published in Iowa
in 1907, author Val Miller offered advice to proprietors of both wholesale
and retail ice cream establishments. Along with recipes, Miller offered

guidance on managing, serving, and pricing based on his extensive experi-
ence in the business. On the subject of hokeypokeys, Miller recommended
using a “medium cheap, or cheap ice cream with a little more gelatine than
for ordinary use.” He provided a recipe and said it should be made up into
one-quart bricks, each of which would be cut into eight slices or hokey-
pokeys. To cut the slices evenly, he suggested making a cutter by “nailing or
bolting blades (cut out of heavy tin or galvanized iron) between strips of
wood of the proper width.” He said such a cutter was “good for quick
work.” Miller said that his recipe would produce 320 slices. Priced at five
cents each, they should bring in between $8.00 and $9.60, depending on
the amount charged to the retailer. Buyers of larger quantities paid slightly
less per brick than those who bought smaller ones. Miller said the margin
for profit and labor should never be less than five dollars a batch. He also
advised his readers that they should “never recommend mixed colors in
5-cent bricks, and never agree to take back unsold bricks; it is always
unprofitable.”28
In both the United States and England, some of the hokeypokey men
managed to open ice cream shops, often in partnerships in which one pro-
vided the capital needed and the other provided the labor. Some of the
padroni even helped such men establish their own businesses. Many pros-
pered and continued in the café and restaurant business. Michael, who
was writing in the early 1920s, said, “These old Italians now possess fine
ice cream shops, barrows are a mere relic here and there, and the trade is
well boomed up. Still, there is a bias. This, however, will disappear more
and more in the face of better shops.”29
Not all ice cream bricks were made of medium-cheap or cheap ice cream.
Although they disparaged street vendors, confectioners were not too proud
to adapt peddlers’ products to their own use. Confectioners began making
bricks themselves and even turned them into decorative desserts for their
customers. Flags were a favorite motif: flavors and colors were chosen to
mimic the flags of different countries, and a tricolored slice of the ice
cream was served with a piece of wafer cake representing the flag’s staff. In

an 1878 issue, the Confectioners’ Journal suggested using chocolate, straw-
berry, and bright orange ice to stand for the black, red, and gold of a Ger-
man flag. For an Italian flag, the Journal called for green, made with
pistachio; red, made with red fruit or rose ice cream; and yellow, made with
orange ice. It was an odd selection of colors since the Italian flag is red,
green, and white, not yellow.
The Ice Cream Sandwich

The street vendors’ hokeypokeys were covered with paper, which made
them easy to store, convenient to carry, and sanitary. It was a practical
arrangement. Then someone was inspired to replace the paper wrapping
with cookies or crackers and thus created an enduring innovation—the ice
cream sandwich. Whether the ice cream sandwich creator was a wholesaler
who sold the idea to ice cream peddlers, or an entrepreneurial ice cream
peddler who improvised the sandwich himself, will probably never be
known. In most accounts, New York peddlers were given credit for the idea.
A column in the March 1901 issue of American Kitchen Magazine, reprinted
from the New York Mail and Express, was headlined “A New Sandwich” and
began: “There are ham sandwiches and salmon sandwiches and cheese
sandwiches—a down-town restaurant advertises 30 varieties—but the lat-
est is the ice-cream sandwich. As a new fad the ice-cream sandwich might
have made thousands of dollars for its inventor had the novelty been
launched by a well known caterer, but strangely enough the ice-cream sand-
wich made its advent in an humble Bowery push-cart, and is sold for a
penny.” The columnist, who was not identified, went on to say that the ice
cream sandwich was a good idea for children who wanted their ice cream
warmed, explaining that “the thin wafers which go to make up the sand-
wich help to modify the coolness of the ice-cream, so that it can be eaten
more readily.” The article described the making of the sandwich:
A thin milk biscuit is placed in a tin mold just large enough to receive it.
Then the mold is filled with ice cream from a freezer, and another wafer is

placed on top. There is an arrangement for forcing the sandwich out of
the mold when complete, and the whole process takes only a few sec-
onds. The ice-cream sandwich man is the envy of all the other push-cart
restauranteurs [sic] on the Bowery, as he has all the patrons he can at-
tend to, and the cart is always surrounded by curious customers.30
Actually the new sandwich had been around for at least a couple of years
before American Kitchen Magazine discovered it. An article in a 1902 edi-
tion of the New York Tribune, describing the way it was made as well as com-
menting on its price, dated the ice cream sandwich to 1899.
He places the thin, oblong wafers in a little tin mould made for the pur-
pose, spreads it with loose cream, and claps another wafer on top. There
is a blanket price of one cent for the ice cream sandwich. This was chal-
lenged by the boys of New York. The sandwich was introduced three
years ago and sold at two or three cents. It was longer and contained
more cream but the boys would have none of it. . . . they desired a
penny sandwich . . . and last year the ice cream sandwich came down to
one cent.31
Ice cream sandwiches were so popular that news accounts describe

crowds of customers, from bankers to bootblacks, lining up to buy them.
One account reported that on Wall Street “the brokers themselves got to
buying ice cream sandwiches and eating them in a democratic fashion side
by side on the sidewalk with the messengers and the office boys.”32 Some
mentioned the mold into which the biscuit was placed before being topped
with ice cream and then another biscuit. Others reported that a wafer was
simply topped with ice cream and another wafer clapped atop. The wafers
were variously described as milk biscuits, thin wafers, water wafers, and ice
wafers. One account reported that sandwiches were made from “two gra-
ham wafers and a slab of ice cream between.”33
Sylvester Graham, creator of the graham wafer or cracker, disapproved
of meat, sugar, white flour, hot and spicy foods, coffee, tea, and alcohol.

Although Graham, who had died in 1851, did not specifically condemn
ice cream, it’s doubtful that he would have approved of his healthy
whole wheat crackers being used for anything as sensuous as an ice
cream sandwich.34
Fashionable confectioners also made ice cream sandwiches, and cookie
manufacturers took full advantage of the new trend. A book published in
1900 titled Ices, and How to Make Them, written by Charles Herman Senn,
who was identified as the “Inspecting and Consulting Chef, National
Training School of Cookery, London,” included this recipe.
DENISES GLACÉS (ICE CREAM SANDWICHES)

This is a most convenient and dainty way of serving almost any kind of
ice. The ice wafers manufactured by Messrs. Peek, Frean & Co. are best
adapted for this dish. These wafers being quite plain and of delicate
light make, the true flavour of the ice is in no way impaired. When the
ice cream or water ice is sufficiently frozen to allow it being spread,
cover a number of ice wafers with a layer of the ice; place a wafer on the
top of each like a sandwich. Pack them in a charged ice pail or cave, place
a paper between each layer, and keep thus till required for table. Messrs.
Peek, Frean & Co. supply a most useful Ice Cream Sandwich suitable for
this purpose.
Conveniently, Messrs. Peek and Frean ran an ad for the very wafers in the
back of the book. It invited “special attention” to their “Ice wafers, two of
which may be used to form an ice cream sandwich, as per instructions on
page 69” (emphasis in the original).35
Several years later, Dispenser’s Formulary called for “two nabisco [sic]
wafers, chocolate, vanilla or strawberry, whichever the customer may
prefer, and place a slice of ice cream between them.” The sandwich
was served on a small plate with an ice cream fork. The author said that
it was necessary to use an ice cream sandwich mold to “make a neat
service.”36

Ice Cream in Ink
By the time the ice cream sandwich made its appearance, the ice cream
trade was, in Michael’s words, “well boomed up.” Trade publications were
proliferating. Books and magazines offered business advice to confec-
tioners, wholesalers, ice cream parlor operators, and increasingly, soda
fountain operators. The first and one of the most important publications
was the Confectioners’ Journal, founded by Edward Heinz and James
Parkinson, the son of famed Philadelphia confectioners Eleanor and
George Parkinson. It began publication in 1874 and reported that there
were already four hundred confectioners in Philadelphia. The magazine
soon had subscribers from all over the country and claimed a circulation
of five thousand. By volume 3, it had subscribers in England, Australia,
France, Germany, Spain, Italy, and South America.
The magazine was an odd mixture of valuable information and peculiar
gaffes. The first column, in volume 1, number 1, was headlined “Preface.”
However, it was not a statement about the mission of the new publication
or its editorial philosophy. It was largely a reprint of the preface to the 1861
edition of The Modern Confectioner by William Jeanes, and it included his
comments on Jarrin being out of date. It was not attributed. If anyone
reading it wondered why a new American confectionery trade publication
introduced itself by running a column taken from an English confectioner’s
thirteen-year-old book, it went unmentioned in subsequent issues.
Since his mother had been completely forthcoming about George Read
being the source of most of the recipes in her book, it was odd that years
later James Parkinson would exaggerate his parents’ role in the develop-
ment of ice cream as egregiously as he did. In one issue he said that his fa-
ther, George Parkinson, was the first person to make ice cream. In another,
a columnist for the magazine gave George Parkinson credit for inventing
pistachio ice cream. James Parkinson actually wrote that Europeans did
not make ice cream; they made only custards—baked, boiled, or frozen.
They were a “nice dessert,” he wrote, but they were not ice cream.37

Despite these lapses in editorial judgment, the Confectioners’ Journal was
an important and prophetic publication for many years. Through its
columns and its advertisements, it demonstrated how the confectionery
business grew and changed over the course of the nineteenth and twentieth
centuries. Professional confectioners wrote columns that shared trade se-
crets with those just starting out in the business. They explained the nuances
of sugar boiling, taught readers how to carve ice stands on which to display
and serve ice creams (or oysters), explained how to mold ices in the shape of
fruits and vegetables, and explored the history of sugar production. They an-
swered queries about the business, reported industry news, and shared
many recipes. The magazine ran advertising for all sorts of confectioners’
supplies, from candy furnaces to pastry display cases, from popcorn balls to
foreign fruit such as dates, bananas, and pineapples. The numerous ads for
ice cream freezers for hotels, saloons, and ice cream parlors showed how
commercial the business was becoming, and how competitive.
The Confectioners’ Journal and other publications also documented the de-
velopment of the soda fountain business and its transition from a dispenser
of therapeutic drinks and medicines to a social center for ice cream lovers.
When the first soda fountains made their debut at the beginning of the nine-
teenth century, ice cream was not on the menu. The fountains came from the
world of medicine, the spa, and the apothecary. They served carbonated wa-
ters for medicinal purposes. The tradition of taking waters dated back to the
baths ancient Romans soaked in and the mineral waters Europeans drank
for the sake of their livers. When chemists learned how to reproduce the wa-
ters artificially in the eighteenth century, they became even more popular
and widespread. Taking the waters, whether by bathing in them or drinking
them, was and is considered by many to have health-giving properties. Soda,
or “carbonic acid water,” was listed in the Pharmacopoeia of the United States
through the fifth revision of 1870.38 The 1898 edition of King’s American
Dispensatory noted that it was a “refreshing, refrigerant beverage” that could
be used in “fevers, inflammatory diseases, chronic inflammation of the
stomach, vomiting of pregnant females, etc.”39

The first establishments to sell soda waters in the United States did so
in the style and spirit of European spas and pump rooms. A “soda water
concern” opened in New Haven in 1807.40 The Tontine Coffee House on
Wall Street in New York, a popular gathering place for the city’s merchants
at the turn of the nineteenth century, featured fountains that dispensed a
variety of waters. The apparatus that produced the waters was in the cellar.
The waters themselves were carried up to the bar in tin tubes concealed by
mahogany pillars crowned with gilt urns.41 An advertisement in the 1809
edition of Longworth’s American Almanac created a spa-like image for an-
other New York establishment:
Those who desire to frequent the Fountains in the morning for the bene-
fit of their health will find here the important advantage of the Park for
taking the necessary exercise in the intervals of drinking the waters. Pa-
pers, pamphlets and novels for Mr. Longworth’s store will always lie on
the tables in the pump room, so as to combine amusement with utility in
this novel and salutary establishment, and render it not only conducive
to the health of the city, but an elegant and fashionable lounge for ladies
and gentlemen throughout the day.42
Although the apparatus required to produce the waters was cumbersome,

druggists began installing it in the early 1800s and soon took over the busi-
ness of selling medicinal soda drinks. Elias Durand, who emigrated from
France to the United States and opened a pharmacy in Philadelphia in
1825, was one of the first to add elegance to the drugstore soda fountain.
Durand’s shop was considered “quite the handsomest drug store in the
Quaker City.” It featured French glassware, porcelain jars, mahogany draw-
ers, and marble counters, along with “an apparatus for making and vending
carbonic acid water.”43
The early waters were most commonly called soda waters, since some
were produced using bicarbonate of soda. But many chemists and drug-
gists thought soda water was a misnomer and suggested other terms, in-
cluding carbonade, mephitic julep, mephitic gas, seltzer, spa, gaseous alkaline,

oxygenated waters, marble water, spirit of chalk, gaz oxide de carbone, and
gaseous acid.44 Seltzer was the only name, besides soda water, that had any
longevity.
By the middle of the nineteenth century, most druggists had a counter
set aside for serving medicinal waters. As time went on, soda fountains be-
came more and more elaborate and whimsical. In 1858, Gustavus D. Dows
of Lowell, Massachusetts, created a white marble soda fountain in the
shape of a cottage. Before long, soda fountains became architectural won-
ders decorated with nymphs, sphinxes, cherubs, clocks, domes, Greek
columns, and every other embellishment known to Victorian design. The
cost of fountains ranged from a few hundred dollars to many thousands.45
The pinnacle of soda fountain excess was reached during the 1876 Cen-
tennial Exposition in Philadelphia, when soda fountain manufacturers
James W. Tufts of Massachusetts and Charles Lippincott of Pennsylvania
joined forces and paid fifty thousand dollars for the exclusive privilege of
serving soda water within the exhibition grounds.46 In addition to operat-
ing thirteen or fourteen soda water fountains within the grounds, Tufts
spent thousands more to erect a soda water saloon outside the exhibition.
James Dabney McCabe, author of The Illustrated History of the Centennial
Exhibition, described it: “The exterior of the edifice is neat and tasteful, and
the interior is fitted up very handsomely and adorned with elaborate fres-
coes. In the centre stands a splendid fountain of variegated marble, with
silver trimmings. It is forty feet in height, and was erected at a cost of be-
tween twenty-five and thirty thousand dollars. It is the largest fountain in
the world, and is by far the handsomest.”47
By then flavorings were being blended into the soda waters, and foun-
tains featured a dozen or more spigots to dispense them. Flavored waters
were not common until the 1830s, but the idea of adding them originated
much earlier. In 1781, Thomas Henry, an Englishman, had suggested that a
glass of lemonade should accompany what he called “Mephitic Julep” for
additional medicinal benefits.48 The 1809 American edition of Conversa-
tions on Chemistry proposed adding sugar and wine, explaining, “The Soda

Water is also very refreshing, and to most persons a very grateful drink, es-
pecially after heat and fatigue, and may be made a complete substitute for
the beverages of which ardent spirits form a part. With wine and sugar it
is very grateful.”49
In the 1830s, many soda fountain operators began adding fruit syrups
to sodas. The first edition of the Dispensatory of the United States of America,
published in Philadelphia in 1833, had a recipe for mulberry syrup and sug-
gested that similar syrups could be made from strawberries, raspberries,
and pineapples. Syrups, the authors wrote, “are employed to flavor drinks
and are much used as grateful additions to carbonic acid water.”50 When
the 1868 edition of The Manufacture of Liquors, Wines, and Cordials; also the
Manufacture of Effervescing Beverages and Syrups was published, the list of
flavors had grown to include sarsaparilla, lemon, orange, vanilla, peach,
grape, almond, spirit of aromatics (ginger, cloves, sassafras, lemon, ber-
gamot), spirit of roses, blackberry, mulberry, neroli (orange and orrisroot),
and more.51
Soda fountains’ offerings depended on their locations and their clien-
tele. Soda fountains at drugstores in business districts attracted and catered
to men. They specialized in medicinal waters and beverages intended to
aid digestion, calm nerves, check diarrhea, and offer relief when “we had
too much fun the night before.” The beverages they offered might alleviate
headaches with Bromo Caffeine, treat hangovers with aromatic spirits
ammonia, check nausea with soda mint water, and cure headache and
exhaustion with something called Coca-Cola. E. F. White, the author of
The Spatula Soda Water Guide, cautioned his readers that they had to be
careful about treating customers. “Inexperienced dispensers should ask
advice of the druggist before serving medicine,” he wrote. “Medicinal drinks
should never be recommended. Tell a customer what you have but let him
decide.”52
By the middle of the nineteenth century, some druggists were setting
aside separate areas where ladies could sip their soda waters in a more re-
fined atmosphere, away from men. Soda fountains located in department

stores or in drugstores near shopping areas catered to female cus-
tomers and offered drinks that were less medicinal and more flavorful.
The proprietors also began to blend flavors and create fancifully named
drinks for the ladies. A “Queen’s Favorite” was made with orange syrup,
grape juice, ice, lemon juice, Jamaica ginger, and soda.53 “Ambrosia”
was a mixture of raspberry, vanilla, and hock wine. A “Siberian Flip” was
made of orange, pineapple, and angostura bitters. Many soda fountains
reserved a spigot for a “Don’t Care” soda. This was the mixture given to
customers who, when asked what flavor they wanted, replied, “I don’t
care.” A typical one was a blend of pineapple, strawberry, vanilla, and
port wine.54
The next addition to soda drinks was not ice cream but cream. Begin-
ning in about 1860, fountains began selling a mixture of soda water, fruit
syrup, shaved ice, and cream that was called variously an “iced cream
soda,” a “frigid cream soda,” or an “ice cream soda,” despite the fact that
it did not contain any ice cream. It was not until about 1874 that ice
cream became an ingredient in the ice cream soda. The stories as to
how it evolved are varied, but most involve a fountain operator substi-
tuting ice cream when he ran out of cream to make a soda. In the most
widespread version, Robert M. Green of Philadelphia was operating a
soda fountain at the 1874 semicentennial exhibition of the Franklin In-
stitute when he ran out of cream. He went out and bought some ice
cream, planning to let it melt before he substituted it for the cream. But
his customers were so eager to enjoy their sodas that he did not wait for
the ice cream to melt. He simply spooned it into the sodas. Voilà! The
creation was born. The question raised by this scenario is that, if he ran
out of cream, why didn’t he simply go out and buy cream rather than
ice cream?
A more likely explanation, reported by Anne Cooper Funderburg in Sun-
dae Best, is that prior to the exhibit, Green was trying to think of a way to
stand out, because his fountain was not as lavish as others. While at a con-
fectioner’s shop having a dish of ice cream, accompanied as always by a

glass of water, he hit on the idea of combining the two. After much experi-
mentation, he settled on vanilla ice cream with different flavored sodas,
including lemon, vanilla, pineapple, strawberry, raspberry, ginger, orange,
coffee, chocolate, and coconut. To introduce the drink, he printed and dis-
tributed flyers proclaiming, “Something New! Green’s Ice Cream Soda,”
along with a list of all the flavors. He also gave away sodas to young people
at the exhibit who agreed to tell their friends about the new drink.55
Despite its popularity with everyone who tried it, the ice cream soda did
not become widespread immediately. An ice cream soda recipe in an 1877
edition of the Confectioners’ Journal called for chilled cream, flavored syrup,
and soda water but made no mention of ice cream. The 1877 and 1878 edi-
tions of a quarterly trade magazine called Carbonated Drinks did not in-
clude ice cream sodas. Some soda fountain proprietors were reluctant to
begin offering the new drink because it meant they would have to either
buy or make ice cream, which they had never done previously. Even if they
simply bought ice cream, they still had to store it, which meant more ice
and salt and more mess and bother. They feared the new sodas would not
be profitable, because making them took more time and customers spent
too much time lingering over them. Soda fountain publications began
encouraging fountain operators to offer ice cream sodas by printing ice
cream recipes and detailed directions for making the sodas. In his guide,
White noted that if an ice cream soda was not made correctly, the cus-
tomer’s first taste would be nothing more than soda water; the last taste,
merely sweet syrup. He recommended following these directions to make
a good ice cream soda:
We now draw one ounce of syrup, or if it be a fruit flavor one-half the
amount will be sufficient, into the glass. Then with the coarse stream we
draw the glass about one-fourth full of soda, and with the fine stream
mix the soda thoroughly. Your glass is then about one-half full. Now add
your ice cream, and where fruits are used add them at the same time, then
fill the glass nearly full with soda and syrup as well as possible, taking
care not to cut the ice cream any more than is necessary.56

Eventually the proprietors’ objections were overcome and the ice
cream soda triumphed. In an 1891 edition of Harper’s Weekly, Mary Gay
Humphreys wrote, “On a bright exhilarating day, to achieve a cup of ice-
cream soda, a place should be engaged some time in advance. Beauty
and fashion surge about the counter. One of the sights of the town is the
rows of bright faces, two and three deep, bent over their cups, and fish-
ing within with long-handled spoons.”57
Six Ways to Sundae

The ice cream sundae too was a product of the soda fountain. Again, sto-
ries about its origins are many and facts are few. Most stories revolve
around the idea that blue laws regulating activities on Sundays forbade
eating ice cream sodas. To outwit the law, a clever soda fountain operator
left out the soda and topped ice cream with syrup. One story has it that
when the predominantly Methodist town of Evanston, Illinois (also
known as Heavenston), legislated against the “Sunday Soda Menace,” a
soda fountain employee circumvented the law by creating the sundae.
Another, set in Two Rivers, Wisconsin, gives credit to a customer. George
Hallauer was having an ice cream at Ed Berner’s soda fountain when he
noticed the chocolate syrup used in sodas and, on a whim, asked to have it
poured on his ice cream.58
The city of Ithaca, New York, may be the strongest claimant for first
prize. This story has a minister instigating, rather than opposing, the Sun-
day treat. It seems that the Reverend John M. Scott visited a local drug-
store after services at the Unitarian Church one Sunday. When he ordered
a dish of vanilla ice cream, Chester Platt, who operated the fountain,
topped it off with a candied cherry and some cherry syrup. It was such a
wonderful combination that Platt kept it on the menu and later created
strawberry, pineapple, and chocolate Sundays. This story has some docu-
mentation. An ad for a “Cherry Sunday” ran in the Ithaca Daily Journal on
April 6, 1892. The ad copy read: “A new 10 cent Ice Cream Specialty, Served
only at Platt & Colt’s Famous day and night Soda Fountain.”59

Regardless of who invented them, the early sundaes were spelled Sunday
and were simple confections. According to the Spatula Soda Water Guide,
“They are nothing more or less than a portion of ice cream over which a
small quantity of syrup or crushed fruit has been poured.”60 In some col-
lege towns, they were called “college ices” or “college sodas” and were said
to be especially popular with female students. They were also called
“throwovers” because the toppings were thrown over the ice cream. Before
long, simplicity was out and the sundae was being topped with syrups,
fruits, whipped cream, marshmallow, nuts, cherries, and more. A popular
early variation was a “Chop Suey Sundae,” ice cream topped with a mix-
ture of dates and figs that had been cooked to a jammy consistency and
mixed with chopped walnuts.61
Ice cream sodas, sundaes, and other treats were transforming the soda
fountain and making it ubiquitous. In 1906, the New York Herald Tribune
reported that the soda fountain had surpassed the saloon in popularity. In
New York City, there was a saloon for every 590 persons, according to the
article, but there were seven thousand soda fountains, or one for every 535
persons.62 The Chicago, Burlington and Quincy Railroad converted one of
its cars to an ice cream parlor and served sodas and sundaes to riders day
and night.63 The temperance movement and, later, Prohibition gave added
impetus to the business. Soon, save for an occasional early morning Alka-
Seltzer, the carbonic acid waters of the early fountains would be forgotten.

six
Women’s Work
In 1850, Godey’s Lady’s Book called ice cream “one of the necessary luxuries
of life” and proclaimed that “a party, or a social entertainment, could
hardly be thought of without this indispensable requisition.” The writer
was trying to persuade readers to buy “a recent valuable invention, in the
shape of an ‘ice cream freezer and beater.’ ” According to the article, Masser’s
Self-Acting Patent Ice-Cream Freezer and Beater would make ice cream
more easily and much faster than the old method, which it called difficult,
laborious, and uncertain. It said, “And if there is any one article, above
all others, that the lady of the house would desire to have well made, it is
her ice cream, as there is no article on the refreshment table that is more
certain to undergo the ordeal of criticism. How important therefore is it to
have it as it should be and can be, smooth, light, and well made.”1
Making ice cream at home was not yet as widespread as Godey’s Lady’s
Book implied. In fact, it would take most of the rest of the century before
ice cream became as indispensable as the magazine suggested. At midcen-
tury, well-off householders in eastern cities could have their servants pre-
pare ice cream for them, or they could send out to the confectioners for ice
creams molded into fanciful shapes for their elegant parties. The not-so-
well-to-do might make ice cream at home themselves, assuming they had
the necessary ingredients and implements. However, many were not so
fortunate. Women living in rural communities or on the frontier often did
not have iceboxes, much less ice cream makers.2 Nor were there confec-
tioners or, as yet, drugstore soda fountains where they could buy ice cream.
For them, ice cream was a rare luxury, not a necessary one. Even for those
129
with the wherewithal, but without household help, making ice cream was
an occasional extravagance, a summer ritual, a weekend treat. Maine’s Jen-
nie Everson called it “Sunday ice cream” and described it wistfully. “One
of the most popular and tasty uses for ice was for the making of ice cream.
Here is another reason why farmers had a cow or two but not enough milk
or cream to sell. Those were the days when ice cream was made of heavy
cream, sugar, several fresh eggs, and some vanilla extract. Or perhaps,
around the Fourth of July when the strawberry patch was at its best, some
fresh, crushed strawberries were stirred in.”3
But cookbooks and magazines were beginning to offer homemakers ad-
vice on acquiring ice cream makers and the other implements that went
along with making ices and ice creams. Recipes for everything from lush
frozen puddings rich with cream and brandied fruits to wan dishes of
cornstarch-thickened ice milk began to appear in print. Writers offered
recipes and serving suggestions for both prosperous households and
modest ones. If not everyone served ice cream at special occasions, it was
not for a lack of information.
By Women, for Women

During the nineteenth century, many cookbooks and household maga-
zines were written by women for other women. The authors were
professionals—not chefs, but writers, lecturers, and teachers. Although
some of them were inexperienced in running a household or cooking for
a family, they took on the task of teaching others how to do so by apply-
ing the skills and techniques of business and science to housekeeping
and cooking. They were working women, and many of them were very
successful; nevertheless, they glorified the role of the homemaker. They
believed that, with instruction, women could improve the family’s, and
by extension the country’s, morality, health, and education. Sarah Tyson
Rorer, one of the leaders of the movement, was the author of nearly
two dozen books, the director of the Philadelphia Cooking School, do-
mestic arts editor of the Ladies’ Home Journal, and a contributor to Good
130 / Women’s Work

Housekeeping magazine. Her career had begun when she took a cooking
class at Philadelphia’s New Century Club. Looking back years later, she
explained, “Before I had taken the second lesson I saw the great possi-
bilities of right living and a well-organized school of domestic science.
In fact, I saw, a hundred years ahead, the influence that this knowledge
would have over the health and homes of the people.”4
The women became known as “domestic scientists,” and ultimately they
created the field of home economics.5 They wrote from a woman’s point of
view, and thousands of women found this reassuring. It was a time when
many women, and men as well, needed reassurance. After the Civil War,
the rapid pace of industrialization created economic dislocation as well as
opportunity. Families settling the frontier faced loneliness and poverty in
addition to adventure. Immigrants were discovering a world of problems
along with possibilities. Even the well-to-do sometimes found themselves
in straitened circumstances, and women who had never expected to work
had to support families. Several of the women who wrote cookbooks at
the time had experienced just such difficulties in their own lives and had
to take on chores they had never expected to perform. As a result, along
with their recipes they offered their readers advice on everything from how
to render lard to how to make mattresses. Their experiences also explain
why the titles of their books so frequently include adjectives such as frugal,
economical, practical, and useful.
Women, for the most part, were also responsible for another source of
recipes and advice: community cookbooks. These books originated dur-
ing the Civil War to raise funds to help care for soldiers and their fami-
lies. After the war ended, the books continued to be produced to support
local churches, schools, and other worthy causes. Indeed, they are still
being published today. Since homemakers submitted their own recipes
to make up the cookbooks, in general they reflected a reality where in-
gredients were sometimes scarce, time was limited, and indulgences
were few. Nevertheless, many community cookbooks included ice cream
recipes.
Women’s Work / 131

Ice Cream Utensils
In 1850, author Catharine Beecher called an ice cream maker “almost indis-
pensable” (italics in the original), but she, unlike Godey’s, did not expect her
readers to simply buy one. Rather, she explained how to substitute a tin
pail and a tub for an ice cream maker. She also suggested that anyone
who did not own an apparatus might have one made. She wrote:
If you wish to have a freezer made, send the following directions to a
tinner.
Make a tin cylinder box, eighteen inches high and eight inches in di-
ameter at the bottom, and a trifle larger at the top, so that the frozen
cream will slip out easier. Have a cover made with a rim to lap over three
inches and fitted tight. Let there be a round handle fastened to the lid, an
inch in diameter, and reaching nearly across, to take hold of to stir the
cream. This will cost from fifty to seventy-five cents.6
At the time, kitchen utensils were few and often handmade—if not at
home, then by a local handyman. But this was changing. During the latter
half of the century, machine-made cooking implements were flooding into
the marketplace and replacing the homemade, improvised, or custom-
made utensils that had been the norm. The practice of going to a local tin-
smith to have a cooking implement made to one’s own specifications was
giving way to shopping in stores or the new mail-order catalogs for mass-
produced, uniform products. The new products coming out of factories
not only increased the number of utensils in the kitchen, they also
changed the way women cooked. They made cooking more scientific, less
intuitive. Standardized products allowed for standard measurements. The
domestic scientists embraced the new implements because they had the
potential to save women time and effort. They also welcomed the precision
these new tools offered. Recipes calling for a teacupful of this, a sufficiency
of that, or “as much ground cinnamon as will cover a threepenny piece”7
were being replaced by those calling for one teaspoonful or one-half a

measuring cup. Tables of weights and measures began to appear in cook-
books. Authors began listing ingredients at the head of a recipe, rather
than simply including them in the text, although sometimes they called
for additional ingredients in the text. Change took time.
In 1882, Miss Parloa’s New Cookbook: A Guide to Marketing and Cooking
included almost twenty pages of illustrations and descriptions of “utensils
with which a kitchen should be furnished.” Among them were an egg-
beater, a confectioner’s ornamenting tube for decorating cakes, an apple
parer, a lemon squeezer, a colander, a whip churn for whipping cream, and
a quart measure. Maria Parloa, a well-known teacher, lecturer, and author,
wrote, “A kitchen should be furnished with two measures, one for dry ma-
terial and the other for liquids.”8 Sarah Tyson Rorer’s Philadelphia Cook
Book listed more than two hundred utensils needed for a “well-furnished
kitchen,” including a quart measure and a graduated glass measure. Her
list also included three ice cream molds.9
The change in kitchen equipment did not happen overnight. More than
thirty years after Beecher’s book was published, many women did not own
an ice cream maker, and some of those who did preferred the old-
fashioned style to the newer ones. According to Marion Fontaine Cabell
Tyree, the author of Housekeeping in Old Virginia, published in 1878, “After
trying many new and patent freezers, some of the best housekeepers have
come to the conclusion that the old-fashioned freezer is best[,] . . . espe-
cially as servants are so apt to get a patent freezer out of order.” (The newer
ice cream freezers with the built-in cranks were commonly referred to as
“patent” freezers in contrast to the old-fashioned sorbetière-style freezers.)
In 1884, Mary Lincoln, one of the most influential writers of the day, de-
scribed how to make ice cream with either “a patent or home-made
freezer” in Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book. Demonstrating the belief in
frugality and emphasis on nutrition, rather than flavor and style, so char-
acteristic of the domestic science movement, she also explained how to
improvise an ice cream maker: “A good ice-cream freezer should be in
every kitchen; for with it a great variety of wholesome and attractive dishes

may be prepared with very little expenditure of time and strength. Fruit,
cream, and eggs, when frozen are more palatable in hot weather than
when served in other ways. A deep can, four inches in diameter, with a
tight cover fitting outside the can, and packed in a firkin with ice and salt,
makes a good substitute for a freezer.”10
Lincoln was the first principal of the Boston Cooking School, author
of—in addition to Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book—The Peerless Cook-
Book and Frozen Dainties, as well as cofounder of the New England Kitchen
Magazine. She had begun her career as a domestic because of her hus-
band’s ill health, and went on to become one of the country’s most fa-
mous and successful women.11 An early issue of her New England Kitchen
Magazine, published in 1894, offered a brief overview of the evolution of
the ice cream freezer and then recommended the more up-to-date ones
over old-fashioned methods: “Many a country housekeeper today who
does not possess a freezer and cannot order ice-cream from a caterer
packs a tin pail of custard in a wooden one of ice and salt, and prepares
her dessert in the same fashion. The modern freezers accomplish better
work with less expense of time and strength, and thus will soon pay for
themselves.”12
Other writers also encouraged their readers to buy freezers. Parloa
wrote, “If there be much fancy cooking, there must be an ice cream
freezer.” She called it a “great luxury” and said that it was best to buy the
gallon size. One could make a small quantity in it for the family, she
pointed out, but in addition, “when you have friends in, there is no occa-
sion to send to the confectioner’s for what can be prepared as well at
home.”13 Under the heading “Ice-Creams, Etc.,” “Aunt Babette’s” Cook
Book, published in 1889, stated, “To begin with, you must procure the
best triple-motion patent freezer, plenty of ice and rock salt (common
salt will not do so well).”14 In 1898, more than fifty years after Nancy
Johnson’s invention, Rorer said, “Good ice cream cannot be made with-
out a good freezer—one working easily with a side crank and a double re-
volving dasher.”15

Making the Ice Cream
Even the most up-to-date ice cream makers still required ice, which was
sold in large, awkward pieces that had to be cut or broken for use. In de-
scribing the process of preparing ice for freezing ice cream, many writers
simply offered such instructions as: “Take a bucket of ice and pound it
fine.” Others were more specific and detailed. The 1877 edition of Buckeye
Cookery, originally published to raise money to build a parsonage in
Marysville, Ohio, offered these directions: “Put the ice in a coarse coffee-
sack, pound with an ax or mallet until the lumps are no larger than a small
hickory-nut.”16 (The book also included directions for building your own
“cheap” icehouse.)17 Aunt Babette suggested pounding the ice to the size
of a walnut. She said, “To do this easily lay the ice in the folds of an old
piece of carpet or blanket and pound it with a hammer or mallet. In this
way you will not waste any ice or soil the floor.”18 Professional confection-
ers, hotel keepers, and restaurateurs could buy mechanical icebreakers,
chippers, and shavers to make the chore easier. Eventually these were pro-
duced for home use as well. Churning ice cream, whether by opening the
container and stirring it from time to time or by turning the outer crank,
was still a tedious job, and no one described the process with more wit and
candor than Marion Harland. Harland, whose real name was Mary Vir-
ginia Hawes Terhune, was born in Virginia in 1830 to a family who be-
lieved in educating its daughters. As an adult, she wrote popular novels,
married a minister, traveled, had six children, and in 1871 published Com-
mon Sense in the Household: A Manual of Practical Housewifery. She said she
wrote the book to teach others the lessons she wished she had learned
when she was young; it seems she had not been educated in cooking or
running a household. Readers responded to Harland’s personal tone and
humor. The book was a best-seller, remained in print for fifty years, and
was translated into several languages.
Although she had household help, Harland empathized with homemak-
ers who did not. She introduced her section on making ice cream by first

describing how difficult it was. She wrote, “My earliest recollections of ice-
cream are of the discordant grinding of the well-worn freezer among the
blocks of ice packed about it—a monotone of misery, that, had it been un-
relieved by agreeable associations of the good to which it was ‘leading up,’
would not have been tolerated out of Bedlam. For one, two, three, some-
times four hours, it went on without other variety than the harsher sounds
of the fresh ice and the rattling ‘swash’ as the freezer plunged amid the icy
brine when these were nearly melted.” She went on about the difficulties
of freezing for several more sentences. Her basic ice cream recipe followed,
along with an explanation of how to break the ice into pieces no larger
than “pigeon eggs,” layer it with salt, and finally, fill the container with the
ice cream mixture. Then she shared the method she called “Self-Freezing
Ice Cream”:
With a long wooden ladle or flat stick (I had one made on purpose), beat
the custard as you would batter for five minutes, without stay or stint.
Replace the lid, pack the ice and salt upon it, patting it down hard on top;
cover all with several folds of blanket or carpet, and leave it for one hour.
Then remove the cover of the freezer when you have wiped it carefully
outside. You will find within a thick coating of frozen custard upon the
bottom and sides. Dislodge this with your ladle, which should be thin
at the lower end, or with a long carving-knife, working every particle of
it clear. Beat again hard and long until the custard is a smooth, half-
congealed paste. The smoothness of the ice-cream depends upon your
action at this juncture.
Harland then covered the ice cream again, buried it in ice, and waited for
two more hours, at which point, she wrote, it would be ready to turn out as
“a solid column of cream, firm, close-grained, and smooth as velvet to the
tongue.” She claimed the whole process took no more than fifteen minutes
of actual work. She suggested making the ice cream mixture the night be-
fore it was to be served and putting it in the cellar. In the morning, she
said, “by choosing the times for your stolen visits to the lower regions,”

you could serve your unsuspecting family “the most delicious dessert in
the world” at a one o’clock dinner. She particularly enjoyed being able to
surprise her husband. She wrote, “I have often laughed in my sleeve at see-
ing my John walk through the cellar in search of some mislaid basket or
box, whistling carelessly, without a suspicion that his favorite delicacy was
coolly working out its own solidification under the inverted barrel on
which I chanced to be leaning at his entrance.”19 Harland’s “self-freezing”
method was popular enough to be reprinted in at least two other books,
one of which, Buckeye Cookery, credited it to her.
In some families, the woman of the house made the ice cream mixture,
and chipping the ice and churning the ice cream was the responsibility of
the man and boys of the house. It was often one of a family’s best-loved
summer vacation traditions. Author Cornelius Weygandt, who was born
in 1871, reminisced about making ice cream at his family’s summer place
in New Hampshire in his book Philadelphia Folks:
The ritual is begun by digging out a cake of ice from the sawdust of the
ice-house. I cut off a chunk the years have taught me is enough for freez-
ing and packing the ice-cream. . . . I extract the six-pronged ice-pick
from its lair behind the refrigerator, gather up the salt bucket and freezer
from the buttery, and summon what man-power is about for the churn-
ing. . . . As the “agitating” process goes on, more ice and salt are sup-
plied, the one who turns relieved, and these processes are repeated until
by the stiffness of the turning it is evident that the ice-cream is suffi-
ciently frozen.
Tasting the ice cream when the paddle was removed from the ice cream
maker was an extremely important part of the ritual. Weygandt recalled:
Such a ceremony I can remember from earliest childhood. Each member
of the family is armed with a spoon and removes his or her infinitesimal
dab of ice-cream from the paddle, at best no more than a taste. Cries of
“delicious” or “not sweet enough” rise on the air, and appetites are whet-
ted for the reappearance of the ice-cream at dinner’s end. The top of the

can is corked and put back where it belongs, the tub repacked with ice
and salt, and carried down into the cellar so the ice-cream shall ripen.20
At home in Philadelphia, he wrote, his family generally bought ice cream

from confectioners. But on Sundays, when there were no deliveries, they
sometimes made their own. Noting that his favorite flavors were coffee,
chocolate, and bisque, he said, “I like all kinds of ice cream, strawberry and
peach, vanilla and chocolate[;] . . . raspberry almost as much for its color
of old rose as for its so-individual taste; black walnut because of its rich
nuttiness, banana because of its smoothness; and pineapple because that
flavor will rise to the occasion from its quietude in a can at seasons and in
places when no other trustworthy fruit is attainable. It isn’t everywhere
you can get fresh strawberries or vanilla-bean and sherry.”21
The Recipes
Early in the nineteenth century, most homemakers’ cookbooks offered
just a few recipes for ices and ice creams. By its end, they offered dozens.
Several women published cookbooks on ice creams and other “frozen
dainties.” Recipes ranged from simple to sumptuous; the flavors, from
strawberry to frozen pudding, from peach to pistachio. In addition to
plain ices and ice creams, homemakers’ cookbooks offered directions for
more elaborate frozen desserts, including mousses, parfaits, sherbets,
bombes, punches, and puddings. They included recipes for food colorings
and directions for creating presentations that were nearly as stylish as a
confectioner’s.
There are just two ice cream recipes in Eliza Leslie’s first cookbook, Sev-
enty-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats, first published in 1828.
Leslie, who later wrote Directions for Cookery, the most popular American
cookbook of the nineteenth century, had learned how to cut corners when
necessary. Just sixteen when her father died, she abandoned her hopes for
a literary life and helped her mother run a boardinghouse to support the
family.22 After attending cooking school, she wrote Seventy-five Receipts,

whose first ice cream recipe called for a “quart of rich cream,” sugar, and ei-
ther lemon juice, strawberries, or raspberries. The second was made with a
combination of cream and milk thickened with a tablespoon of flour and
two eggs. She said it was “inferior in richness” to the first, but more eco-
nomical in “places where cream is not abundant.”23
In 1847, when she was a successful and celebrated author, Leslie wrote
The Lady’s Receipt-Book for “families who possess the means and the in-
clination to keep an excellent table.” There are no thrifty alternatives
among the six recipes for water ices and three recipes for ice creams in
this book. Her recipes call for “fine ripe plums,” “the best chocolate,”
and “rich cream.” Twentieth-century food writer James Beard called
Leslie his favorite cook. “She had great recipes for ice cream and things
like that before most people did,” he said.24 Here is one of her lush, fla-
vorful ice creams:
PEACH ICE-CREAM
Take fine soft free-stone peaches, perfectly ripe. Pare them, and remove
the stones. Crack about half the stones, and extract the kernels, which
must be blanched by putting them into a bowl, and pouring on boiling
water to loosen the skins. Then break them up, or pound them slightly;
put them into a little sauce-pan, and boil the kernels in a small quantity
of rich milk, till it is highly flavoured with them; keeping the sauce-pan
covered.25 Strain out the kernels and set the milk to cool. Cut up the
peaches in a large, broad, shallow pan, or a flat dish, and chop them very
small. Mix with the chopped peaches sufficient powdered loaf-sugar to
make them very sweet, and then mash them to a smooth jam with a silver
spoon. Measure the peach jam; and to each quart allow a pint of cream,
and a pint of rich unskimmed milk. Mix the whole well together, and put
it into the freezer; adding when the mixture is about half-frozen, the milk
in which you boiled the kernels, and which will greatly improve the
peach-flavour. When well-frozen, turn out the cream and serve it in a
glass bowl. If you wish to have it in a shape, transfer it to a mould, and
give it a second freezing.26

Writers frequently mentioned the high cost of making ice cream and the
scarcity of cream. One noted that “ices are much cheaper than cream,
though confectioners charge just as much for one as the other.”27 In recipes
containing such money-saving substitutes for cream and eggs as corn-
starch, gelatin, flour, or arrowroot, they used phrases like: “In places where
cream is not abundant . . .” or “If cream cannot be obtained . . .”28 One
wrote, “Mock Cream may be made by mixing half a table-spoonful of flour
with a pint of new milk, letting it simmer five minutes to take off the raw-
ness of the flour.”29 The author of a frugal recipe for an ice cream made
with milk and thickened with cornstarch rather plaintively added, “If to be
extra nice, add a pint of rich cream.”30
Some writers disapproved of the practice of making ice creams of lesser
quality, but provided recipes or suggestions for those who were forced to
do so. Lincoln wrote in The Boston Cook Book, “It is better to make sherbet,
or fruit and water ices, than an inferior quality of ice-cream with milk,”31
but she provided a recipe for a frozen custard made with milk in another of
her books. Similarly, in her 1898 book, Good Cooking, Rorer wrote, “When
making ice cream do not use gelatine, arrowroot, or other thickening sub-
stances. Good, pure cream, ripe fruit, or the best canned fruit in winter,
and granulated sugar, make a perfect ice cream.”32 However, she also recog-
nized that not everyone had access to such ingredients. In Ice Creams, Wa-
ter Ices, Frozen Puddings, Together with Refreshments for All Social Affairs, she
wrote, “In this book, Philadelphia Ice Creams, comprising the first group,
are very palatable, but expensive. In many parts of the country it is quite
difficult to get good cream. For that reason, I have given a group of creams,
using part milk and part cream, but it must be remembered that it takes
smart ‘juggling’ to make ice cream from milk. By far better use condensed
milk, with enough water or milk to rinse out the cans.”33 She said that, by
using condensed milk to make “ordinary fruit creams,” the cost would be
reduced to just fifteen cents a quart. She also suggested that, “in places
where neither cream nor condensed milk can be purchased, a fair ice cream
is made by adding two tablespoonfuls of olive oil to each quart of milk.”34

However, she did not include any recipes actually calling for the olive oil
and milk mixture.
One of the most parsimonious ice cream recipes was contributed to the
1877 edition of Buckeye Cookery by Louise Skinner of Battle Creek, Michi-
gan. It makes a thin, sweet ice milk that is similar to today’s soft-serve ice
creams.
EGGLESS ICE-CREAM
Two quarts milk, one pound sugar, three heaping table-spoons corn
starch; wet the starch with a little cold milk, scald the milk by putting it
in a tin pail and setting it in a pot of boiling water, let boil and stir in the
sugar and starch, strain, let cool, flavor and freeze.35
Just as wholesalers made ice cream of different quality levels for differ-
ent markets, some writers offered basic ice cream recipes with different de-
grees of richness and cost. In Frozen Dainties, written for the White
Mountain Freezer Company, Lincoln offered five “foundation” recipes for
ice cream. Her Neapolitan ice cream contained four eggs, cream, sugar, and
a flavoring. Philadelphia ice cream was made with cream, sugar, and a fla-
voring. “Ice-cream, with Gelatine,” contained both milk and cream, as well
as the gelatin, along with eight eggs, sugar, and salt. She recommended fla-
voring it “highly with lemon, wine, or any flavoring strong enough to dis-
guise the taste of the gelatine.” Her “Plain Ice-cream” was also made with
milk and cream, sugar, salt, and a flavoring, but it contained just two eggs
and was thickened with flour. “Frozen Custard” contained no cream. It
was made with milk, six to eight egg yolks, sugar, salt, and a flavoring. She
said that from these “one may select according to taste or means.”36
In The Book of Ices, first published in 1885, England’s Agnes Marshall
also gave her readers different foundation ice cream recipes, along with
titles that left no doubt as to their expense. The first, “Very Rich,” was
made with cream, sugar, and eight egg yolks. Number two, “Ordinary,”
was made with milk, sugar, and eight egg yolks. She said it could be im-
proved by using half milk and half cream instead of all milk. Number

three, “Common,” was made with milk, sugar, two eggs, and gelatin. She
did not suggest disguising the taste of the gelatin, possibly because she
recommended that her own “Finest leaf gelatine” be used. Number four,
“Cheap,” was made with milk, sugar, and corn flour or arrowroot. The
fifth, “Plain Cream Ice,” was simply cream and sugar. Recipes using spe-
cific flavorings followed.37
Marshall was another exceptional woman. She wrote several cookbooks,
ran a well-known London cooking school, gave lectures, and owned a
kitchen equipment store where many of her own products were sold. To-
day, she would be called an entrepreneur and celebrated for her astute
cross-promotion. Her recipes called for her gelatin, her baking powder,
and her flavor extracts. Her ice creams were to be churned in her patented
freezer, molded in any of the hundreds of molds she sold, and kept in her
ice cave until ready to be served.
Marshall was also an innovator. She wrote about the possibility of using
liquid nitrogen to freeze ice cream, although it is doubtful that she ever did
so. She was one of the first to serve ice cream in cones, which she called
cornets. Her recipes for ices and ice creams numbered more than a hun-
dred and included a cinnamon ice cream made with lemon peel and a bay
leaf. The combination of spice, citrus, and the faint resin flavor of the
bay leaf makes a complex and very flavorful ice cream:
CINNAMON CREAM ICE (CRÈME DE CANNELLE)
Put 1 pint of milk or cream to boil with a finger-length of cinnamon, 1 bay
leaf, and the peel of half a lemon; when well flavoured, mix it on to 8 raw
yolks of eggs and 4 ounces of castor sugar; thicken over the fire. Add a lit-
tle apricot yellow (p. 63); tammy, and finish as for other ices.38
Fannie Merritt Farmer was the most famous of the era’s female cooks and
authors. Born in Boston in 1857, she suffered ill health, possibly from polio,
while young and was not able to finish high school. But she enrolled in the
Boston Cooking School and in 1891 became its principal. Subsequently,
she opened her own school, wrote several cookbooks, was a columnist for

the Women’s Home Companion, and lectured at Harvard Medical School.
Known as the “mother of level measurements,” she was dedicated to the
scientific approach to cooking. The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, her
first book, was an immediate best-seller. Although much revised, it is still
in print.39
Her chapter “Ices, Ice Creams, and Other Frozen Desserts” included
more than three dozen recipes. Farmer’s writing was clear, crisp, and con-
cise. She listed the ingredients, in order of use, above the directions. She
included detailed directions for freezing, molding, and unmolding the
desserts. For the most part, her flavors were similar to those in other cook-
books of the day. They included everything from vanilla ice cream to frozen
Nesselrode pudding. She used canned fruit for several ices, and included
several recipes for the then-popular frozen punches. The following recipe
brings to mind Mrs. Randolph’s earlier recipe for oyster cream:
CLAM FRAPPÉ
20 clams.
1 2 cup cold water.
⁄
Wash clams thoroughly, changing water several times; put in stewpan
with cold water, cover closely, and steam until shells open. Strain the
liquor, cool, and freeze to a mush.40
Household cooks, like confectioners, went to the trouble of making

food colorings to give their ice creams added visual appeal. Rorer sup-
plied directions for making green food coloring from spinach and wrote,
“If no spinach is at hand, clover or lawn grass may be used.”41 Elizabeth
Ellicott Lea’s 1869 book Domestic Cookery was intended to be “connected
with the ordinary,” but it included recipes for ice cream and food color-
ings. Lea said her pokeberry jelly was to be used to stain ices, and she
made a preparation using cochineal and other ingredients and wrote of
it: “Use as much of this infusion as will give the desired shade. This pro-
duces a brilliant pink color.”42 Buckeye Cookery also explained how to

make food coloring with pokeberry juice and said that it “gives a very
beautiful color to creams and ices.”43
What’s in a Name?
By the late 1800s, so many frozen desserts were being made that Lincoln
and Farmer both provided glossaries in their works; other writers defined
terms along with their recipes. But there were exceptions to every defini-
tion. The names and descriptions varied from author to author, from book
to book, from table to table.
Take Philadelphia ice cream, for example. Traditionally, it was made
with cream, sugar, and flavoring. It did not contain milk or eggs. Eleanor
Parkinson had been adamant on the subject: “Use cream entirely, and on
no account mingle the slightest quantity of milk, which detracts materi-
ally from the richness and smoothness of the ices.” She called ice creams
made with eggs “custard ices.” Farmer defined Philadelphia ice cream as
“thin cream, sweetened, flavored, and frozen,” and “plain ice cream” as
“custard foundation, thin cream, and flavoring.” Although Lincoln’s glos-
sary in the New England Kitchen magazine did not mention Philadelphia
ice cream, it defined ice cream as being made “mainly or entirely of
cream” and said that it took “a specific name from the substance used for
flavoring.” However, the first ice cream recipe in Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook
Book, titled “Ice-Cream, No. 1 (Philadelphia Ice Cream),” calls for both
milk and cream.44 Earlier, Beecher made Philadelphia ice cream with milk
or “cream when you have it,” along with arrowroot, eight egg whites,
sugar, and a flavoring.45 Rorer’s Philadelphia Cook Book stated emphati-
cally, “To make good Philadelphia ice cream, use only the best materials.
Avoid gelatine, arrowroot, or any other thickening substance. Good, pure
cream, ripe fruit, or the best canned in winter, and granulated sugar,
make a perfect ice cream.”46 Another writer, Juliet Corson, author of
Miss Corson’s Practical American Cookery and Household Management, said,
“Philadelphia ice-cream is pure cream over-sweetened, over-flavored,
and then frozen.”47 Her definition probably was not intended to be as

negative as it sounds. She recommended oversweetening several of her
ice creams, and seems to have meant that the mixture should taste a little
too sweet before freezing in order for the flavor to come through in the ice
cream.
Other names were equally arbitrary. Corson had a recipe for a rich ice
cream made with cream, sugar, and the yolks of a dozen eggs, along with a
vanilla bean; she called it “French Ice-Cream.” “Aunt Babette’s” Cook Book
called a similar combination “New York Ice-Cream.” In addition to her
many Philadelphia ice creams, Rorer made “French Ice Creams” with cream
and the yolks of from six to fourteen eggs. She cooked the mixtures for
those ice creams, but her “English Ice Creams” were generally uncooked
and contained no eggs.48 Her “Neapolitan Ice Creams” were cooked cus-
tards made with cream, sugar, and six egg yolks, and she also added six
stiffly whisked egg whites to the mixture. The term Neapolitan was generally
used to refer to an ice cream brick layered with three flavors. Initially, straw-
berry, pistachio, and vanilla ice creams were used to represent the colors of
the Italian flag, but over time vanilla, chocolate, and strawberry became
more common. Every now and then, a writer describing a multiflavored
brick mistakenly called it “metropolitan” ice cream. “Harlequin” was an-
other name used for the same preparation. Rorer called the multilayered
bricks “Neapolitan Blocks.”49
Sherbet was a fluid term. Its usage to describe an ice, rather than the Mid-
dle Eastern drink, seems to have originated in America in the late nine-
teenth century. Housekeeping in Old Virginia, published in 1878 and
consisting of recipes collected from “Two Hundred and Fifty Ladies in Vir-
ginia and her Sister States,” had six sherbet recipes. Three called for cream,
and one was made with milk. The remaining two—a lemon sherbet and an
orange sherbet—were made with fruit juice, sugar, water, and egg whites.50
Lincoln and Farmer both defined sherbet as a water ice with gelatin or egg
whites added. In many cookbooks, the terms sherbet, fruit ice, and water ice
were interchangeable. When the word sorbet was used, it meant a fruit or
water ice.

Earlier, when Emy and others made them, the frozen desserts known as
biscuits were so-called because grated biscuits, cookies, or macaroons
were among the ingredients. But in the late 1800s, many biscuits were
made without biscuits. Lincoln used the term biscuit glacé for combina-
tions of an ice cream and a sherbet or mousse frozen in small paper cases
like cupcake papers. She said they were sometimes covered with meringue
and browned before serving.51 Rorer’s “Biscuit Tortoni” was ice cream fla-
vored with sherry and maraschino liqueur. It did not contain biscuits, but
it was frozen in paper cases.52 A British confectioners’ manual published
at the beginning of the twentieth century said the term biscuit glacé was “a
contentious subject, and a healthy fight might perhaps result in an author-
itative ruling that would establish a universal standard.” The authors said
it was originally made with crushed biscuits or macaroons, but they ex-
plained the product had changed. Today, they wrote, “a rich, light spongi-
ness is desired, and more often than not some form of iced soufflé is sent
to table as a ‘biscuit glacé.’ ”53
Homemade frozen puddings were also a popular dessert. Lincoln de-
fined them as “any rich ice-cream highly flavored with wine, brandy, Ja-
maica rum or maraschino, and made quite thick with a variety of fruits,
nuts, etc. and served with a cold, rich sauce.” For the fruits, she recom-
mended a pound of assorted French fruit (these would have been candied
fruits); or a mix of raisins, currants, and citron; or figs and dates; or half
fruits and half nuts; or half fruits and half crumbs of macaroons or cake.
She offered two recipes for the sauce, a flavored whipped cream and a fla-
vored custard.54 Other cooks used a variety of different fruits and nuts;
some added whipped cream to the ice cream just before freezing it. The
recipe that Mrs. Governor J. B. McCreary of Kentucky contributed to Buck-
eye Cookery called for a pound of raisins and one pint of strawberry pre-
serves. An unnamed contributor to Housekeeping in Old Virginia offered
a recipe for “Plumbière” [sic] made with almonds, citron, and “brandy
peaches.” Three Nesselrode recipes were contributed to The Blue Grass
Cook Book, two of which used chestnuts. The other used an assortment of

fruits and fruit peel. “Aunt Babette’s” Cook Book contained a most elaborate
Nesselrode pudding including chestnuts that had been cooked in wine
and “a quarter of a pound of the finest chocolate, grated.” After it was
frozen, it was layered in a mold with apricot marmalade, fig preserves, and
candied fruit. Aunt Babette wrote, “In serving, dump on a platter, and
pour a cold sauce over it, which is made of whipped cream flavored with
Maraschina brandy and sweetened to taste.”55
A simpler version is this one from Farmer’s Boston Cooking-School Cook
Book:
FROZEN PUDDING I
2⁄1 2 cups milk.
1 cup sugar.
1 8 teaspoonful salt.
⁄
2 eggs.
1 cup heavy cream.
1 2 cup rum.
⁄
1 cup candied fruit, cherries, pineapples, pears, and apricots.
Cut fruit in pieces, and soak several hours in brandy to cover, which
prevents fruit freezing; make custard of first four ingredients; strain,
cool, add cream and rum, then freeze. Fill a brick mould with alternate
layers of the cream and fruit; pack in salt and ice and let stand two
hours.56
Recipes for iced punches also began to appear in the American house-
hold cookbooks late in the nineteenth century and were similar to those
made by the English confectioners Jarrin and Jeanes. Most cooks started
by making a lemon ice; then they added whipped egg whites and liquor
and froze the mixture. The liquor was often rum, but brandy, cham-
pagne, and maraschino were also used. In fact, sometimes they were all
used. Farmer made her Roman punch with rum, tea, and both lemon
and orange juices. One of Rorer’s Roman punch recipes was unique. She
simply made a lemon water ice and spooned it into small punch glasses.

Then she made a small well in the center of each one and filled it with
“good Jamaica rum.”
The iced punches were frothy rather than frozen hard; the liquors would
prevent them from freezing completely. Served as palate refreshers during
a multicourse banquet, they were replaced later by sorbets. An etiquette
book of the day referred to Roman punch as the best of the “provocatives
of appetite . . . which, coming after the heavy roasts, prepares the palate
and stomach for the canvas-back ducks or other game.”57
Serving Suggestion
Ices and ice creams molded into all the elaborate shapes confectioners and
caterers loved—bunches of asparagus, towering pillars, assorted fruits,
flora, and fauna—could be purchased to serve at fancy dinner parties. One
could serve ice cream molded into petite individual desserts or present a
single large molded ice cream to dinner guests. By 1887 Minneapolis host-
esses could buy ice cream molded into the shape of a large deer for five dol-
lars or an elephant for six dollars. Each was intended to serve twelve
guests.58
Mary F. Henderson, author of Practical Cooking and Dinner Giving, pub-
lished in 1876, explained that the fancy molds were the purview of profes-
sionals, but that simpler ice creams could be served by anyone.
The devices of form for creams served at handsome dinners in large cities
are very beautiful; for instance, one sees a hen surrounded by her chickens;
or a hen sitting on the side of a spun-glass nest, looking sideways at her
eggs; or a fine collection of fruits in colors. One may see also a perfect imi-
tation of asparagus with a cream-dressing, the asparagus being made of
the pistache cream, and the dressing simply a whipped cream. These fancy
displays are, of course, generally arranged by the confectioner. It is a conve-
nience, of course, when giving dinner companies, to have the dessert or any
other course made outside of the house; but for ordinary occasions, ices
are no more troublesome to prepare than anything else, especially when
they can be made early in the day, or even the day before serving.59

Ordinary people did find ways, often imaginative ones, to emulate the
elaborate presentations of professionals. Molds in simple shapes like mel-
ons, spheres, or bricks were being stamped out of steel and sold at reason-
able prices, so homemakers could serve prettily molded ice creams.60
Lacking even one of those, the ice cream freezer itself could be used as a
mold, Lincoln pointed out: “If we have not the elaborate moulds of the
caterers, good effects can be gained by a little ingenuity. The freezer-can al-
ways gives a good shape if the cream is carefully packed in place after the
dasher is removed. With care, the center may be filled with whipped cream
of contrasting color and flavor, or with some preserved fruit; enough
cream should be reserved to thoroughly cover this, and a surprise awaits
the family when the apparently plain mound discloses its hidden treas-
ures.”61
Some molds had a removable centerpiece, called a pipe.62 It allowed the
confectioner to fill the mold with ice cream, then remove the pipe and fill
the hollow space with a different ice or ice cream, with flavored or colored
whipped cream, or with fresh fruit. Parloa achieved a similar result using
the ice cream freezer rather than a mold. To make what she called “Straw-
berry Ice Cream à la Surprise,” she first made strawberry ice cream, and
then, taking the beaters out of the freezer, she filled the space with sugared
strawberries. She topped the strawberries with some of the frozen ice
cream and set it on ice for another hour. When she turned it out, she gar-
nished it with more strawberries.63 Mrs. J. C. P. of Stockbridge, Massachu-
setts, contributed a nearly identical recipe to Buckeye Cookery. She called it
“Fruit Frappées” and used a mold rather than the ice cream freezer. She
lined the mold with vanilla ice cream, filled the center with fresh berries or
fruit cut in slices, covered it with ice cream, and put it back in the freezer
for half an hour. She said, “The fruit must be chilled, but not frozen.”64
Many of the recipes and serving ideas meant for home cooks reflected
the influence of professional confectioners and chefs. To celebrate the pur-
chase of Alaska by the United States in 1867, famed Delmonico’s restau-
rant served individual desserts called “Alaska, Florida,” better known today

as baked Alaska. Chef Charles Ranhofer filled individual Savoy biscuits
with apricot marmalade, then topped them with banana and vanilla ice
creams molded into the shape of a pyramid. When it was time to serve
them, he removed them from the freezing box, covered each one with
meringue, and put them in a hot oven until they were a light golden
brown.65 Home cooks armed with Lincoln’s Frozen Dainties could make
something very similar. Lincoln called it “Ice-Cream en Deguiser” and
used a sheet of sponge cake rather than individual biscuits. She did not
use marmalade, nor did she specify the flavor of the ice cream. But just
as Ranhofer did, she topped the cake with ice cream, covered it with
meringue, and baked it “quickly in a hot oven.” She said it was “recom-
mended chiefly for its novelty.”66
Like confectioners, home cooks also served ice cream in fruit shells—
lemon ices or ice creams in scooped-out lemon halves; orange, in orange
halves; banana, in banana skins. Aunt Babette suggested serving straw-
berry ice cream in “eggs made of meringue” or in small nests of spun sugar.
She said the effect would be very pretty, then added, “Of course, this is
meant for company only.”67 Lincoln also made meringue eggs filled with
ice cream, and suggested tying the two halves together with a dainty rib-
bon.68 Rorer cut a square cake in half, hollowed out the center, and filled it
with ice cream. After replacing the top, she served it with cold brandy
sauce poured around it.69 She also suggested using baking powder cans as
ice cream molds.70 Henderson used a piece of pasteboard to divide a mold
in half and filled one side with vanilla ice cream, the other with chocolate.
She topped her pineapple ice cream with the reserved crown of fresh
pineapple, much as Emy had more than a hundred years before.71
When ice cream was not molded into fanciful shapes, it might be brought
to the table in a lovely porcelain glacier, or ice cream pail, in the same pat-
tern as the family’s best china service. The pails resembled wine pails, but
they had lids with concave tops that were filled with ice to help keep the ice
cream chilled. The ice cream was dished from the pails into individual
ice cream dishes or handled cups and heaped up as high as possible.

At the end of the century, ices were served between dinner courses. Mar-
shall specified that they should be presented after the fish course and be-
fore the roast. Rorer suggested that they accompany specific foods. For
example, she said her apple ice should be served in lemonade glasses at
dinner with roasted duck, goose, or pork. She served her mint sherbet with
lamb. Her ginger water ice was “nice to serve with roasted or braised
beef.”72 Most of these ices were as sweet as any dessert ice, but her cucum-
ber sorbet was made with only a teaspoonful of sugar. As a result, it freezes
to a rock-solid consistency. When it’s only partially frozen, it tastes like cu-
cumber slush and would perhaps be a pleasant first course on a hot sum-
mer evening.
CUCUMBER SORBET
2 large cucumbers
2 tart apples
1 pint of water
1 teaspoonful of sugar
1 2 teaspoonful of salt
⁄
1 tablespoonful of gelatin
1 saltspoonful of black pepper
Juice of one lemon
Peel the cucumbers, cut them into halves and remove the seeds. Dissolve
the gelatin in a half cupful of hot water. Grate the flesh of the cucumbers;
grate the apples, add them to the cucumbers, and add all the other ingre-
dients. Freeze as you would ordinary sherbet.
Serve in tiny glasses, with boiled cod or halibut.
This will fill eight small stem glasses.73
Both American and British dinner tables featured serving pieces—

bowls, vases, punch bowls, goblets, and cups—made of ice. To make
them, water was poured into double molds similar to those used to make
metal serving pieces, then the mold was covered with ice and salt and
frozen. When the serving pieces were released from the molds, they were

filled with sorbets, fruits, or drinks and set on the table. As soon as one
started to melt and drip, a servant would whisk it away and replace it
with another. Marshall presented most of her dinner sorbets in small
cups made of ice, sometimes coloring the water before freezing it. The
molds needed to make the cups were advertised for sale at the back of
her book.74
Mark Twain called the end of the nineteenth century the “Gilded
Age.”75 For some, it was a time of great wealth, elegant attire, and dinner
tables gleaming with silver, crystal, and china, as well as ice. Etiquette
books abounded, and eating properly was critical to one’s social standing.
This was a far cry from the scene Mrs. Basil Hall, an English traveler, de-
scribed in 1828. She was at a dinner party in Washington when she ob-
served a young lady “feeding herself with very much-melted ice-cream
with a great steel knife!”76 By the last quarter of the century, one did not
eat with a knife at a dinner party. In fact, it seemed as if every food had its
own specialized implement. Ice cream had several, including a three-
pronged, slightly concave fork, which Mary Elizabeth Wilson Sherwood,
author of Manners and Social Usages, referred to as “a queer little combina-
tion of fork and spoon, called an ‘ice-spoon.’ ”77 There were ice cream
spoons for serving and ones for eating, some with squared-off ends that
made them resemble miniature shovels. Specialized knives were used to
slice molded ice creams. Since the knives were quite similar to fish knives,
sometimes they did double duty. The fish course was served early in the
meal, and molded ice cream at the close, so there was ample time to wash
the knives before using them again.78 There were also elegant silver ice
cream hatchets for slicing and serving. Shaped rather like conventional
hatchets, about twelve inches long and two and a half inches wide, they are
now prized antiques. One made by Tiffany in sterling silver is valued at
more than a thousand dollars today.
The ice cream scoop seems to have been a professional’s implement at
the time, not used in the home. Alfred L. Cralle, an African American living
in Pittsburgh, received a patent for an ice cream scoop, which he called an

“ice-cream mold and disher,” in 1897. His application shows a cone-
shaped scoop, but he explained that it could be made in any shape. Its ad-
vantages included the fact that it could be used with one hand. Cralle also
said it was “strong, durable, effectual in its operation, and comparatively
inexpensive to manufacture.”79
Celebrating with Ice Cream

Whether it was bought from a confectioner or homemade, mixed from
thin milk or heavy cream, served from fanciful molds or pottery bowls, ice
cream added a sense of celebration to any occasion, from a simple supper
to a grand gathering. Over the course of the nineteenth century, it gradu-
ally became the perfect dessert for everything from a child’s birthday party
to an exuberant Fourth of July observance. One of the earliest, and most
unusual, events took place on the Oregon Trail in 1849. Charles Ross
Parke, MD, was on his way to California to search for gold when he and
his party stopped to celebrate “the nation’s birthday.” They were about to
cross the Continental Divide at South Pass and decided to take advantage
of nearby snowbanks to make ice cream. They lacked any sort of ice cream
maker, but since they had two cows, they did have plenty of milk. Parke
wrote in his diary:
I determined to [do] something no other living man ever did in this place
and on this sacred day of the year, and that was to make Ice Cream at the
South Pass of the Rockies.
I procured a small tin bucket which held about 2 quarts. This I sweet-
ened and flavored with peppermint—had nothing else. This bucket was
placed inside a wooden bucket, or Yankee Pale, and the top put on.
Nature had supplied a huge bank of coarse snow, or hail, nearby, which
was just the thing for this new factory. With alternate layers of this, and
salt between the two buckets and aid of a clean stick to stir with, I soon
produced the most delicious ice cream tasted in this place. In fact, the
whole company so decided, and as a compliment drew up in front of our
tent and fired a salute, bursting one gun but injuring no one.80

Soon less explosive Independence Day parties featured ice cream made
under more practical conditions. Civic events, fairs, exhibitions, and other
festive occasions all called for ice cream. In 1887, the dessert menu for the
Ancient and Honorable Artillery Company banquet held at Faneuil Hall in
Boston featured no less than nine different ices and ice creams.81 Ice cream
became a symbol of celebration. According to Weygandt, “Ice-cream was
the sine qua non of Fourth of July and Thanksgiving and Christmas, of
New Year’s Day and Washington’s Birthday and Decoration Day, the chief
festivals of the year in the remote period of which I write.”82
By the 1880s, summertime ice cream socials had become a favorite fund-
raiser for churches and community organizations. The women would
make up the ice cream mixtures; the men and any boys they could coerce
into participating did the churning in return for a chance to lick the
dasher.83 Ice cream went on picnics, too. Some carried it in an ice cave with
a handle, made especially for such a purpose. Most just left the ice cream in
the freezer after it was made, then packed it in more ice and salt, wrapped
it up in an old carpet to keep the cold in, and carried it off to the picnic
spot. Then, as now, a child’s birthday party was incomplete unless ice
cream was paired with the festive cake. By the turn of the twentieth cen-
tury, Godey’s declaration had finally come true. A party without ice cream
had become unimaginable.

seven
Modern Times
At the turn of the twentieth century, ice cream was one of the country’s
best-loved desserts, and the cone was about to become its constant part-
ner. The ice cream cone had originated in the nineteenth century, but it
didn’t become a popular street food until after the 1904 World’s Fair in
Saint Louis. Many of the visitors to the fair ate an ice cream cone there for
the first time and took a taste for the treat home with them afterward. They
made the ice cream cone an American institution.
The fair, or as it was actually named, the Louisiana Purchase Exposition,
belatedly celebrated the centennial of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase and
welcomed in the twentieth century with great style. It was the biggest,
most spectacular, most extravagant fair the country had ever known. The
event was by all accounts a huge success and helped revitalize Saint Louis,
which had been suffering the effects of the depression of the mid-1890s.
Composed of 1,272 acres of exhibit halls, gardens, lagoons, and a mile-
and-a-half-long midway called the Pike, it cost nearly fifty million dollars,
more than the price of the Purchase itself.1 In fact, one of its exhibits was
the original Treasury draft of fifteen million dollars for the Louisiana Pur-
chase. Other exhibits included everything from art from the Vatican’s col-
lection to Jefferson’s original version of the Declaration of Independence.
Some features were less exalted. There was a bear made from prunes, a
palace made from corn, and an elephant made from almonds.2 The states
constructed buildings in local architectural styles. Maine’s was a log cabin.
California’s was a mission-style building. Texas built a structure in the
form of a five-pointed star. Sarah Tyson Rorer ran the main restaurant and
155
sold her World’s Fair Souvenir Cook Book. Ice cream cones were among the
many refreshments sold at the fair, and there are many stories about its
invention there.
The cone—but not the ice cream cone—dates back many centuries. It
can be traced back at least to the ancient Greeks, who made flat cakes
cooked between two hot metal plates and called them obelios. The French
initially called them oublies, either after the Greek or from the Latin oblata,
meaning “offering” or “unconsecrated host.” A wafer-makers guild was es-
tablished in France in the thirteenth century, and since its members also
made hosts for the Catholic mass, they were supposed to be men of irre-
proachable character, not the sort who frequented prostitutes. They were
so discreet that it was said lovers trusted them to deliver clandestine notes
without arousing the suspicion of their spouses. The wafer makers sold
their wares on the street, at fairs, and in front of churches on feast days.
Some rolled their oublies into cornets and tucked them inside each other,
selling five as a main d’oublies, or hand of wafers.3
The wafers were generally made with a batter that could be as simple
as a flour-and-milk combination or as rich as a mixture of flour, eggs,
cream, butter, sugar, and a flavoring. After the batter was mixed, it was
cooked on two hot metal plates or irons that were hinged together. The
wafer maker squeezed the plates together by the handles and held them
over a fire until the wafers were cooked, then turned them out to dry.
Other cooks baked wafers in ovens. Either way, the wafers were pliable
before they dried, so they could be rolled into the shape of a cylinder, a
cup, or a cone while still warm. As they cooled, they became crisp and
held their shape.
In the 1734 edition of French chef François Massialot’s Nouvelle instruc-
tion pour les confitures, les liqueurs, et les fruits (New Instruction for Jams,
Liqueurs, and Fruits), a recipe for wafers concluded by noting that, when
the wafer was ready, it should be rolled on a wooden implement made for
the purpose, then put back in the stove to dry and crisp.4 More than a
century later, in his 1866 book The Royal Confectioner: English and Foreign,
156 / Modern Times

Charles Elmé Francatelli included a recipe for chocolate wafers, which
he called “Spanish Wafers.” He wrote, “When done, curl them in the
form of cornucopiæ, using a wooden form . . . upon which to shape the
wafers. Such tools are obtainable at all turners.’ ”5
Made by home cooks as well as pastry chefs and street vendors, wafers
were both dinner table desserts and street foods. After the French intro-
duced wafers to the English, an official waferer was attached to the royal
court. In medieval London, wafers and hippocras, a spiced wine, were
considered the proper way to end a meal. The English also put slices of
cheese into their wafers, making an early version of the grilled cheese
sandwich. Wafers came to be called gaufres, or honeycombs, in thirteenth-
century France when craftsmen made the metal plates with a honeycomb
design. In the sixteenth century, street sellers often cried, “Voilà le plaisir,
mesdames!” (Here’s pleasure, ladies!) As a result, the wafers became
known as plaisirs.6 The Italians called wafers cialde or pizzelle; the Dutch,
waffels; the Swedes, krumkaga; the Germans, eiserkuchen. The English and
the Americans called them wafers, waffles, cornets, cornucopias, and, of
course, cones.
In the nineteenth century, cooks and confectioners not only rolled
wafers into cone shapes but also gave them all sorts of flavorings and
flourishes. They added coffee, chocolate, cinnamon, cloves, orange flower
water, lemon zest, vanilla, brandy, eau de vie, or Madeira to their batters.
They mixed in currants, ground almonds, or pistachios and decorated
the finished cones with orange-, lemon-, or vanilla-flavored sugars. They
dipped the open end into royal icing, meringue, or caramel and rolled it in
chopped and often colored nuts. They filled the cones with jams or fruits
or whipped cream and berries and arranged them on elegant tiered dishes.
When did they put ice cream in a cone? According to British food historian
Robin Weir, the earliest illustration of an ice cream cone is an 1807 en-
graving of the scene at the fashionable Parisian café Frascati’s. It shows a
young lady seated at a table eating what appears to be ice cream from a
cone.7
Modern Times / 157

It was inevitable that someone would put ice cream into the cones, since
wafers, whether left flat or rolled into cornets, were regularly served along
with ice cream. They were natural companions. Carlo Gatti, the first ice
cream wholesaler in England, got his start selling gaufres in Paris in the
middle of the nineteenth century. Francatelli wrote that gaufres were “well
adapted, from their lightness and crispness, to be handed round with
ices.”8 Jarrin said that wafers were used “to garnish creams.” The British
food historian Ivan Day has pointed out that the first recipes specifically
calling for ice cream to be put in cones were in Francatelli’s Modern Cook,
published in 1846.9 Francatelli garnished several of his molded ice creams
with tiny cones filled with ice cream. His “Iced Pudding à la Chesterfield”
was typical. He lined a pyramid-shaped mold with pineapple ice cream and
filled the middle with a cherry water ice blended with a mixture of red
fruits such as cherries and strawberries. He made miniature, two-inch-
diameter wafers and rolled them into cones. When it was time to send the
ice cream pyramid to the table, he said, one should “turn it out of the
mould on to its dish, ornament the dish with a kind of drooping feather,
formed with green angelica cut in strips, and arranged as represented in
the wood-cut; garnish the base with small gauffres, filled with some of the
iced cream reserved for the purpose, place a strawberry on the top of each,
and serve.”10 For his “Iced Pudding à la Duchess of Kent,” he lined a mold
with cherry water ice and filled it with filbert cream ice. After turning it
out of the mold, he ringed it with cornets filled with filbert ice cream.11
The innovative Agnes Marshall also put ice cream into cones, but she
gave them a starring rather than a supporting role. Her 1894 book, Fancy
Ices, included a recipe for cornets that she baked in an oven rather than on
a wafer iron. Hers were five inches in diameter, closer to today’s size and
much larger than Francatelli’s. Marshall rolled them into cone shapes,
piped icing around the opening and down the seam, and dipped them in
finely chopped pistachio nuts. She filled the ones she called “Margaret
Cornets” partly with ginger ice and partly with apple ice cream.12 She filled
her “Christina Cornets” with vanilla ice cream to which she had added
158 / Modern Times

whipped cream and “nice dried fruits, such as greengage, apricot, dried
ginger, cherries, &c., that are cut into very tiny dice shapes, as much ground
cinnamon as will cover a threepenny piece, the same quantity of ground
ginger, and a tablespoonful of Marshall’s Maraschino Syrup.”13 She
arranged the filled cones in a pyramid on a doily-covered platter.
Clearly, these were silver-platter cornets, not ice cream cones meant to
be licked outdoors on a sunny summer day. However, more down-to-earth
versions of the cone were also being made. In 1901, Antonio Valvona, de-
scribed in his U.S. patent application as “a subject of the King of Italy, re-
siding at 96 Great Ancoats street, Manchester, in the county of Lancaster,
England,” invented an “apparatus for baking biscuit-cups for ice-cream.”
According to Valvona’s application, they were intended to be “filled with
ice-cream, which can then be sold by the venders of ice-cream in public
thoroughfares or other places.” His patent was granted in 1902.14 In 1903,
Italo Marchiony, “a citizen of the United States, residing in the borough of
Manhattan,” received a patent for a mold that made ten ice cream cups at
a time.15 His grandson, William Marchiony, reported that Italo Marchiony
had started out by selling lemon ices from a pushcart on Wall Street.
He had wrapped them in paper cones so he wouldn’t have to wash out
penny-lick glasses. Later, he experimented with making confectionary
cones. They became so popular that he invented and patented a machine
to make them in quantity.16 Although Valvona’s and Marchiony’s cones
had flat, not pointed, bottoms, and both patent applications used the
word cups rather than cones, it is clear they were making a variation on
what we think of as an ice cream cone.
All of which brings us to 1904 and the fair. As one story goes, an ice
cream vendor at the fair couldn’t wash his dishes fast enough to keep up
with the demand. Ernest Hamwi, a Syrian native, was making wafers
called zalabia at the next stand and noticed his neighbor’s dilemma. He
rolled one of his wafers into a cone shape and gave it to the ice cream ven-
dor to fill. Before long, everyone was strolling along licking ice cream from
a cone. Later Hamwi established the Missouri Cone Company. It’s a
Modern Times / 159

charming story, and it may even be true. A similar story cast Abe Doumar,
a Syrian immigrant who sold souvenirs at the fair by day and zalabia at
night, as the person who introduced the cone at the fair. In this version,
Doumar was inspired to roll up the cone the same way he rolled Syrian
flatbread into a cone shape to make a sandwich. He is said to have shared
the idea with other vendors, thus spreading it throughout the fair. He later
opened ice cream stands at Coney Island and then in Norfolk, Virginia.
There are other claimants as well.17
Although none of them invented the cone, it is possible that each of
them came up with the idea of putting ice cream in it without knowing it
had been done before. Perhaps each one was the first, as far as he knew, to
think of it. It’s unlikely that they had read Francatelli or Marshall or had
dined at one of the fancy dinner parties where pyramids of frosted, deco-
rated, ice-cream-filled cones were served. Possibly they did not know
about the cones Valvona and Marchiony made. However, it does seem
more likely, since ice cream cones were being sold on the streets of New
York and Manchester, that the people who sold ice cream cones at the fair
came prepared to do so. But even if they did, many of the people who were
visiting the fair had never seen or heard of an ice cream cone before. For
them, visiting the spectacular fair and tasting an ice cream cone for the
very first time must have been an unforgettable experience.
Becoming a Business
The ice cream cone did wonders for the ice cream business. “Ever since the
invention of the ice cream cone, demand for ice cream has increased,” said
L. J. Schumaker of Philadelphia’s Crane Ice Cream Company when he ad-
dressed the annual ice cream convention in 1919: “If you can put an idea
in the mind of a child, the idea will last for the lifetime of that child. . . .
You are not talking to baldheaded people, but to a people with a long term
of years before them. The first idea is to teach children to eat ice cream
once a week, twice or three times a week. When he grows up, he is going to
want ice cream in his family.”18 Schumaker was right. Annual per capita
160 / Modern Times

consumption had been about a quart in 1900. By 1915 it had quadrupled
to a gallon.19 The ice cream cone and the ice cream sandwich had made ice
cream a treat for all ages and incomes. In addition, the temperance move-
ment was gaining ground, and people were turning to ice cream as an al-
ternative to alcohol. As early as 1909, the editor of the Ice Cream Trade
Journal, Thomas D. Cutler, wrote, “As the anti-saloon craze is rolling on
larger and larger, it would seem that the ice cream business throughout the
country will enjoy a banner year. Even in New York the effect of the great
moral craze is being noted. There are 800 fewer saloons in New York
County this year than last, and ice cream parlors are springing up on all
sides.”20
Temperance and then Prohibition made ice cream more popular than
ever as local barrooms and luxurious bars alike were turned into ice cream
parlors. Brewers, including Anheuser-Busch, became ice cream manufac-
turers. A Brooklyn brewery sold ice cream at Coney Island during the sum-
mer of 1920 in the hopes that it would replace beer sales. At ice cream
makers’ conventions, attendees sang this popular song, to the tune of
“Old Black Joe”:
Gone are the days when Father was a souse.
Gone are the days of the weekly family rows,
Gone from this land since prohibition’s here—
He brings a brick of ice cream home instead of a beer.
Chorus:
He’s coming, he’s coming; we can see him coming near—
He brings a brick of ice cream home instead of a beer.21
In the early years of the twentieth century, the ice cream business still
depended on supplies of ice and salt. Manufacturers still made ice cream
in small batch freezers that, except for using steam and then electric power
to churn the ice cream, had not changed much in fifty years. They still de-
livered ice cream from horse-drawn wagons. Nevertheless, the business
was thriving. Despite the antiquated methods, wholesalers turned out a
Modern Times / 161

range of ice cream products. In one factory, some workers made, molded,
and wrapped multiflavored ice cream bricks while others produced richer,
more expensive “French” ice creams. Still others made ornamental works
in ice cream for banquets and private parties. After the various ice creams
were made, they were packed in porcelain-lined iron cans, placed in
wooden tubs packed with ice and salt, and loaded onto wagons to be deliv-
ered to local retail shops, drugstores, homes, and ice cream parlors. Once
delivered, the ice creams had to be frequently repacked in a fresh ice-and-
salt mixture to keep them frozen.22
In 1921, a five-gallon can of ice cream was shipped by railway express
from Ohio to a convention in Seattle, Washington. The trip took six days
and seven nights, and the ice cream had to be repacked in ice at all the
stops along the way. It arrived in perfect condition, according to a contem-
porary report. The experiment was a success, but no one imagined such
shipments would become a commonplace distribution method. The in-
dustry simply saw them as a convenience for well-to-do ice cream lovers.
“In a few years from now it may be possible for eastern tourists to go to
Sunny California to spend the winter and have their favorite brand of ice
cream shipped from the east to grace their tables in the west,” predicted
the Ice Cream Review.23
National distribution was far in the future, but change was coming.
After years with relatively few developments, ice cream production was
beginning to modernize. Major advances in equipment and freezing tech-
niques would soon transform the way ice cream was made, distributed,
and sold. Mechanical refrigeration would do away with the need for ice
and salt. And ice cream would become a year-round treat.
In 1902, Burr Walker, son of the owner of a Pennsylvania ice cream
company, experimented with freezing ice cream with brine cooled by an
ammonia compressor. His circulating brine freezer sped up the process
and allowed for greatly increased production. It could freeze a forty-quart
batch of ice cream in six to eight minutes. The finished ice cream was
then put in cans and hardened in brine-filled storage tanks rather than
162 / Modern Times

packed in ice and salt. Trade publications called the circulating brine
freezer a “major advance in manufacturing because it greatly shortened
freezing time.”24 Many other innovations followed. In 1905, Emery
Thompson, manager of an ice cream and soda fountain in a New York
City department store, developed a gravity-fed vertical batch freezer.
Thompson’s freezer made production almost continuous. As soon as one
batch of ice cream emerged from the bottom of the freezer into a can, a
new batch could be poured into the top without having to stop the ma-
chine. By 1910, continuous-process freezers could produce from 60 to
150 gallons per hour.25 The homogenizer, also known as a viscolizer, was
introduced in 1905. This machine whipped the cream mixture to make it
smooth and creamy and achieve consistent overrun.26 Overrun is an in-
dustry term for the amount of air that is whipped into a mixture during
freezing to make it swell in volume. Too much overrun and the mixture is
too airy and light. Not enough and it is too heavy and thick. Until the ho-
mogenizer came into use, mixtures were inconsistent and ice cream was
often lumpy.
To accommodate the new freezers and other equipment, companies be-
gan to build new plants and remodel old ones. They built hardening
rooms, where just-made ice cream was stored to firm up before delivery.
They added larger carriage houses to accommodate more delivery wag-
ons. In 1912, the Wheat Ice Cream Company built a three-story brick
plant in Buffalo, New York. Heavy equipment was housed in the base-
ment. Ice cream was processed and shipped from the first floor. Offices
and the laboratory were located on the top floor. The plant’s tanks could
hold 14,000 gallons of milk products. There were three 160-gallon
mixers, three gelatin heaters, sixteen freezers, and nine hardening rooms,
each of which could store up to 8,000 gallons. One room in the plant
was reserved for making bricks and molded ice creams. Another was ded-
icated to washing and sterilizing the cans. Next to the building, a wagon
room and stable housed one hundred horses. It was the country’s “finest
and most perfect ice cream factory,” according to the Ice Cream Trade
Modern Times / 163

Journal.27 Mechanical refrigeration had not yet had its full impact on the
business, but ice cream makers were becoming manufacturers.
From Recipe to Formula

Up until the twentieth century, most ice cream was either Philadelphia-
style, consisting of cream, sugar, and a flavoring; or custard-style, made
with cream or milk or both, egg yolks, sugar, and a flavoring. The recipes
were similar whether the ice cream was being made by professionals or
home cooks. Both added fillers such as gelatin, cornstarch, and flour occa-
sionally, but as Mary Lincoln, Rorer, and others suggested, the additions
made inferior ice creams. However, after the turn of the century, the use of
such ingredients increased dramatically, particularly by manufacturers.
They justified their use by citing the demands of the business, pointing
out that the storage and distribution requirements of ice cream factories
necessitated using ingredients that stabilized mixtures and allowed ice
cream to keep better. “When large quantities of cream are made for a
moderate-priced trade, gelatin is often used to help the cream ‘stand up,’
or retain its shape when shipped or held for several days,” wrote H. E. Van
Norman in the 1910 edition of the Cyclopedia of American Agriculture.28 Ac-
cording to a 1913 edition of the Confectioners’ and Bakers’ Gazette, gelatin
was necessary to prevent “coarse granulation or crystallization of the wa-
tery portion of the ice cream.” It was also said to keep ice cream from soft-
ening or melting too fast when served and to aid in digestibility.29
At the beginning of the century, there were no mandated standards for
ice cream, despite concerns about its content and safety. But after the
passage of the Pure Food and Drug Act in 1906, Dr. Harvey Wiley of the
Department of Agriculture required that ice cream manufactured for inter-
state commerce contain not less than 14 percent butterfat. This was not
met with universal approval. The manufacturers found it difficult to meet
new state and federal government requirements to achieve a consistent
percentage of butterfat in their ice creams using traditional ingredients
and traditional recipes. The New York Times wondered whether the new
164 / Modern Times

federal standards would restrict ice cream to the wealthy. The Ice Cream Trade
Journal simply opposed them. Some states adopted the federal guidelines;
others set their own standards, some higher, some lower. The Supreme
Court upheld the federal standards in 1916, and the trade made an effort to
meet them.30 In 1924, a congressional committee proposed new standards:
12 percent butterfat, 20 percent milk solids, and 0.5 percent stabilizer. In ad-
dition, the committee specified that a gallon of ice cream should weigh at
least four and three-quarter pounds. After much controversy and argument,
the 1906 standards were rescinded. However, the new ones did not pass,
and regulation was left to the states.31
Whether manufacturers made their ice cream to meet federal or state re-
quirements or to meet business imperatives, the trade literature began
publishing formulas designed to achieve specific percentages of butterfat
and solids. The Ice Cream Review ran a regular column by Professor A. C.
Baer of the University of Wisconsin in which he answered manufacturers’
questions about their formulas and suggested adjustments to help them
meet their goals. Some shipped samples of their ice cream to him for his
analysis in the magazine.
It was not easy to make ice cream with a particular butterfat content as
well as consistent quality while using fresh cream, according to industry ex-
perts. For one thing, cream was inconsistent, containing more or less fat
from day to day. Moreover, most dairies were in the countryside, and the
milk had to be collected and shipped to the cities, where the ice cream plants
and their customers were located. In the days before mechanically refriger-
ated trucks and trains were available, milk and cream did not travel well.
They often arrived at the ice cream plant sour, sullied with hay or manure, in-
fused with an unpleasant off-flavor, or “infected by pathogenic bacteria,” ac-
cording to the authors of an industry book called Ice Cream, Carbonated
Beverages.32 The book was written and published in 1924 by the Warner-
Jenkinson Manufacturing Company of Saint Louis, makers of Red Seal
brand products used in the ice cream and soda fountain industries, includ-
ing stabilizers, ripeners, extracts, syrups, and food colors. Warner-Jenkinson
Modern Times / 165

pointed out that, if the milk was bad, the cream would be bad and the ice
cream would be bad. As they saw it, the solution to the problem was for large
manufacturers to use a mixture of butter, water, and milk solids rather than
fresh cream. The mixture could be reconverted into cream by using machines
such as a viscolizer or emulsifier. According to the Warner-Jenkinson people,
such a mixture made the manufacturer “independent of the ordinary supply
of sweet cream, enabling him to work up sweet cream from butter at any time
and in the exact quantities required.” The authors said that it “yields a prod-
uct that is smoother, of finer texture, and less liable to separate than ice
cream made from non-viscolized cream.”33 The company’s book contained
ten tables or formulas that would produce an ice cream mixture with a spe-
cific butterfat content using various combinations of milk solids, butter,
skim milk, evaporated milk, or cream. Table 1, the first and simplest, called for
the following ingredients to make a hundred-pound mixture with an 8 per-
cent butterfat content:
Sugar Filler Butter Milk Powder Water
14 1 10 12.5 62.5
To achieve 14 percent butterfat, the following mixture was recommended:

Sugar Filler Butter Milk Powder Water
13 1 17.5 10.5 58
The authors offered instructions on transforming one of these mix-

tures into a flavored ice cream. For chocolate ice cream: “Any ordinary
vanilla mix can be converted into chocolate ice cream by addition of 11⁄4
to 2 lbs. of Red Seal Cocoa to every 45 or 50 lbs. of mix (Tables 1–10).” To
make a bisque or marshmallow ice cream: “To 45 or 50 lbs. of ordinary
vanilla mix, add 1 to 2 lbs. of chopped dry macaroons or chopped marsh-
mallows. . . . One gallon of Red Seal Marshmallow will improve the
product.” Beyond noting the federal standards for butterfat mandated for
ice cream used in interstate trade (14 percent for ice cream and 12 percent
166 / Modern Times

for ice cream containing fruit or nuts), the authors took no position on
the ideal percentage, saying that it was a matter of personal judgment.
“We suggest that the best ice cream for any manufacturer,” they wrote, “is
the one that produces for his concern the largest annual net profits.”34
England was following America’s lead, according to the British confec-
tioner P. Michael, who studied and emulated American techniques. In his
book, Ices and Soda Fountain Drinks, which was published in the early
1920s, he wrote, “The trade here is emerging from its elementary stages, as
it did about twenty years ago in the States.” Saying that it would be years
before the British had the big ice cream factories of the Americans, he sug-
gested that they should make a start. He explained that a cream containing
25 percent fat, which he called the best for ice cream making, was “in every
way similar for our purposes” to a mixture of butter, milk powder, and
water, and the mixture would cost “much less.” The result, he wrote, was
“more use of butter and powdered milk, and less of the costly fresh cream
and milk.” He called this the “whole secret of the transformation of the
American trade into what it is now.”35
The more the ice cream business expanded, the more manufacturers de-
pended on ingredients other than milk, cream, sugar, and eggs. When
cream was low in butterfat, fillers such as rice flour, cornstarch, sago (a
thickener obtained from the sago palm), arrowroot, or gum tragacanth (a
plant-derived thickener used in candies and icings for cake decorating, as
well as in ice cream) were added to give it more body. Condensed milk and
condensed skimmed milk added body and smoothness to cream. If cream
was a bit on the sour side, baking soda might be added to neutralize it.36
Egg whites helped make a more uniform product but had the disadvan-
tages of being expensive and of tending to make the ice cream tough. If
the cream or ice cream was actually too sour to use, it might be sold to a but-
ter maker, who would add extra salt and turn it into second-rate butter.37
Before long, the industry began to use sugar stand-ins as well. Initially,
this was necessitated by the scarcity and high price of sugar during World
War I. According to the dairy industry historian Ralph Selitzer, the price of
Modern Times / 167

sugar increased 83 percent between 1916 and 1917. The U.S. Food Adminis-
tration classified ice cream as an essential food, so it could be manufactured
during the war. However, it had to be made with less sugar than previously.
The Department of Agriculture concluded that a perfectly acceptable ice
cream could be made by replacing up to 50 percent of its cane sugar with
corn syrup and corn sugar. The department thought the consumer should be
made aware of the substitution.38 A 1917 issue of the Ice Cream Review sug-
gested that ice cream be made with 10 percent less sugar, but that the sugar
be reduced gradually so that customers would not notice the change.39 The
U.S. government prohibited the making of sherbets and water ices during
the war because of the sugar shortages. Wheat was also restricted. In fact,
Mondays and Wednesdays were wheatless days. In response, some manu-
facturers made ice cream cones from popcorn, but this innovation did not
catch on. American ice cream manufacturers were fortunate; the British
prohibited ice cream making completely during the war.
Substitutions, shortcuts, and timesavers continued to be used after the
war ended, both in the United States and in England. Trade publications
were filled with ads for such products as Americose, a substitute for cane
sugar made with corn syrup, and “Aulocrystal, the Economical Sugar.”40
They ran ads for dried egg whites, soluble yolks, gums, margarine, “Egso,
the natural egg yellow,” and “Butter flavour. A most unique production.
No confectioner should be without it.”41 A stabilizer called Textor was sold
to make fruit ices that “will keep for weeks without a sign of icy crystals, or
separation, or watering down.”42 A 1919 ad for Gumpert’s Ice Cream Im-
prover said it was not “gelatine or filler” but did not say what it was.43 Ar-
tificial flavors were also gaining ground. Mapleine substituted for maple
syrup. Van-vo-Lan took the place of vanilla. Caramala stood in for caramel.
Cremilla was, according to its ads, better than vanilla.
Ice cream powders had been introduced at the beginning of the century,
and were claimed to require only the addition of boiling milk to produce
excellent ice creams. An ad for “Frostor, the wonderful preparation for
making Fruit Frosts, Water Ices, Ice-Cream of all kinds, as smooth as pure
168 / Modern Times

Cream,” declared that “if Frostor is used it is impossible to have rough or
gritty ices.”44 Merrills’s patent ice-cream mixture was said to make “ices
and custard of the best quality.” Its custard powder was “a triumph.”45
Italia ice cream powder made “de-luxe” ice cream without sugar or eggs.
The tops of the letters spelling Italia were drawn to look as if they were
frosted with snow.46 Rennet, in the form of tablets and sold under the
brand name Junket Cream Tablets, was sold to the trade as early as 1905.
The company said Junket Cream Tablets made ice cream for the soda foun-
tain that was “Rich, Smooth, Velvety, Exquisitely Delicious and Relish-
able,” at half the cost of ordinary ice cream.47
Some of the same products were being marketed to home cooks as well.
The makers of Junket tablets promised consumers that their use would
help them make ice cream at home quickly and easily.48 The Jell-O Com-
pany sold ice cream powders for home use that were said to produce ice
cream for a penny a plate. The powders were sold for thirteen cents a pack-
age, or two for twenty-five cents, and each package made about a quart and
a half of ice cream. At the time, a quart of ice cream bought at an ice cream
parlor or soda fountain would have cost as much as forty-five cents. One
could choose vanilla, chocolate, strawberry, lemon, maple, or unflavored
powders. Not merely economical, Jell-O ice cream powder was supposed to
save time and labor. According to a 1922 ad insert, it “requires no sugar, no
eggs, no flavoring, no cooking, no bother at all in order to make the most
delicious ice cream. . . . Just Add Milk.”49
In a 1933 trade book called Practical Ice Cream Making and Practical Mix
Tables, Arthur D. Burke, who was the head of the Dairy Department at
Alabama Polytechnic Institute, suggested that the quality of commercial
ice creams was inconsistent. The problem, he said, was that “all too fre-
quently the ice cream maker relies on his own judgment as to what con-
stitutes an ideal product.” His solution? “Sherbets and ices should be
carefully standardized and made up on the basis of one hundred pounds
just as an ice cream mix, for in that way only, can a standard article be
prepared.”50
Modern Times / 169

Burke’s book offered formulas to make mixtures containing 8, 10, 12, 14,
or 16 percent butterfat. For each percentage, he offered ten different formu-
las made up of ingredients such as butter, milk, skim powder, sweetened
condensed milk, and evaporated milk. In addition to the many formulas,
the book covered the advantages and disadvantages of such ingredients as
fresh or dried eggs, frozen cream, and fresh, frozen, and canned fruits. It
discussed pasteurization, homogenization, storage, bacteria, and testing. It
included a chapter on sweeteners and how to calculate quantities whether
using cane or beet sugar or sweeteners made from corn, malt, or the mix of
dextrose and fructose called “invert” sugar. Burke did believe flavor was im-
portant, and suggested that ice cream makers hold tastings to compare the
flavor of ice creams made with different vanilla extracts, fruit syrups, or
other flavorings. Since he believed women were more sensitive to flavor
than men, he suggested asking “prominent women of the community” to
participate in the taste tests.51
In addition to the ingredient formulas, trade publications offered meth-
ods for determining accurate costs of ingredients, ways to reduce operat-
ing costs, and guidance in figuring out profit percentages. Manufacturing
ice cream had become a big business. The authors and editors of the trade
publications wanted to make sure it was a profitable one.
Ice Cream, in Season

The quality of ice cream may have been dropping, but the quantity was go-
ing up dramatically. National ice cream production had been estimated at
five million gallons in 1899. Over the next few years, new production
methods, coupled with new products such as the ice cream cone, resulted
in a giant leap forward for the business. In 1909, national production
reached twenty-nine million gallons.52 It hit seventy-two million gallons
in 1914.53 Still, the business was primarily local, and, in most areas, it was
still seasonal. However, the meaning of seasonality had changed. In the
eighteenth century, Emy and other confectioners thought it was impru-
dent to make ice cream in the winter. When they were required to do so by
170 / Modern Times

their employers, they flavored winter ice creams with chocolate or cinna-
mon because the fresh strawberries or peaches they used in summer were
unavailable. To early-twentieth-century ice cream manufacturers, season-
ality meant just one thing: their customers did not eat enough ice cream in
winter. As a result, they had only a few months to make a year’s pay, partic-
ularly if they did business in small towns. “You have five months in which
the revenue from your business is at its height, three months in which it
is an even break under the best of conditions, and four long months in
which you starve,” said one industry leader.54
To get the season off to a positive start, ice cream companies held pa-
rades complete with marching bands. They decorated delivery wagons to
look like ice cream cartons, gave fans to the ladies, and treated the crowds
to free ice cream. On April 3, 1913, thousands eagerly lined up along the
streets of Nashville, Tennessee, for the annual Union Ice Cream Company
parade. The company celebrated the start of the season with decorated
horse-drawn wagons, a twenty-piece band, a touring car full of executives,
and, best of all, ten thousand free ice cream bricks for the crowd.55 Even if
a company did well early in the season, it could end the year in the red. A
cool, wet summer could be disastrous. Winter was always difficult. To sur-
vive, many companies produced other products during the cold months.
One, called a charlotte russe, consisted of a piece of cake topped with
whipped cream and a cherry, encased in a paper wrapper.56 Soda fountain
operators introduced “hot sodas” such as hot chocolate, hot malted milk,
tea, coffee, and hot lemonade to attract off-season customers. Soon foun-
tain operators added chowders, bouillons, and later, sandwiches to improve
winter business.
The Ice Cream Review regularly offered its readers suggestions on how
to improve winter sales. It recommended advertising more frequently,
offering new flavors or syrups, and making ice cream available at local
events. Ads also promoted new products as off-season sales ideas. A
mince sundae—a fruit, wine, and brandy ice cream topping—was pro-
posed, and its manufacturer offered retailers free window posters to
Modern Times / 171

publicize the new sundae. One ad promoted a “Yuletide” ice cream in
the form of a three-flavor brick. The magazine frequently ran articles fea-
turing wintertime success stories from innovative ice cream makers.
One told of a Montana company that had expanded its business by sell-
ing ice cream at events, including the annual dance to benefit the fire de-
partment. Ice cream makers at a Spokane dairy found success by making
fancy molded ice creams during the winter of 1920, according to an-
other. They molded ice cream into the shapes of a hen and her chicks,
Uncle Sam, Martha and George Washington, and a Santa Claus holding
a toy Christmas tree with a tiny candle on top to be lit when the ice
cream was served. The article stressed the high level of skill involved in
the creations: “The old white hen sitting on her generous nest of downy
spun-sugar, surrounded by a brood of life-like buff and brown chicks,
looks like a permanent work of art—not a quart of ice cream surrounded
by a few scoopfuls of the same material.”57 The Confectioners’ and Bakers’
Gazette recommended hosting ice cream parties and inviting theater or
dancing groups to meet at the parlor for refreshments. It also suggested
that “children may be offered some little inducement for visiting the par-
lor mornings.”58 Still, wintertime ice cream was a hard sell.
Then, in December 1921—success. The Ice Cream Review carried an ad for
the Russell Stover Company that asked, “What is Eskimo Pie?” The ad ex-
plained how ice cream makers could obtain a license to manufacture the
brand-new product, a chocolate-covered ice cream bar. Most important, it
stressed that the Eskimo Pie would do wonders for winter ice cream sales.59
It did. Just one month later, in the January 1922 issue, ice cream equip-
ment companies ran ads promising to supply everything needed to make
Eskimo Pies, “the latest ice cream confection.” Soon there were ads for
tinfoil wrappers, chocolate for coating the ice cream, chocolate warmers,
dipping tables, pie formers, cutters, and containers in which to transport
the pies. During the next few months, the ads increased and competition
materialized. Chocolate-covered ice cream products were everywhere.
There was a chocolate-coated ice cream baseball complete with seams.60
172 / Modern Times

A “Sundae-ette,” defined as “the Candy Way to eat Ice Cream,” was a layer
of brick ice cream sandwiched between two crisp, sweet wafers and covered
with chocolate.61 “Tri-A-Cone” was a factory-filled ice cream cone, dipped
in chocolate, frozen, and packaged in a glassine bag.62
That April, the Ice Cream Review ran a forty-eight-page supplement filled
with ads and articles on chocolate-coated ice cream products and the equip-
ment used to make them. It called the Eskimo Pie a new sensation that was
not actually new, and noted that Val Miller had published a recipe for
chocolate-covered ice cream cannonballs in his 1907 book, Thirty-six Years an
Ice Cream Maker. The editors were not criticizing the Eskimo Pie; they were
questioning why no one had thought to put such a product on the market
earlier. The editors noted that the winter of 1921–22 ended with profits in-
stead of losses. Attributing much of the Eskimo Pie’s success to advertising,
they said it was good for the cocoa bean business, the chocolate-coating
business, the tinfoil business, the equipment business, and the ice cream
business. (Clearly, it was good for the trade magazine business as well.) In
England, Michael wrote, “America went Eskimo Pie mad and purchased mil-
lions.”63 When the Eskimo Pie Corporation was admitted to trade on the
New York Stock Exchange in 1927, it was valued at twenty-five million
dollars.64
The creator of the Eskimo Pie was Christian K. Nelson of Iowa. The son
of a dairyman, Nelson taught high school and also ran an ice cream parlor.
According to the story, one spring day in 1919 a young boy arrived at Nel-
son’s shop with just a nickel to spend. He couldn’t decide between an ice
cream sandwich and a chocolate bar. The boy’s dilemma inspired Nelson
to experiment with a chocolate-covered ice cream bar. He spent months
experimenting, and eventually found success by dipping a solidly frozen
stick of ice cream into chocolate heated to between 80 and 90 degrees,
then placing it in a freezing container. He called his new treat a “Tempta-
tion I-Scream Bar,” and began selling it locally. When he met Russell
Stover, who was superintendent of an Omaha ice cream company, the two
men decided to go into business together. Their handwritten agreement,
Modern Times / 173

dated July 13, 1921, noted that Nelson had applied for a patent on the in-
vention and Stover had agreed to pay half the cost of the patent. It called
for them to divide business profits equally. They also agreed that “because
of his business experience & knowledge,” Stover would “assume the man-
agement, consulting C. K. Nelson on any new development.” Changing
the name to “Eskimo Pie,” they began selling the one-and-a-half-ounce
bars in Des Moines for ten cents each. They were wildly successful. The
partners decided to sell manufacturing rights to local ice cream companies
for five hundred to a thousand dollars, plus royalties on each pie sold. Ac-
cording to company records, by the spring of 1922 they had twenty-seven
hundred licensees and were selling a million Eskimo Pies a day.65
Nelson was awarded the patent in 1922, but it was so broadly written
that other ice cream makers frequently challenged it, and the company
lost money defending it. Stover sold his share of the company and de-
voted himself to what became the very successful Russell Stover Can-
dies. Nelson sold the Eskimo Pie Company to the manufacturer of the
foil the pies were wrapped in, United States Foil Company, later to be-
come the Reynolds Metals Company. But he continued to be associated
with the company and developed many new products. The patent was
later declared invalid.
Despite the legal setbacks, the Eskimo Pie had succeeded in making
ice cream a year-round treat. It also inspired a burst of creativity among
other ice cream makers. Harry Burt of Youngstown, Ohio, had begun de-
livering ice cream from a motorized delivery wagon in 1902, a time when
most companies still delivered by horse-drawn wagons. In 1920, he cre-
ated a chocolate-covered ice cream bar and put a lollipop stick in it so it
would be less messy to eat. He called it the Good Humor Ice Cream
Sucker. Later it became the Good Humor Ice Cream Bar. To sell it, he
painted one of his trucks white, equipped it with bells from the family
bobsled, and put a driver in a pristine white uniform behind the wheel.66
The Good Humor Ice Cream Company became hugely successful, and
the Good Humor man became ubiquitous. Whether he sold from a
174 / Modern Times

pushcart, a truck, or a tricycle, the Good Humor man was always scrupu-
lously clean and wholesome, the perfect symbol for the ice cream he
sold. During the 1930s and 1940s, he appeared as a character in dozens
of movies, including The Good Humor Man, with the popular actor Jack
Carson in the title role.67
The Popsicle was the next big frozen novelty. Frank Epperson, its cre-
ator, said he had made his first one in 1905, when he was a boy of eleven.
He had mixed a flavored drink powder with water and left it out on his
back porch with the stirring stick still in it. That night, the temperature
dropped and the liquid froze. The next morning, Epperson enjoyed the
first-ever Popsicle. When he became an adult, he made the treats occasion-
ally and called them Epsicles, apparently a combination of Epperson and
icicle. His children called them Pop’s Sicles, which became Popsicle. He
formed a company in 1923, and began selling Popsicles at amusement
parks and beaches. They were known as a “drink on a stick” and an “all-
day sucker with a chill” and were an instant hit.68 One Coney Island stand
was said to have sold eight thousand on one summer day that year. In
1924, the company reported sales of 6.5 million Popsicles.69
Pies, popsicles, bricks, cones, and other novelties were replacing the ele-
gant molded and painted ice creams made by confectioners. In a 1913 article
titled “Then and Now,” the Confectioners’ and Bakers’ Gazette described the
superior workmanship of the previous century’s confectioners. “Ice cream
was made in the shape of fruit—apples, pears, plums, cherries, grapes, etc.
and they were made so perfect in color, in shape and design that it was hard
to distinguish them from the genuine article,” it reported. The story went
on to say, “This art is not altogether lost; there are still some chefs in some
of the prominent hotels who know how to produce a piece of art of this
kind.” The article suggested that, if one were to show one of the early con-
fectioners an ice cream brick and suggest it was in any way connected to his
art, he’d walk away in disgust.70 Despite the magazine’s gloomy outlook,
molded ice creams were still made, although perhaps they were not as artis-
tically made as they had been.
Modern Times / 175

Roaring for Ice Cream in the Twenties
Clearly by the 1920s, business was booming. Soda fountains were more
popular than ever. Novelty ice creams were all the rage. As demand in-
creased, production techniques improved to keep up. Most important of
all, mechanical refrigeration finally became feasible.
Refrigeration technology had been developing throughout the nineteenth
century, but it was not until after World War I that it had a substantial im-
pact, first on business and then on the home. By 1920, ice cream plants that
used ammonia-based refrigeration systems were being built. The newest ice
cream freezers did not require ice, salt, or brine. They operated by simple am-
monia expansion, and ads proclaimed they would be “a great money maker
for the ice cream manufacturer.”71 Over the next few years, refrigeration sys-
tems switched to other, safer refrigerants as the industry continued to ad-
vance. In 1923, at the Twenty-third Annual Ice Cream Convention, the Nizer
Cabinet Company (which later became the Kelvinator Company) unveiled
its new automatic electric refrigeration cabinet for ice cream parlors, soda
fountains, and other retail outlets. The vice president of the Arctic Ice Cream
Company, Glen P. Cowan, reported that his company had tested the new
cabinets in three hundred of its stores. The cost savings were stunning.
Since the cabinets required no ice or salt, the delivery trucks had to carry only
a small amount to keep the ice cream frozen until they arrived at the stores.
Previously, it had taken forty-three pounds of ice to deliver one gallon of ice
cream. Under the new system, it took but two pounds. This meant they used
fewer trucks and employed fewer workers to deliver the same amount of ice
cream. The new cabinets swept the industry.72
There were still few refrigerators in homes of the day, and those that did
exist did not have freezers. The companies that became Kelvinator and
Frigidaire were manufacturing refrigerators for home use by 1920, but
there were only twenty thousand in use in 1923. That is hardly surprising,
since the refrigerators cost about $900 at a time when a typical house-
hold’s annual income was about $2,000 and the price of Ford’s Model T
176 / Modern Times

had dropped to about $300.73 The first home refrigerators looked very
much like iceboxes with dark wood exteriors, but by 1935, streamlined
white enamel refrigerators had replaced them. The price had dropped to
an average of $170, and a million and a half were sold.74 They did not have
freezer compartments large enough to store more than a few ice cube trays,
so storing ice cream was still a challenge. Whether a family made its own
ice cream or bought it, it would have been eaten, if not immediately, then
within a day or so. It was not until after World War II that the average
household had a freezer in which to store its ice cream.
During the 1920s, many other advances in ice cream production occurred.
Packaging was mechanized. The early machines could package twenty quarts
per minute, or twelve hundred quarts per hour, ten times as many as by the
manual method. Conveyor systems were installed in plants. An automatic
brick-slicer was introduced. A machine run by two operators that could coat
and wrap ninety dozen Eskimo Pies an hour was in use by 1923. It increased
productivity so much that the price of the pies was cut in half, to five cents.75
In 1928, Clarence Vogt of Louisville, Kentucky, invented the continuous pro-
cess freezer. It froze the ice cream in a continuous stream, controlled overrun
accurately, and allowed for the efficient use of fruit feeders and automatic
packaging.76 The large metal ice cream containers that manufacturers sup-
plied to retail outlets were replaced by lighter-weight paper containers. Not
only did the new containers weigh less, making transportation more econom-
ical, but they also did not rust and were more sanitary than metal containers.
Innovation followed innovation and made possible new products such as
the Dixie cup. The idea of putting individual servings of ice cream into small
paper cups was not a new one. But Dixie cups became a big hit when the
Dixie Cup Company developed a two-and-a-half-ounce paper cup that could
stand up to moisture, and the Mojonnier Brothers Company created a ma-
chine to fill it with two different flavors automatically. Usually one side was
filled with vanilla, the other, with chocolate. A successful franchise program
and extensive advertising made the five-cent novelty nationally known and a
children’s favorite. The company sponsored a radio show called the Dixie
Modern Times / 177

Circus, and the undersides of Dixie cup lids were decorated with circus pic-
tures. Kids could collect the lids and redeem them for a full-color, eight-by-
eight-and-a-half-inch picture of their favorite Dixie Circus character. Later,
movie stars and sports personalities were pictured on the lids.77
Despite the grumblings of the editors of the Confectioners’ and Bakers’
Gazette, molded ice creams made a comeback in the 1920s. Ice cream in the
shape of turkeys, airplanes, dirigibles, and Uncle Sam began to be mass-
produced, thanks to new metal-molding technology. Perhaps their quality
would not have met with approval by someone such as Emy, but customers
loved them.
Soda fountains were doing more ice cream business than ever. By 1929,
60 percent of the country’s 58,258 drugstores had installed soda fountains.
But they were hardly limited to drugstores. In his book Soda Fountain
and Luncheonette Management, Joseph O. Dahl listed thirty different types of
sites where he had seen them. They ranged from dining cars to airports,
from tobacco shops to office buildings, from department stores to restau-
rants. As soda fountains became ubiquitous, sundaes multiplied. In the
early days, there were just a handful, and they were named for their ingredi-
ents. They also required some explaining. According to the 1904 edition of
The Standard Manual of Soda and Other Beverages, “The name of the sundae
is derived from the syrup which is used; chocolate syrup makes chocolate
sundae, vanilla syrup makes vanilla sundae, etc. These sundaes are usually
served in what are known as sherbet cups or glasses with a sherbet spoon
(which is smaller than an ice cream spoon). The nicest dispensers also serve
a small glass of ice water with a sundae.”78
Rorer introduced sundaes to home cooks with a recipe for vanilla ice
cream with hot chocolate sauce in her 1905 edition of Dainty Dishes for All
the Year Round. Explaining that the sauce must be made just before serving,
she said that, when the hot sauce was poured over the ice cream, it “forms
a sort of icing.”79
By the 1920s, no explanations were needed. Everyone knew what sun-
daes were, and their names were no longer limited to the name of their
178 / Modern Times

syrup. There was a Bachelor sundae, a Boston Club sundae, a Delmonico, a
Merry Widow, a Coney Island, a Theda Bara, an Easter Sundae, and more.
A Hawaiian Special was made with vanilla ice cream, crushed orange and
pineapple, and a topping of marshmallow.80 The Aviation Glide was made
in an oblong dish and consisted of banana halves flanking a scoop each of
chocolate, vanilla, and strawberry ice creams. Nabisco wafers represented
the forward and tail ends of the air ship, and a cherry atop the chocolate
ice cream stood in for the pilot. Crushed cherries, pineapple, pecans, and
whipped cream completed the sundae, which was said to be a big hit with
university students. It sold for twenty cents.81
Sundaes, banana splits, sodas, milk shakes, parfaits, malteds, frappés,
frosteds, and floats were all on the soda fountain menu. Ice cream sales
were soaring. By 1930, the industry was producing 277 million gallons of ice
cream annually, and Americans were eating nine quarts a year.82 Yet another
ice cream novelty was introduced at the beginning of the decade. The Drum-
stick combined two ice cream favorites, the sundae and the cone. The cone
was filled with ice cream at the factory, hardened, hand-dipped in chocolate
syrup, rolled in ground peanuts, and packaged in glassine bags. Its name was
born when its creator, I. C. Parker, advertising manager of the Pangburn
Candy and Ice Cream Company in Fort Worth, Texas, showed the new prod-
uct to his wife. Jewel Parker said that it looked just like a chicken drumstick.83
The cone had journeyed from ancient Greece to medieval Paris, from Vic-
torian London to the grand 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition in Saint
Louis. It had been served on its own and then filled with fruits, creams, and
finally ice creams. Then, in 1930, it was recreated in a factory in Texas to look
like a chicken drumstick. Some might say this was a sorry fate for an es-
teemed confection. But it was an inevitable result of the industry’s develop-
ment. In the nineteenth century, confectioners had dipped cones in royal
icing, sprinkled them with chopped nuts, and filled them with whipped
cream. In the twentieth century, manufacturers filled cones with ice cream,
dipped them in chocolate, and rolled them in chopped nuts. Wittingly or
not, the manufacturers were carrying on a venerable tradition.
Modern Times / 179

eight
Ice Cream for Breakfast
When Howard Deering Johnson was a child in Quincy, Massachusetts, he

loved the strawberry ice cream his mother made on Sunday afternoons in
the summer. She used fresh cream from the family’s cows and luscious ripe
strawberries, and he never forgot the flavor. The years passed, and Johnson
grew up. He served in France during World War I, came back, and worked
as a salesman for his father’s cigar business. In 1925, he bought a drug-
store with a small soda fountain in Quincy’s Wollaston neighborhood.
Johnson started out by buying his ice cream from a local manufacturer. But
he remembered good ice cream, and this was not good ice cream. “Every
time we opened up a drum of vanilla in front of a customer, the fumes gave
away the artificial flavoring,” he recalled later. He decided to provide his
customers with ice cream that was “as good as the homemade ice cream
they all remembered.”
His first batch was not a success. When he served it, one customer said
it would be just great if he “could get the sand out of it.” Johnson kept
working on the mixture, and soon he was making a rich, high-butterfat,
smooth ice cream. Before long, people were lining up for Howard John-
son’s ice cream. Since the soda fountain seated only ten people, he decided
to expand by opening an ice cream stand at nearby Wollaston Beach during
the summer. To attract attention, he painted the stand orange. Whether it
was the bright color or the quality of the ice cream, the stand drew crowds.
On one hot August day, Johnson sold fourteen thousand ice cream cones.
He packed the ice cream in drums at the drugstore and delivered it to the
beach in a taxicab. When the ice cream ran out, he’d send back to the store
180
for more and call out to the crowd, “Stand by, everybody. More ice cream
on its way.”1 By 1929, business could hardly have been better. Then the De-
pression hit.
The Depression of the 1930s and the repeal of Prohibition in 1933 were
devastating for the ice cream business. Opinions vary as to which was more
to blame, but the combination hit the business hard. As one industry mag-
azine put it, “The dime that went for soda now frequently goes for beer.”2
Ice cream had been one of the nation’s fastest-growing industries. In 1929,
Americans were eating nine quarts of ice cream per person annually, and
production was more than 277 million gallons. In 1933, ice cream produc-
tion dropped below 162 million gallons, its lowest level since 1919, and an-
nual per-person consumption dropped to just over five quarts.3 Trade
magazines, previously one hundred or more pages long, shrank to sixty
pages or fewer. Many in the industry had never experienced bad times and
were at a loss for a solution as the numbers spiraled downward. In 1933, the
president of the International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers,
G. G. Kindervater, described the situation in uncompromising terms:
Everything was wonderful while we were riding the crest of the wave.
Then suddenly and without warning something happened—the wave
flattened out and we found ourselves gasping for breath and struggling
to get our feet on solid ground. And, we are still engaged in that struggle.
If, after reflecting upon the course of events in the past four years, we
will make an appraisal we must reach the conclusion that we were not the
sound, sagacious business men we pretended to be.
We were carried away with the fantastic notion that because hand-
some profits were being made in the industry a miracle, for which we
were responsible, was being performed.
In the light of our knowledge today we realize fully that these same
handsome profits acted as a powerful drug that lulled us to sleep.4
Fortunately, the industry had taken some steps that kept it in good stead
when the bad times arrived. Mechanization and refrigeration had helped
Ice Cream for Breakfast / 181

to modernize the business. In addition, the mergers and consolidations that
had taken place in the industry, as they had in so many others during the
1920s, created efficiencies. But the problems were severe and not easily
overcome. Ice cream had turned back into a luxury for many, and ice cream
sellers faced more competition. A new generation of street peddlers was
selling second-rate ice cream, often made under less-than-sanitary condi-
tions. These were not pristine Good Humor men, but members of the
army of the unemployed who also sold apples, pencils, and anything else
they could manage. To compete, some retailers added the “cheap package,”
a lower-quality, lower-priced ice cream, to their lines. In Los Angeles, the
standard pint sold for twenty cents; the lesser one was fifteen. In Boston,
the standard pint sold for fifteen to thirty cents while the cheaper one was
ten to fifteen cents.5 When customers complained that the ice cream was
full of air, some states passed laws prohibiting more than 100 percent
overrun or requiring a minimum weight per package.6
The Depression also gave rise to ice cream bootleggers. They provided
lesser-grade ice cream to retailers who sold it from refrigerator cabinets
bearing the brand name of reputable manufacturers. A 1933 issue of Busi-
ness Week provided a succinct definition of a bootlegger: “A small, often a
hole-in-wall, manufacturer who makes ice cream after his own standards—
which may or may not be those prescribed by state laws—and sells it to
dealers for less than the popular advertised brands cost them. His chief sin
in the eyes of his big competitors is that he frequently tempts their dealers
to let him put his 40-quart cans in the shiny refrigerated cabinets that
they furnish for the exclusive use of their own product.”7
According to the Ice Cream Trade Journal, bootleg ice cream sold for as
little as ten cents a package. It reported that “certain foreign fats, repro-
cessed butter, or the like are often found to be used for ingredients.”8 If
customers complained that the ice cream didn’t taste the same or, worse,
if it made them ill, they blamed the brand advertised on the cabinet. The
retailers couldn’t admit they had put the bootleggers’ brand X ice cream
in brand A’s cabinet, because the practice of selling one manufacturer’s ice
182 / Ice Cream for Breakfast

cream under another’s name was illegal. Some bootleggers were prosecuted.
In fact, according to dairy industry historian Ralph Selitzer, 899 bootleg-
gers were convicted in New York City between March 1 and April 21, 1933.9
But the problem was not solved until economic conditions improved.
Scapegoats and Competitors

In their anxiety over the state of the business, some manufacturers even
blamed home cooks for their problems. In 1933, the Ice Cream Review called
homemade ice cream “make shift” and wrote that comparing it to manu-
factured ice cream was like comparing a stagecoach to a steam railroad.
Without stating exactly who would deliver the message or how, the Review
said the housewife needed to be told that her ice cream was not good. In
fact, it was an embarrassment to serve to her guests, and they would talk
about her behind her back if she did so. Referring to bread and soap as well
as ice cream, the editors stated flatly, “Technically trained men . . . have
learned how to make these things in a better way.”10
At the time, those few housewives who could afford new mechanical re-
frigerators were learning how to make the most of them. Appliance manufac-
turers published pamphlets, booklets, and even hardcover books explaining
how to make everything from refrigerator cookies to chilled soups, from ice
cubes (plain, colored, or with rosebuds or mint leaves frozen in them) to ice
creams. “The electric refrigerator is yet a new invention and the total sum of
its usefulness has not in any way been discovered,” wrote Alice Bradley in
Electric Refrigerator Menus and Recipes, a book whose subtitle was “Recipes
prepared especially for the General Electric Refrigerator.” It was published in
1927. “It remains for the users of electric refrigerators to find new ways to
make it serve them.”11
Making ice cream in the new refrigerators was simpler than using an ice
cream freezer, because it did not require mixing ice and salt or churning
the mixture. The cooks just poured the ice cream mixture into a tray and
put it in the coldest section of the refrigerator. When it began to freeze
around the edges, they took it out, mixed it with an eggbeater or a new

electric mixer, and put it back in the “chilling unit.” The process would be
repeated once or twice to make the ice cream freeze relatively smoothly.
Lacking an eggbeater or mixer, one could simply stir it with a spoon, but
that required more frequent mixing and was less satisfactory. Ice cream
recipes did have to be adjusted to the new method, however, and even
the writers of the refrigerator company publications admitted that the ice
creams were not perfect. Bradley wrote, “Sherbets and ice creams may be
frozen but are not as smooth as though frozen in an ice cream freezer.
They must be stirred or beaten occasionally while freezing. The addition of
gelatine or flour to thicken, and of corn syrup in place of part of the sugar,
insures a smoother mixture than is secured with ordinary recipes. The
more cream used the richer and smoother the mixture will be.”12
Bradley’s recipe for chocolate ice cream is a good example of how she
compensated for the challenges of the new method. However, it makes a
thin, icy ice cream without much flavor.
CHOCOLATE ICE CREAM

In top of double boiler melt
1 2 squares of chocolate, add
1⁄
1⁄2 cup sugar or ⁄1 4 cup sugar and
1⁄4 cup corn syrup;
mix well, add slowly

1 teaspoon gelatine soaked in
1 cup evaporated milk. Scald and stir until blended.
Chill, add
1 cup water and freeze. Beat with egg beater once during the freezing.
Serve with or without Marshmallow Sauce, No. 63, flavored with ⁄ 12
13
teaspoon vanilla in place of peppermint.
When it was ready, the ice cream was turned out of the freezing tray onto a
serving platter and sliced or cut into squares, or it was simply scooped or
spooned from the tray into cups or bowls.

Most of the publications also included recipes for frozen desserts such
as mousses, which did not require mixing during the freezing process.
And they included recipes for such soda fountain specialties as ice cream
sodas, floats, and syrups for sundaes. The caption under a picture of ice
cream sundaes in Bradley’s book asked, “Why go out to the soda fountain
when you can have a chocolate or maple nut sundae at an instant’s notice
by visiting your own refrigerator[?]”14 The refrigerator company publica-
tions, and all-purpose cookbooks as well, also featured recipes for frozen
salads. Frozen salads—tomato salads, chicken salads, pear and ginger ale
salads—were as popular at soda fountains and luncheonettes as at home.
One of the best liked of the group was a fruit salad. Generally, it called for
a mixture of fruits, which could include canned pineapple, maraschino
cherries, pears, peaches, or apricots, combined with mayonnaise and
whipped cream. Some recipes also added cream cheese or American
cheese. Everything was mixed together, poured into a freezer tray, and
frozen. Then the salad was sliced and served on lettuce leaves. One recipe
called for sprinkling it with paprika before serving. If a housewife did not
want to make her own salad, she could buy it at a soda fountain, either as
an individual serving to enjoy there or by the quart to take home to serve.
According to the Ice Cream Trade Journal, “The frozen salad is sliced and
served on a lettuce leaf with sandwiches or crackers. A topping of mayon-
naise is desirable. This frozen dessert is very popular as a serving at
bridge parties because of its extreme palatability and food value. The
product usually sells for about $1.00 a quart.”15
It is unlikely that the housewife’s frozen salads and ice creams were
a threat to ice cream manufacturers. But manufacturers did face a new
source of competition from small retailers operating roadside stands
like Howard Johnson’s. Called “wayside stands” by the Ice Cream Trade
Journal, they had begun cropping up to serve the increasing numbers of
new car owners who enjoyed driving just for the sake of driving. The
stands sold sandwiches, cigars, cold drinks, baked beans, homemade
pies, and invariably, ice cream. In addition, dairy farms were opening

small roadside outlets called dairy bars, where they sold farm-fresh milk,
butter, and ice cream.
The ice cream stands and dairy bars relied on a new small, self-
contained ice cream freezer that used mechanical refrigeration. Called a
counter freezer, it did not require ice and salt or hand-cranking, made five
to ten gallons of ice cream at a time, and was small enough to sit on a
counter. In fact, some soda fountain operators also began using the new
freezers to make their ice cream. The counter freezer was developed in
1926 by Charles Taylor of Buffalo, New York, but did not have a substan-
tial impact on the business until the 1930s, when it became more afford-
able.
The retailers who used counter freezers called their ice cream “home-
made” and often made it in full view of the customers. However, the term
was deceptive. Certainly some of them took pride in making their ice
cream mixture from scratch and had every right to call it homemade. But
most simply bought an ice cream mixture from a large commercial maker
and poured it into the freezer. In fact, the Ice Cream Trade Journal wrote
that the counter freezer was designed “so that retailers could manufacture
their own ice cream from previously purchased mix and ingredients.”16
The purchased mixture consisted of cream, milk, evaporated milk, or
butter; milk solids; sugar; and a stabilizer or binder such as gelatin or veg-
etable gum. Some mixes also included dried eggs or egg yolk powder. The
butterfat content could range from a low of 7 percent all the way up to 20
percent. If retailers bought a high-quality mixture and added, for example,
fresh fruit or pralined nuts or rich chocolate, as many did, the quality of
the ice cream would probably be quite good, maybe as good as homemade.
However, if they bought a lower-quality, preflavored mix and simply froze
it, calling it homemade stretched the meaning of the word considerably.
The same practice occurs today.
During the 1930s, trade books and magazines provided small retailers
with all the information they needed to set up a business. They offered de-
tailed information on the composition of the manufacturers’ ice cream

mixtures and explained the function of the raw materials. They described
how to set up a small retail operation, calculate costs, control quality, and
freeze ice cream in the new counter freezers. They also provided a plethora
of recipes for turning a plain mix into any flavor, from banana nut to
cherry-vanilla. They offered instructions for making specials such as ice
cream hearts and slippers for wedding parties, ice cream mushrooms to
ornament a Yule log cake, ice cream rolls with shamrock-shaped centers
for Saint Patrick’s Day, and individually molded ice cream hearts, clubs,
spades, and diamonds for the local bridge club. Although small retailers
could purchase these ready-made from large commercial manufacturers,
they could also create their own specialties by starting with a basic mixture
and some molds and following the instructions provided by the trade pub-
lications.
Surviving the Depression

Business publications were filled with suggestions for improving sales
during the Depression, not all of which were effective. Editors urged pa-
tience and stressed the value of continuing to advertise and merchandise.
The Ice Cream Review encouraged its readers to think positively and avoid
compromising quality. Its ideas for surviving ranged from giving calendars
away to customers to providing insulated bags for take-home ice cream.
Individual ice cream makers came up with a variety of imaginative ways
to compete for the consumer’s business. Some dairies began delivering ice
cream along with milk on their regular home delivery routes. After Prohi-
bition was repealed, it was only natural to add alcohol to ice creams. New
products included Milanaise Pudding, which combined brandy-flavored
whipped cream with cherry ice and vanilla ice cream. Pineapple Pudding
added pineapples soaked in sauterne to vanilla ice cream. Molded Walnut
Bisquit was flavored with rum, sherry, or brandy.
The industry also tried to increase sales by encouraging people to enjoy
ice cream at different times of day. The Hydrox Corporation advertised
“Ice Cream for Breakfast!—well, why not?” The ad copy suggested serving

the company’s ice cream atop cereal instead of cream, since “it is cream,
you know . . .” A Hendlers Ice Cream Company ad claimed that the British
custom of drinking tea at four o’clock was giving way to eating ice cream.
“Both tea and ice cream are a whip to flagging spirits,” it reported, “and
Baltimoreans will do well to adopt a plate of ice cream daily to combat that
four-o’clock fag.”17
One of the more ingenious suggestions came from the author of Practi-
cal Ice Cream Making and Practical Mix Tables. Arthur D. Burke said winter
was a good time to increase sales, because ice cream helped fortify the
body against the common cold. “Wheezes and winter are synonymous,
and there’s an opportunity!” he wrote. “Why not fight winter wheezes
with ice cream—the protective food in a concentrated form?” Burke also
made more constructive suggestions including co-op advertising, weekly
ice cream specials, radio advertising, and balloons given to children when
they bought a dish of ice cream. He also suggested packaging ice cream in
containers that would fit in “the ice cube compartments of mechanical re-
frigerators.”18 In fact, a Detroit company was already producing a flat-
tened brick that did just that, but it was not immediately successful.
J. O. Dahl, author of Soda Fountain and Luncheonette Management, recom-
mended attracting new business by naming a soda fountain special after
a local ball player or college hero. He thought “Reducing Diet Sundaes”
made with fresh, seasonal fruits and just a taste of ice cream would at-
tract dieters. He also suggested topping children’s sundaes with gumdrops.
“Catch the children’s fancy,” he noted, “and their trade is loyal—and
profitable.”19
To control portions and cut costs, the industry experimented with
factory-filled packages for sale at soda fountains and other retail outlets.
One such package, called a Kleen Kup, was a factory-filled paper ice cream
cup that was designed to allow the retailer to push the ice cream out onto
a plate for service.20Another, the Twinkle-Cup, was a paper cone filled with
ice cream. The retailer would remove the paper from the ice cream and
slide it into a pastry cone for the customer. With its flat top, it contained

roughly the same amount as a scooped cone, but it gave the illusion of
more because the ice cream filled the cone all the way to its tip.21 Because
they controlled portion size, the factory-filled packages made economic
sense for the business. Soda jerks too often scooped a little extra into a
cone or cup, especially when they were waiting on friends.
The most successful strategy was offering the consumer a bargain. Howard
Johnson sold a large ice cream cone for a dime, but it cost him eight and a
half cents to produce. “Not what you’d call a great profit,” he said, “but it
made me and that shop and that ice cream famous.”22 A nickel product
was better still. In an article in the Ice Cream Trade Journal, Burr Walker, the
man who pioneered the circulating brine freezer, recommended selling a
four-ounce ice cream cone for a nickel. It was not profitable, he said, but it
was worth it to bring in customers.23 Isaly’s, the company known for the
Klondike, a chocolate-covered ice cream bar, sold a unique ice cream cone
that was eventually dubbed the Skyscraper. The company’s clerks were
trained to scoop ice cream into an inverted cone shape that towered above
the pastry cone. The four-ounce cone sold for a nickel. Recalling those
years, one Isaly’s employee said the tall cone was the “first thing in the de-
pression years where somebody was giving you something better than
your money’s worth.”24
Even during the Depression, many customers were able to spend a
nickel on ice cream, and the industry found success not only with five-cent
cones but also with nickel novelties. They included a Side-Walk Sundae,
described as the “syrup-center nickel sensation”; the Cho-Cho, a chocolate-
malted ice cream on a stick; and the Twin Popsicle,25 which allowed kids to
split a Popsicle if they could not afford one each. Good Humor’s new
chocolate-covered ice milk bar sold for a nickel and was a big hit. The nov-
elties were inexpensive and tasty. Even more important during those
hard times, they were fun. They were among the attractions as well as the
refreshments at the 1939 World’s Fair in New York. Fairgoers visiting
the Borden’s exhibit lined up for the “milking merry-go-round,” where
they could watch cows being milked, and they watched as an ice cream

novelty called a Mel-O-Rol was made. “Spectators could see how it came
out in long rolls, was cut to size, packaged, sealed, weighed and put in
freezers to be sold later at the Milk Bar and restaurant,” according to
Selitzer.26
The novelties, along with business consolidations, were responsible for
most of the renewed growth of the ice cream business. By 1939, Americans
were eating more than nine quarts of ice cream per person per year, and
production had surpassed 319 million gallons. Happy days were here
again.
Happy Days
The ice cream business had come back, and soda fountains were bigger
than ever. Literally and figuratively. In 1937, Walgreens built a five-story,
air-conditioned drugstore in Miami. In addition to its own ice cream
plant, the store featured an eighty-foot-long, streamlined, stainless steel
soda fountain. During the 1930s and 1940s, Hollywood cast the soda
fountain in dozens of films, and every star from Mickey Rooney to Judy
Garland to Elizabeth Taylor ate ice cream at one side of the counter or
dished it out from the other. Lana Turner was not discovered sipping an
ice cream soda at Schwab’s drugstore on Hollywood and Vine, but the
story was so good it triumphed over the facts. Celebrities from the worlds
of sports, politics, and the arts were photographed eating ice cream, often
at soda fountains. Even Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs were ice cream
fans.
The roadside rivals to the soda fountains had kept growing during the
Depression. The roadside stands were economical to build and operate,
since they required less space and fewer furnishings than a conventional
restaurant. As a result, they could charge less. The ones that specialized in
ice cream were able to compete with drugstore soda fountains by also of-
fering more variety and larger portions. In addition, the owners of road-
side stands did not merely wait for customers to drive in. Some attracted
drivers’ attention by painting their stands bright colors, like that of

Howard Johnson’s orange roofs. Others turned to imaginative, even out-
landish, architecture. Families could pull up to an oversized root beer bar-
rel for some root beer, drive to a building that looked like a bowl of chili to
buy chili, and stop at a building that looked like an ice cream carton or an
igloo to have some ice cream. The famed Brown Derby restaurant in Los
Angeles was built in the shape of a hat because owner Herbert Somborn
said that, as long as the food was good, a restaurant could look like any-
thing at all.27
Although the roadside ice cream stands accompanied the growth of the
automobile industry, they had antecedents in the preautomobile era. At
the beginning of the nineteenth century, at places such as Tortoni’s in
Paris and Gunter’s in London, waiters often served ices and ice creams to
patrons as they sat outside in their elegant carriages. Later, American
drugstore owners would sometimes send a clerk out to the curb to deliver
an ice cream or soda to a customer sitting in a carriage or a wagon. In the
1920s, Americans began eating in their automobiles. At some roadside
stands or drive-ins, customers parked their cars and walked up to the take-
out window to order their food. Others used “tray boys” or “tray girls,”
later called carhops, to serve customers in their cars.28 Some of the most
famous names in the ice cream business started out operating simple
roadside stands and, within a relatively short period of time, were running
large chains. Although his first enterprise was a conventional drugstore
soda fountain, Howard Johnson found success with his beach and road-
side ice cream stands before he expanded into roadside restaurants and,
later, hotels.
Johnson was well known for the high quality of his ice cream and his fa-
mous twenty-eight flavors when, in 1935, he decided to open a full-service
restaurant in the Cape Cod town of Orleans. Lacking the money to finance
it himself, he used a business method that was common in other indus-
tries but not in the restaurant business—franchising. He proposed that
his friend Reginald Sprague would build and operate the restaurant; but it
would bear Johnson’s name, be built to his specifications, and be topped

with a bright orange roof. Johnson would supply the ice cream and other
foods, as well as the excellent reputation he’d established. Sprague agreed.
They went into business together, and the restaurant was a success. By
1940, there were more than 130 Howard Johnson’s restaurants located
from Maine to Florida. Ice cream was such an important part of the busi-
ness that the restaurants had a separate counter area for ice cream,
desserts, and simple meals. In the early years, the counters were furnished
with moveable stools. Customers could sit down for lunch, but afterward
the stools were removed to make room for all the people who lined up for
Howard Johnson’s ice cream in the afternoon.29
Another successful ice cream entrepreneur, a contemporary of Howard
Johnson, was born Thomas Carvelas in Greece and brought to the United
States by his parents when he was a boy. In 1929, when he was twenty-
three years old, the young man who called himself Tom Carvel began sell-
ing ice cream from the back of a truck. According to company lore, the
truck broke down in Hartsdale, New York, on Memorial Day weekend in
1934, so he had to sell all his ice cream quickly before it melted.30 The site
became the location of the first ice cream store of what would become a
national chain. Ever the innovator, over the years Carvel pioneered such
concepts as “Buy one, get one free” promotions, gift certificates, round ice
cream sandwiches called Flying Saucers, kosher ice cream products, and,
in 1939, soft-serve ice cream.
Carvel was not the only one experimenting with soft-serve ice cream at
that time. J. F. McCullough of Green River, Illinois, began making and sell-
ing ice cream in 1927 and soon started to experiment with ways to serve a
softer, less frozen product. Like so many who remembered how good
homemade ice cream tasted when they licked it off the dasher, McCul-
lough liked ice cream best when it was freshly made, before it was hard-
ened. He wanted to sell such ice cream to his retail store customers.
However, before investing in the equipment he knew would be required to
produce such a product consistently, McCullough and his son Alex de-
cided to test customer interest. One of their best retailers, Sherb Noble,

agreed to hold a soft ice cream promotion with them. On August 4, 1938,
they offered customers “All the Ice Cream You Can Eat for 10 Cents.” They
went through sixteen hundred servings in two hours. Apparently no one
questioned whether it was the price or the softness of the ice cream that
the customers found more appealing. In any event, they began looking
into machines that would make and serve soft ice cream effectively. Alex
McCullough discovered a Chicago street vendor who was selling a soft
frozen custard out of a small freezer. They signed an agreement with the
freezer’s designer, Harry Oltz, despite the fact that the freezer did not work
very well. But they made some adjustments to it, and, in 1940, Noble
opened the first store to dispense the McCulloughs’ new soft ice cream.
McCullough called the product Dairy Queen because he thought it was
the “queen” of dairy products.31 The company’s typical store was a simple
white building topped with a blue Dairy Queen sign featuring a tilted cone
of swirled soft-serve ice cream. Dairy Queen soon became known as the
cone with the curl on top.
Before the soft-serve chains could develop further, World War II inter-
vened. Ice cream equipment manufacturers switched to building airplane
parts and other military supplies. Perfecting soft-serve ice cream makers
would have to wait.
Ice Cream Goes to War

During World War II, ice cream was a morale builder overseas and a sym-
bol of patriotism at home. Americans were fortunate. The English banned
ice cream during the war (although they allowed some ersatz products).
Mussolini outlawed ice cream in Italy. The emperor of Japan ordered ice
cream to be priced so low that it was impossible for manufacturers to pro-
duce it. But in America, despite some shortages and compromises in its
quality, both civilians and members of the military continued to enjoy ice
cream throughout the war years.
This was no accident. The industry lobbied hard to have ice cream in-
cluded on the government’s official “Basic Seven Foods Chart.” Thanks to

the combined efforts of the International Association of Ice Cream Manu-
facturers and the National Dairy Council, the government reversed a 1941
decision and declared ice cream an essential food. In 1942, the War Pro-
duction Board asked (but did not require) ice cream manufacturers to
make no more than twenty varieties—ten flavors of the manufacturer’s
choice in each of two grades. The board requested that ice cream novelties
be limited to five varieties per month and that just two flavors of ices and
sherbets be made. The goal was not only to use less sugar but also to cut
down on containers, labor, and transportation. Time magazine reported
that the United States had plenty of milk, but “ice cream—childhood’s
caviar, poor man’s pheasant, fat lady’s tempter—has the demerit of need-
ing sugar as well as milk.” The report concluded, “Although some big, in-
ventive ice-cream makers have been turning out a total of 28 flavors, ten
seemed plenty.”32
The armed forces had fewer flavors, but they did have ice cream. The in-
dustry at home supplied them with freezers, soda fountain equipment,
and expertise. In 1943, the U.S. Armed Forces, with its capacity to produce
eight hundred million gallons a year, became the world’s largest ice cream
manufacturer. Refrigeration barges sailed to Pacific battlefronts equipped
with cold storage facilities and ice cream plants. Nicknamed “Ice Cream
Ships,” they could carry a thousand tons of food and make five hundred
gallons of ice cream a day. In 1945, the navy built a barge that was a float-
ing ice cream parlor, at a cost of one million dollars.33
Since ice cream ingredients such as fresh cream and eggs were not avail-
able on jungle islands and far-flung bases, the military supplied the troops
with packaged ice cream mixes. Distributed in four-and-a-quarter-pound
packages, each one made two and a half gallons of ice cream. Best of all,
they were so simple to use that anyone could make ice cream with them.
The mixes consisted of dried whole milk solids, a stabilizer, sugar, flavor-
ing, and occasionally dried eggs. They did not require refrigeration and
were designed to stay dry through any kind of shipping or weather condi-
tions. They were “packed in hermetically sealed cans from which the air

had been exhausted and an inert gas substituted to insure keeping quali-
ties in storage,” according to Selitzer.34 Flavors such as peach, coffee, maple,
and pineapple were provided, and the troops sometimes crushed hard
candy and mixed it into their ice cream.
When the armed forces could not provide the troops with the equip-
ment they needed to make ice cream, they found creative ways to supply
themselves. On one Pacific island, Seabees (Navy construction brigades)
built an ice cream freezer from “the tubing of an airplane, gears from a
Japanese engine, a Japanese airplane starter, Japanese shell cases, and mis-
cellaneous vehicle parts, machined to fit the purpose,” Selitzer reported.
“The freezer was powered by a small gasoline motor.”35
At home, the ice cream business was prospering despite rationing and
shortages. Soda fountains and luncheonettes were busier than ever as a
result of full employment and good wages. The business did have to ac-
commodate the war effort, but as they said at the time, people made do.
Manufacturers substituted corn syrup for a portion of rationed sugar.
Vanilla was in short supply because the British had blockaded Madagascar,
where vanilla beans were grown, so other flavors substituted. Butterfat
was not rationed, but there were some restrictions on its use, and many
states lowered their ice cream butterfat standards. Before the war, quality
ice cream was made with about 14 percent butterfat. During the war, it
went down to 10 percent. Sherbet, made with milk rather than cream,
gained a larger share of the market, and servings of half sherbet and half
ice cream became popular. In addition, businesses cut down on deliveries
to save on gas and rubber-tire wear and tear. When the government or-
dered milk companies to switch to every-other-day delivery, many con-
sumers became accustomed to buying milk at their local markets rather
than from the milkman. Toward the end of the war years, ice cream making
equipment began showing signs of age and breaking down, but manufac-
turing new equipment had to wait until the war was over. Despite all that,
between 1940 and 1945, production of ice cream products rose from a lit-
tle more than 339 million gallons to more than 560 million gallons.36

During the war years, eating ice cream acquired a decidedly patriotic
flavor, due in large part to the efforts of the Ice Cream Merchandising In-
stitute. The institute, led by George Hennerich, had been influential in
helping the industry recover during the Depression. Working at the soda
fountain laboratory at the institute’s Washington, D.C., headquarters,
Hennerich had created many successful promotions during those difficult
years. When the war began, he devised a promotion to help the war effort
as well as the ice cream business. It was called the Victory Sundae. Using
the slogan “Keep ’em buying Victory Sundaes to keep ’em flying,” Henner-
ich proposed that the soda fountain operator choose a sundae, advertise it
as a Victory Sundae, and serve it accompanied by a ten-cent defense sav-
ings stamp. The stamps, like war bonds, helped raise money for the war. In
1942, the Ice Cream Review estimated that the promotion could raise more
than four million dollars. The cost of the stamp was not borne by the soda
fountain operator; it was added to the price of the sundae. So if a straw-
berry sundae selling for fifteen cents was designated a Victory Sundae, it
would be priced at twenty-five cents.37
Other ice cream treats were also associated with the war. An Iowa City
ice cream maker advertised a Hitler sundae that was tagged “half nuts.”38
Children still collected Dixie cup lids, but now the lids pictured tanks,
planes, and battleships instead of circuses or movie stars. Since so many
men were serving in the armed forces, young women began taking their
places as soda jerks. In Syracuse, New York, an ice cream maker opened a
Soda & Sundae School to train them. To graduate, the women had to make
a MacArthur sundae successfully. Named after the famous general, the
sundae consisted of vanilla ice cream, blueberry and strawberry sauces,
toasted coconut, and whipped cream. It was served topped off with a tiny
American flag.39
During the war, families adapted to rationing, found ways to consume
less meat and sugar, and planted victory gardens. The 1944 edition of The
Good Housekeeping Cook Book included the section “Food Stretchers and
Alternates,” describing techniques such as mixing butter with gelatin and

evaporated milk to make butter go further. A 1942 cookbook titled What
Do We Eat Now? by Helen Robertson, Sarah MacLeod, and Frances Preston
had a section called “Patriotic Economy,” which suggested ways of using
cooking fuel wisely and taking care of appliances such as refrigerators so
they would last longer. Most of the dessert recipes used fruits since, the
authors said, “the rich and luscious desserts we have known in the
past . . . are giving way to simpler dishes.” They did include some recipes
for ice creams and other frozen desserts, although they pointed out the
challenges of making them: “Frozen desserts made at home these days are
limited to those which do not make too heavy demands on cream, upon
sugar, or spices. Thus, the selection simmers down to sherbets and creams
with custard foundation[s].”40
During the war years, many vanilla ice cream recipes called for “vanilla or
other flavoring,” because vanilla was so scarce. Like manufacturers, home
cooks made milk and buttermilk sherbets, which did not require cream.
They learned that evaporated milk would whip better if they added gelatin
to it. They substituted sweetened condensed milk, which was not subject to
sugar rationing, for sugar and cream. Honey, maple syrup, molasses, jelly, or
corn syrup all stood in for or supplemented sugar and helped home cooks
save their sugar rations.
Marshmallow did the same. Made with gelatin, sugar, corn syrup, and
often egg whites, marshmallow was used as a sweetener and as a stabilizer
by the trade before the war. In the early 1920s, Red Seal Marshmallow
was advertised to manufacturers as a product that “improves ice cream, ices
and sherbets” and “gives added smoothness.”41 Soon commercially made
marshmallows were popping up for home use in everything from salads to
gelatin desserts and, of course, ice creams. William Dreyer, founder of the
Grand Ice Cream Company in Oakland, California, was said to have cre-
ated Rocky Road ice cream in 1929, when he cut up some marshmallows
with his wife’s sewing shears and added them to his chocolate ice cream
along with some walnuts. The name was intended to be a humorous way
of addressing the Depression, according to company lore.42

Recipes for ice cream made with melted marshmallows appeared fre-
quently both in cookbooks and in articles and ads in magazines such as
Ladies’ Home Journal and Woman’s Day. Since the marshmallows were
sweet, the ice cream made with them required little or no added sugar,
a big advantage during the war. Generally, the recipes called for whole
marshmallows to be melted in heated cream or evaporated milk. Then
fruit or flavoring was added. Whipped cream or beaten egg whites could
also be stirred in after the mixture cooled. Some of these recipes had
simple titles like “Marshmallow Pineapple Ice Cream” or “Marshmallow
Pistachio Ice Cream,” but others used such words as marlobet, mallobet,
mallow, or marlow. The following recipe appeared in What Do We Eat
Now?
STRAWBERRY MALLOBET
21 marshmallows
1 2 cup water
⁄
1 3 cups crushed strawberries
1⁄
1 tablespoon lemon juice
2 tablespoons orange juice
3 egg whites
Few grains salt
2 tablespoons sugar
Melt marshmallows with water in the top part of a double boiler. Remove
from heat. Add berries and fruit juices. Cool until mixture starts to con-
geal. Beat egg whites stiff with salt. Add sugar gradually, beating it in.
Fold into strawberry and marshmallow mixture. Turn into freezing tray
of refrigerator and freeze, stirring several times.
Other fruits may be used in place of strawberries.43
The dessert that results is thin and foamy, more like an ice milk than an ice
cream, and very sweet. As the recipe directs, it is necessary to stir it several
times during freezing, because the ingredients separate during the early
stages.

The authors of What Do We Eat Now? froze a few of their ice creams in
a traditional crank freezer, but made many more using the refrigerator
method. Many other recipes of the era used the refrigerator method as
well. Refrigerator company publications had been successful at introduc-
ing the method, and by the late 1930s, cookbooks and magazines regularly
featured recipes using it. Ads for Karo Syrup, A&P markets, Campfire
Marshmallows, and a canned ice cream mixture called “Ten-B-Low, con-
centrated real ice cream” regularly featured recipes using the method. Chef
Louis DeGouy included dozens of “refrigerator tray” ice creams in his
1938 book Ice Cream and Ice Cream Desserts, as did the 1940 edition of
America’s Cook Book, compiled by editors of the New York Herald Tribune.
Even the British author and ice cream purist Elizabeth David used it. Al-
though no one suggested the refrigerator method made better ice cream, it
was faster and easier than the cranked method. As more households ac-
quired refrigerators, it became the norm. In addition to ice creams, frozen
desserts such as mousses, biscuit Tortoni, and frozen puddings became
popular since they did not require an ice cream maker, and they could
be frozen in the refrigerator without being taken out and stirred during
the freezing process.
Another option during wartime was simply buying ice cream instead of
making it. Although The Good Housekeeping Cook Book included recipes for
ice creams, it also suggested that women buy ice cream and other sweets
instead of making them, since that way they would not have to use their
sugar rations. In effect, it gave store-bought ice cream the Good House-
keeping seal of approval.
Peacetime Pleasures
When the war ended, a new and prosperous era began. Switching from a
wartime economy to a peacetime one, the United States built new homes
and highways, cars and household appliances. In 1949 alone, Americans
bought more than six million cars and trucks and began construction of
more than a million new houses. When they moved in, they drove to

supermarkets and filled their new refrigerators and freezers with all the
foods they had done without during the war.
As we have seen, ice cream was not among the foods they had done
without. Per capita consumption, just over ten quarts in 1940, reached a
high of nearly seventeen quarts by 1945. Nevertheless, Americans were
hungry for more. In 1946, they each gobbled up a record-setting twenty
one and one-third quarts.44 That was an anomaly. Consumption went
back down to the teens in 1947 and stayed there until 1956, when it
reached twenty quarts. Ever since, consumption has ranged between
twenty and twenty-two quarts per person.45
The end of gas rationing was a boon for drive-in and roadside restau-
rants. Business picked up dramatically, and restaurants such as Howard
Johnson’s, which had been forced to close many outlets during the war,
prospered. Soft-serve shops were able to make long-delayed equipment
purchases, and soft-serve ice cream came back stronger than ever. Carvel
and Dairy Queen, along with newcomers to the business such as Tastee-
Freez, opened thousands of new stores. The drive-ins also benefited from
the postwar baby boom. Families with young children enjoyed eating in
the informal environment of a roadside stand or in the family car. For the
most part, hard-serve ice cream was sold indoors at ice cream shops or
soda fountains, where eating required a bit of decorum. Soft-serve was a
casual, outdoor ice cream, and drive-ins were the kid-friendly choice.
Soda fountains were hurt by the soft-serve chains, but they were dealt a
death blow by supermarkets and home freezers. Before the war, most ice
cream was scooped at drugstore soda fountains and ice cream shops. The
amount of packaged ice cream sold in grocery stores was small, simply be-
cause both stores and homes lacked freezers. After the war, supermarkets
with frozen food departments largely replaced local grocery stores. As
soon as appliance manufacturers got out of the defense business and
back into producing equipment for the home, families bought refrigera-
tors with freezing compartments, as well as stand-alone freezers. For
the first time, it was easy and convenient to buy and store frozen foods,

including packaged ice creams. In 1948, half-gallon packages of ice cream
were introduced; by 1950, the Breyers Ice Cream Company was selling
two million a year.46 Bigger was better. Half-pints were a thing of the
past; half-gallons became the norm. Supermarkets also began to sell nov-
elties in multipacks. Families got into the habit of picking up a box of
factory-filled ice cream cups or popsicles to keep in the freezer for treats
anytime. By 1951, supermarkets accounted for about 30 percent of sales,
and drugstores had slipped to 18 percent.47 As packaged ice cream sales
grew, soda fountain sales continued to shrink. Although the soda foun-
tain continued to be a presence for a few more years, its demise was in-
evitable.
At the same time, both the quantity and quality of homemade ice cream
declined. The refrigerator-tray method was flourishing, and cranked ice
cream, like the soda fountain, was viewed with nostalgia after the war. In
the 1948 edition of Toll House Tried and True Recipes, author Ruth Wake-
field reminisced, “Few of the younger generation own ice cream freezers
so common before automatic refrigeration. Those of us who can look
back on the happy days of ‘licking the dasher’ are fortunate. Homemade
freezer ice cream was indeed a marvelous Sunday treat!”48 Despite her
enthusiasm for the old method, Wakefield froze her ices and ice creams
in the refrigerator tray. Although a few publications (notably The Joy of
Cooking) still included recipes for ice cream made in a crank freezer as
well, the refrigerator method had become the norm. Over the course of
the 1940s, the ice cream recipes in Woman’s Day made the transition from
the crank freezer to the refrigerator method. In many publications,
recipes for crank-freezer ice cream were labeled as such as if to underline
their uniqueness. Cookbooks of the 1950s and 1960s such as The Ameri-
can Everyday Cookbook, The Complete Book of Home Freezing, Better Homes
& Gardens New Cook Book, and the Culinary Arts Institute Encyclopedic
Cookbook all featured refrigerator-style ice creams and frozen desserts
that did not need churning. In addition, convenience foods abounded
in recipes. Instant coffee, canned fruit, frozen orange juice concentrate,

canned cranberry jelly, packaged puddings, marshmallows, and even a
“cola beverage” found their way into refrigerator-tray ice creams. Quick
and Easy Desserts, the title of a 1965 book, summed up the cooking style
of the day.49
Of course, some people made good, old-fashioned ice cream on a sum-
mer weekend or for a special occasion, just as some still made their own
jam or holiday fruit cakes, but their numbers were dwindling. If a house-
wife wanted to make ice cream in a traditional freezer, she had to wait for
the refrigerator to produce enough ice, which took a long time. Or she
would have to go out and buy ice, because home delivery of ice had ceased.
Even refrigerator-method ice cream took planning and work, and often
the results were not worth the effort. Neither option was ideal. Increas-
ingly, people bought rather than made their ice cream. Supermarket ice
cream was not as good as old-fashioned soda fountain and homemade
ice cream, but the younger generation hardly remembered them, and oth-
ers had become used to the lesser quality. In England, the ersatz ice cream
made during the war with frozen, whipped vegetable fat rather than cream or
milk continued to be popular after the war. In fact, it is still sold today.
Moreover, supermarket ice cream was convenient and affordable. It could
be kept in the freezer and taken out at a moment’s notice.
As more people bought supermarket ice cream, magazines and cook-
books began to feature recipes for turning it into a company dessert. Wake-
field wrote, “ ‘Store’ ice cream also has interesting possibilities. Broken bits
of fruitcake may be stirred into vanilla ice cream which is then hardened
and ripened in the tray of an automatic refrigerator. Or you can add broken
chocolate mint wafers, Nestlé’s Semi-Sweet Chocolate Morsels, or such a
fruit as banana. . . . This is an easy way to have unusual and delicious
kinds of ice cream.”50
Baked Alaska, a trend-setting dessert in the 1950s and 1960s, was gen-
erally made with a brick of store-bought ice cream. In fact, the cake used
in the dessert was often store-bought as well. Many cookbooks included
recipes for coupes, also known as sundaes, made with store-bought ice

cream topped with such sophisticated items as canned mandarin oranges,
canned chestnuts in brandy, or crème de menthe. Peg Bracken, author of
a 1960 best-seller, the I Hate to Cook Book, was not about to make old-
fashioned ice cream. Rather, she came up with these suggestions for dress-
ing up purchased ice cream:
Here are some uncomplicated Things to Do with ice cream:
You can mix two-thirds of a cup of mincemeat and two ounces of
brandy or bourbon with a quart of vanilla ice cream, then spread it in ice-
cube trays (with dividers removed, of course), and refreeze.
You can do the same thing with almond toffee, coarsely broken, but
skip the whisky. You needn’t buy a whole box of toffee—just pick up
some nickel bars at the candy stand.
Ditto with peanut brittle.51
Ice cream quality had taken a downturn during World War II because
of ingredient shortages and the demands of rationing, but that was pre-
dictable. What was less expected was that the ice cream manufacturers, for
the most part, did not go back to fundamentals after the war. They contin-
ued to use dried milk powders and artificial flavorings. They continued to
make high-overrun ice cream. Butterfat content remained at 10 percent or
less, rather than the prewar norm of 14 percent. Quality took a backseat
to quantity, as consumers bought bigger packages rather than better ice
cream. Art Hayward, the owner of a farm stand in New Hampshire who
took pride in making his own ice cream, said, “From the late ’50s till the
early ’80s selling a quality ice cream was very difficult. People thought the
size of their serving made it good.”52
As packages grew larger, so did the size, though not the number, of
ice cream plants. Fewer plants made more ice cream than ever. Companies
consolidated, and plants were automated as equipment manufacturers
came up with new, more efficient machinery to speed and simplify produc-
tion. New forms of refrigerated transport allowed ice cream makers to ship
their products from centrally located plants to every corner of the country.

Most retailers bought packaged ice cream from one of the large wholesalers.
Some bought a mix and froze it themselves, occasionally personalizing it
through packaging or serving style. But speed, efficiency, and economy
were more important than quality or taste. A 1958 Time magazine report
on recently issued government standards revealed just how fraught the ice
cream situation had become:
Last week the Food and Drug Administration finally issued a code to reg-
ulate everything from quality “French” to the “ice milk” sold at roadside
stands.
Some minimum standards: At least 10% milk fat and 20% milk solids
for all ice cream. 2% to 7% milk fat for ice milk, both higher than some
current brands. A weight of 4.5 lbs. per gallon to hold down the amount
of air manufacturers whip into their product. A minimum of 1.6 lbs. of
solid substance per gallon to avoid too much water and not enough
cream. Real fruit flavors for sherbets and water ices. Artificially colored
products must be clearly labeled.
Most important, the new rules clamp down hard on the numerous ad-
ditives used in mass ice-cream making. FDA approves the continued use
of such lump-preventing stabilizers as gelatin, locust-bean gum, sodium
alginate, guar-seed gum and extract of Irish peat moss. But it frowns on
any further use of alkaline neutralizers, e.g., baking soda, which some pro-
ducers use to sweeten up sour milk and cream, make it palatable. Totally
banned: certain acid emulsifiers that make ice cream smooth by breaking
down the barrier between fat and water. While approving chemicals that
occur naturally in food, FDA rejected all synthetic emulsifiers (monoesters
of polyoxyethylene sorbitan, monoesters of polyoxyethylene glycols, etc.),
which have long since been excluded from salad dressings and bread but
are still being used in ice cream. In animal experiments, scientists found
that such synthetics have dubious effects, including diarrhea and kidney
stones.53
There were exceptions to the postwar downturn in quality, and Baskin-

Robbins ice cream was one. The California-based chain had begun in the

late 1940s as separate ice cream stores run by brothers-in-law Irvine Rob-
bins and Burton Baskin. They joined forces as Baskin-Robbins and made
old-fashioned, real-cream ice cream. In 1953, they introduced the idea of
featuring thirty-one different flavors, one for every day of even the longest
months.
Another firm, the Häagen-Dazs company, was launched in 1959 by
Reuben Mattus, who had grown up in the ice cream business. He got his
start by peddling his mother’s lemon ice in the Bronx. When he and his
wife, Rose, launched their own business, they created a high-butterfat,
low-overrun ice cream made with cream and egg yolks rather than the dried
milk solids and fillers of many supermarket ice creams. They made just
three flavors: vanilla, chocolate, and coffee. The Häagen-Dazs name, which
has no meaning, was meant to suggest the quality and tradition of the Old
World. Since Mattus thought it sounded vaguely Danish, he put a map of
Scandinavia on the package. By the early 1970s, Häagen-Dazs was being
distributed in supermarkets throughout the country.
By then, the quality tide was turning, both in the marketplace and at
home. Thin, airy ice cream was out; rich, creamy ice cream was in. New-
comers to the business were making top-quality ice cream and selling it in
scoop shops, the ice cream parlors of the day. The latest model ice cream
freezers made it easier to produce good ice cream at home, and publica-
tions began promoting ice cream cranked the old-fashioned way, albeit
with electric ice cream makers. Ice cream made in an ice cube tray was old
hat. No less an authority than James Beard, writing in the July 1970 edi-
tion of Gourmet magazine, said, “Although most people today make ice
cream in an electric freezer, there is also a great deal of freezing done in re-
frigerator ice trays. It is my feeling, however, that the finished product
seldom equals that made in the freezer.”54
A month later, McCall’s magazine ran an article explaining how to make
a lime and peach bombe, noting that “we nostalgically returned to the old-
fashioned, fun-for-the-whole-family method, and used a hand-cranked
freezer. . . . Electric models . . . are available for the less ambitious.”55

There was no mention of the refrigerator-tray method. The Complete Book
of Homemade Ice Cream, Milk Sherbet, & Sherbet by Carolyn Anderson, which
was published in 1972, included brief directions for making refrigerator-
tray ice cream. However, nearly all her ice cream recipes called for churn-
freezing. She noted, “In most cases, churn-freezing, if possible, will create
a better product.”56
Just as Häagen-Dazs was becoming well known, in 1973 a scoop shop
called Steve’s Ice Cream opened in Somerville, Massachusetts, a few miles
outside Boston. Owner Steve Herrell made his own 14-percent-butterfat
ice cream in a five-gallon motorized White Mountain freezer he had mod-
ified himself. It was so good that customers happily waited their turn in
lines that were often several blocks long. Herrell pioneered the practice of
mixing M&Ms, nuts, crushed candy bars, chunks of Oreo cookies, and
other goodies into scoops of ice cream. It was an idea many others would
imitate. Entrepreneur Magazine credited him with inspiring a wave of “new,
home-grown, superpremium ice cream shops that emphasized fun and
indulgence. . . . He virtually invented the homemade ice cream craze in
America.”57
Following Herrell’s example, a pair of entrepreneurs named Ben Cohen
and Jerry Greenfield founded Ben & Jerry’s. They began their company in
1978 with a scoop shop in Burlington, Vermont. In just a few years, their
brand became famous for rich ice creams with chunky additions and funky
names like “New York Super Fudge Chunk” and “Cherry Garcia.”
In the 1980s, scoop shops, also known as dipping stores, opened and
thrived in towns, particularly college towns, all over the country. Each one
claimed to sell the world’s best ice cream. They charged up to an attention-
getting seven dollars for a hand-packed quart, and customers were happy
to pay it. In 1981, Time pronounced ice cream America’s “drug of choice,
and butterfat . . . the occasion of our guiltiest and most delicious sin.” Ac-
cording to Time, America produced 829,798,000 gallons of ice cream in
1980, the equivalent of “ten single-scoop cones for every human being on
earth.”58

By the end of the century, ice cream had risen to gourmet status, and fa-
mous chefs were playing with ice cream. Thomas Keller, chef and owner of
the French Laundry in California, reversed the trompe l’oeil ruse of the
eighteenth-century confectioners and created an amuse-bouche that looked
like a tray of tiny strawberry ice cream cones. Actually, they were miniature
cornets filled with salmon tartare and crème fraîche. Chefs put house-
made ice creams on their dessert menus, often creating anew some flavors
Emy and Gilliers would have recognized, such as Parmesan, artichoke, and
truffle. They arranged precious little scoops of ice cream in miniature
cones and served a trio for dessert. They even brought back midmeal sor-
bets.
Home cooks also experimented with ice cream making. New easy-to-
use ice cream makers and a plethora of recipes in magazines, newspaper
food pages, and cookbooks encouraged home cooks to take it up, if only
as an occasional pursuit. A sampling of recipes from end-of-the-century
publications shows how many and varied the recipes were. They in-
cluded wildflower honey ice cream, blue martini ice pops, gingersnap ice
cream, Champagne lavender sorbet, strawberry cheesecake ice cream,
Parmesan ice cream sandwiches, cantaloupe and ginger sherbet, pear-
verbena sorbet, white pepper ice cream, peach gelato, oatmeal ice cream,
fromage blanc–lemongrass sorbet, chestnut ice cream with chocolate Grand
Marnier sauce, sweet corn ice cream, mochaccino frozen yogurt, and, of
course, the flavor that people overwhelmingly choose as their favorite year
after year—vanilla.

epilogue
Industry and Artistry
Today, the ice cream business is a vast global enterprise. In fact, it’s so big
that it’s not called the ice cream business anymore. It’s the frozen dessert
business. It includes ice creams, low-fat and nonfat desserts (formerly
known as ice milks), water ices, sherbets, sorbets, frozen juice bars, frozen
yogurts, gelati, and more. Multinational corporations such as Unilever,
Nestlé, and General Mills own most of the major brands, including Ben &
Jerry’s, Breyers, Dreyer’s, Good Humor, Klondike, Popsicle, and Häagen-
Dazs. They market the ice creams in nearly every country in the world,
changing flavors and packaging to respond to local market demands and
tastes. They are continually upgrading their freezing and packaging tech-
nologies, coming up with new branding strategies, and looking for new
growth opportunities and markets. The Asian market is, of course, poten-
tially huge. In China, for example, Häagen-Dazs is now a prestigious
brand and sells for about ten dollars a pint. The green tea flavor is espe-
cially popular, as it is in Japan.
The manufacturers are trying to increase their presence in the American
market as well. Americans eat roughly twenty-two quarts of frozen desserts
(let’s call it all ice cream for simplicity’s sake) a year. Only New Zealanders,
who consume an impressive twenty-seven quarts per person, eat more.1 Yet
consumption in the United States has remained stuck at the twenty-or-so-
quart level since the 1960s.
Some attribute the lack of growth to the eating less, eating better phe-
nomenon. In other words, rather than buy a half gallon of inexpensive,
lesser-quality ice cream, many consumers buy a quart of superpremium or
208
go out to a scoop shop and have a dish of rich, house-made ice cream. In
addition, competition for the customer’s time, money, and calorie allot-
ment continues to increase. There’s a coffee shop on every corner these
days; and while coffee may not seem like an ice cream alternative, a fla-
vored coffee topped with whipped cream and caramel syrup is. Of course,
ice cream is fattening, and it’s possible that some people are pushing back
from the table without it. Or it could simply be that we have reached our
limit. Maybe twenty quarts is enough, even for a true ice cream lover.
Manufacturers don’t want to hear that we’re having enough ice cream,
though. They want to increase sales, and they think diet-friendly ice cream
is one way to do it. They’ve discovered an ice-structuring protein in the
blood of a particular type of fish, the ocean pout, that is said to replace fat
while maintaining flavor. Unilever has come up with a way to make it with-
out involving the fish. The protein is produced in the lab by altering the
genetic structure of a strain of yeast. It is now being used in some light
ice creams and novelties both in the United States and in Great Britain.
Ice cream makers are also developing cellulose-based ingredients to try
to cut fat in ice cream. They’re trying to get rid of sugar, corn syrup, and
other sweeteners, too. Supermarket freezers are full of low-sugar, sugar-
free, low-carb, and, from Ben & Jerry’s, “Carb Karma” ice creams. And
more are popping up every day.
Cutting ice cream calories is not a new idea. Back in June 1967, an article
in the Ice Cream Field & Trade Journal asked, “Is the future of the ice cream
business behind us?” Bemoaning the lack of growth in the business, the
article suggested that developing a flavorful low-calorie ice cream might
rescue the industry, since 60 percent of Americans said they were either
on a diet or planning to go on one.2 That was just before superpremium ice
creams made their splash in the market and the new scoop shops made
their debut. In other words, just before richer, higher-fat ice cream—not
diet ice cream—transformed the business.
Shortcuts always appeal to people, and making ice cream by simply mix-
ing a powder with milk or water is an idea that keeps coming back. At the
Epilogue / 209
beginning of the twentieth century, ice cream powders were introduced
with claims that they would make ice cream of “a very high standard of pu-
rity and excellence of manufacture.” Today, the claim is that powders make
ice cream “with the physical and sensory characteristics of a premium
product.” The language is a bit different, but the idea is the same. Ice cream
powders for commercial use are now sold everywhere, from Australia to
America—even in Italy. There, they call it gelato industriale, or “industrial
gelato,” as opposed to gelato artiginale, or “artisanal gelato.” At least one
Italian company, Fabbri, sells a gelato mix that you simply blend with wa-
ter or milk and freeze, and, presto, gelato. Or so it claims. According to the
company’s U.S. sales agency, the product allows shopkeepers who don’t
“want to get involved with all the traditional way of measuring and weigh-
ing stuff” to put gelato into their stores.3
Also back for a return engagement are mix-ins. In 1973, when Steve Her-
rell introduced the idea of mixing brand-name candies and cookies into ice
cream as the customer watched, mix-ins were a fun accompaniment to seri-
ously good ice cream. Herrell is still making ice cream in Massachusetts; he
has four stores under the Herrell’s name, as well as a thriving wholesale
business. And he still mixes goodies—now called “smoosh-ins”—into ice
cream.
Now at some national chains, mix-ins are primary and ice cream is sec-
ondary. The updated concept features an ice-cold counter where person-
able young servers mash all manner of ice creams, cookies, nuts, fruits, and
candies together. However, the servers don’t just scoop and mash; they
sing. They burst into song at the slightest provocation—like being given a
tip. In fact, at Cold Stone Creamery, you don’t apply for a job. You audition.
Although many ice cream aficionados say the extras that get folded into
the ice cream are there to disguise its poor quality, these shops have been
extremely successful so far.
Freezing ice cream is a science as well as an art. We are indebted to those
who first added salt to ice and made it all possible. Over time, others per-
fected freezing techniques and made it ever easier to produce, ship, and
210 / Epilogue
store ice cream. Now science is bringing us ice cream flash-frozen into tiny
beads or kernels by means of liquid nitrogen. These are often dispensed
from vending machines. They are fun, especially the first time you have
them, and even more so for children. However, they don’t have the mouth-
feel of real ice cream. They’re a novelty item for kids. Also, ice creams
frozen with liquid nitrogen require subzero storage, so you can’t take them
home and store them. However, food scientists are experimenting with the
technique, so liquid nitrogen ice cream may make it to your home freezer
one day.
Actually the liquid nitrogen freezing method, although attracting more
attention lately, has been around for years. At the end of the nineteenth
century, Agnes Marshall thought freezing ice cream at the dinner table
with liquid nitrogen would be entertaining, and so do some of today’s
chefs. They mix up a small batch of, say, tarragon-lime sorbet and freeze it
à la minute at the table with the same fanfare that used to accompany flam-
ing desserts. The result may well be delicious, but few of us can afford to
enjoy such rarefied pleasures often.
Another ice cream trend has its origins in immigration patterns. Tra-
ditionally, immigrants played a significant role in the development of ice
cream. In the eighteenth century, French and Italian confectioners in-
troduced high-quality ices and ice creams to England and the United
States. Later, unskilled immigrants, often from Italy, operated pushcarts
and peddled penny-licks, hokeypokeys, and ice cream sandwiches. Against
all odds, some of them went on to open their own ice cream shops and
became very successful. Today, immigration’s impact is mostly on the
flavors of ice cream that are coming into the marketplace. A few years
back, Häagen-Dazs had a huge hit with its dulce de leche ice cream. The
caramelized milk flavor was intended for the Latin market, but it turned
out to appeal to everyone. Now it’s available everywhere Häagen-Dazs is
sold, which is pretty much everywhere except, oddly enough, Denmark.
And other manufacturers are bringing new, ethnically diverse flavors to
market.
Epilogue / 211
A California-based company, Palapa Azul, is selling Mexican-style ice
creams and sorbets in supermarkets, and not just in ethnic neighbor-
hoods. Their flavors include corn, mango, flan, and Mexican chocolate.
They also make frozen fruit bars in such flavors as Mexican papaya,
cucumber-chile, and mango-chile. Popsicles have long appealed to chil-
dren, but not to most adults. Maybe these more sophisticated frozen ice
pops will expand the market.
The Artisans of Ice Cream

Owners of some neighborhood ice cream shops have been offering ethni-
cally diverse flavors for many years. Gus Rancatore, owner of Toscanini’s
Ice Cream in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and an alumnus of Steve’s Ice
Cream, has been in the business for more than twenty-five years. He says
his area’s international student population has always given him the lee-
way to develop flavors that might not have made it in the mass market. For
example, he makes his own khulfee, an adaptation of a traditional Indian
ice cream, with cardamom, almonds, and pistachios. Rancatore’s menu
changes all the time, but he has made saffron ice cream, five spice, ginger,
gianduia (Italian for a hazelnut-and-chocolate flavor combination), stout
(yes, the beer), and many more.
Stephanie Reitano, owner with her husband, John, of Capogiro in Philadel-
phia, says that, as soon as ethnic restaurants move into a neighborhood,
unusual ingredients become easier to find. And she starts making gelato or
sorbetto with them. Sometimes it takes a while for a flavor to catch on, but
customers love trying her latest experiments. “Avocado is old hat” for her
customers, she says. Lately, they’ve been tasting persimmon, carambola,
and lychee nut.
Customers are developing more adventurous palates, according to ice
cream makers. Amy Miller, another Steve’s alum, owner of Amy’s Ice Cream
shops in Texas, says that, when she started out twenty-something years ago,
she couldn’t offer her customers the range of flavors Gus Rancatore was fea-
turing. But today Texans are more ethnically diverse and more daring. Now
212 / Epilogue
her menu includes such flavors as hibiscus, amaretto peach, and chipotle
peanut butter. Torrance Kopfer, owner of Cold Fusion Gelato in Newport,
Rhode Island, also says he’s seen a big increase in flavor acceptance in the
last ten years. He cites black sesame ice cream as an example of the change.
Others mention flavors like garam masala and curry leaf. Adzuki bean and
green tea ice creams, previously limited to Japanese neighborhoods, are
gaining popularity beyond their borders.
I hear echoes of Emy as I talk to these hands-on ice cream makers.
Whether they’re new to the business or experts, they’re all full of enthusi-
asm about ice cream. After more than thirty years in the business, Herrell
still speaks lovingly about spooning up the last puddle of melting ice
cream at the bottom of his hot fudge sundae. He’s optimistic about the fu-
ture of ice cream, because, he says, eating ice cream is part of our culture
and our consciousness.
The others are equally upbeat. When they talk about their business, there’s
no mention of fish protein, instant powders, or cellulose. They talk about the
quality of their ingredients, about finding local sources for the best cream and
the freshest fruits. They get excited about buying eggs with bright, golden
yolks. Some even make their ice cream seasonally, with fresh local ingredients.
Gabrielle Carbone, co-owner with her husband, Matt Errico, of the Bent
Spoon, an ice cream shop in Princeton, New Jersey, animatedly describes
making autumn ice creams with locally grown pumpkins or apples, and
talks about the strawberry and mint sorbet she makes when both plants are
at their absolute peak of ripeness. Capogiro’s Reitano says simply, “If it
grows in Pennsylvania, we buy it in Pennsylvania.” In winter, that means
Lancaster County bosc pear with Wild Turkey bourbon; spring brings
rhubarb; summer, black raspberry; autumn, heirloom apple cider with clove.
Emy would approve.
These ice cream makers are particular about their ingredients. Kopfer
says his current favorite flavor is chocolate curry ice cream. But he doesn’t
simply buy curry powder to make it. He mixes his own spice blend. Reitano
caramelizes her hazelnuts before chopping them up and blending them
Epilogue / 213
into chocolate and hazelnut gelato to make her bacio flavor. Bacio, also the
name of a chocolate and hazelnut candy, is Italian for “kiss.”
They all love to experiment. Gus Rancatore mentions that he welcomes
the January slowdown because it gives him time to dream up new flavors.
Years ago, he says, he created Grape-Nuts ice cream and later was disap-
pointed to discover that others had done it before him. But he says he’s
come up with some four hundred flavors so far, and it’s clear he has more
in his future. He’s still experimenting after all these years. So is Miller, who
says she’s up to three hundred so far.
Herrell is still experimenting too. With vanilla. It’s his personal favorite,
and he has at least five different kinds of vanilla on his flavor board at
any one time—vanilla, malted vanilla, vanilla fudge ripple, high-definition
vanilla, and private stock. “We need more types of vanilla,” he says, “be-
cause it is the most popular flavor.” He’s exploring a combination of two
vanillas now, but won’t say more because he hasn’t perfected the flavor yet.
Personally, I hope the tradition of making ice cream at home comes
back. Granted, it was never an everyday occurrence, because of the difficul-
ties around ice and cranking. But today’s ice cream freezers make it simple.
Anyone who has memories of homemade ice cream talks about it lovingly,
and I think that at the very least it’s a summer ritual worth reviving. Even
if you make ice cream only a few times a season, you’ll have fun. With just
a little practice, you’ll make wonderful ice cream, and you’ll know exactly
what’s in it—the freshest cream, the ripest strawberries, the lushest man-
goes. You can create your own flavors. If you’ve always wondered what
lemon-raspberry ice cream would taste like, make some. When you do, I
guarantee that your family and friends will be impressed far out of propor-
tion to the effort you’ve made. One day, you, like Emy, can make ice cream
that’s parfait.
214 / Epilogue
notes
preface
1. Alberto Capatti and Massimo Montanari, Italian Cuisine: A Cultural History
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 106–111; Gillian Riley, The
Oxford Companion to Italian Food (New York: Oxford University Press, 2007),
318–319.
2. W. S. Stallings Jr., “Ice Cream and Water Ices in 17th and 18th Century En-
gland,” Petits Propos Culinaires 3 (1979): S1–7.
one. early ices and iced creams
1.Tom Shachtman, Absolute Zero and the Conquest of Cold (Boston: Houghton Mif-
flin, 1999), 17.
2. Elizabeth David, Harvest of the Cold Months (New York: Viking Penguin, 1995),
xii–xvii.
3. Giambattista della Porta, Natural Magick, bk. 14, chap. 11, “Of Diverse Confec-
tions of Wines,” 1658, http://homepages.tscnet.com/omard1/jportac14.html
#bk14X1, accessed July 23, 2008. The original was published in Naples in
1558, and it was followed, in 1589, by a much-expanded version. The latter has
information about wine freezing in glasses. The online translation is based on
an English edition published in London in 1658.
4. David, Harvest of the Cold Months, 71–72.
5. Ibid., 60.
6. Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999), 314.
7. Hippocrates, Aphorisms, sec. 5, no. 24.
8. Anthimus, On the Observance of Foods, trans. and ed. Mark Grant (Totnes,
U.K.: Prospect Books, 1996), 47.
9. Jean-Louis Flandrin, Food: A Culinary History from Antiquity to the Present (New
York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 419.
215
10. David, Harvest of the Cold Months, 68.
11. Ibid., 1.
12. John Evelyn, The Diary of John Evelyn, ed. E. S. de Beer (London: Oxford Uni-
versity Press, 1959), 239.
13. Fannie Merritt Farmer, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1896), 365.
14. Sir Thomas Herbert, Travels in Persia, 1627–1629, abridged and edited by Sir
William Foster (New York: Robert M. McBride, 1929), 45, 260.
15. James Morier, The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (1824; reprint, New
York: Hart, 1976), 152.
16. Jean Chardin, Travels in Persia, 1673–1677 (New York: Dover, 1988).
17. Fredrick Nutt, The Complete Confectioner, 4th ed. (1789; reprint, London:
Richard Scott, 1807), 48, 60.
18. Today, in England, sherbet is also the name of a sweet, fizzy powder that chil-
dren suck through a straw or a stick of licorice. Oddly, in Australia, sherbet is
a nickname for beer.
19. Iranians make bastani-e gol-o bolbol, a flavorful saffron and rosewater ice
cream with tiny cubes of plain frozen cream blended into it for added tex-
ture. Paludeh-ye shirazi is an unusual rice-stick sorbet that they serve with
sour cherry syrup. The many and varied ices and ice creams of the Middle
East are delightful, but the story of their evolution is beyond the scope of
this book.
20. C. Anne Wilson, Food and Drink in Britain (Chicago: Academy Chicago Pub-
lishers, 1991), 169.
21. Bartolomeo Stefani, L’Arte de ben cucinare (1662; reprint, Sala Bolognese,
Italy: A. Forni, 1983), 73.
22. Robert May, The Accomplisht Cook (London: printed for Obadiah Blagrave,
1685), 277–290.
23. Davidson, Oxford Companion to Food, 237.
24. Antonio Latini, Lo scalco alla moderna (Napoli: Parrino & Mutii, 1692, 1694;
reprint, Milano: Appunti di Gastronomia, 1993).
(New York: Columbia University Press, 1999), 213–215.
26. Alfred W. Crosby Jr., The Columbian Exchange: Biological and Cultural Conse-
quences of 1492 (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1972), 182.
27. Stefano Milioni, Columbus Menu: Italian Cuisine after the First Voyage of Christo-
pher Columbus (New York: Italian Trade Commission, 1992), 13–16.
216 / Notes to Pages 5–11

29. This information comes from A. Th. Kupffer, Travaux de la Commission pour
fixer les mesures et les poids de l’Empire de Russie (St. Petersburg, Russia: Im-
primerie de l’Expedition de la Confection des Papiers de la Couronne, 1841),
63. Cited in “Caraffa,” Units and Systems of Units, 2001, Sizes, www.sizes
.com/units/caraffa.htm, accessed July 21, 2008.
30. Sophie D. Coe and Michael D. Coe, The True History of Chocolate (London:
Thames and Hudson, 1996), 125–138.
31. Herbert, Travels in Persia, 45. According to a footnote in the book, “Bun is the
Abyssinian name for the coffee plant and its berry; while kahwah (when both
‘coho’ and ‘choava’) is the Arabic equivalent.” Mussulmans are Muslims.
32. Dominique Kassel, “Tout va très bien Madame la marquise,” June 2005, Or-
dre National des Pharmaciens, Documents de référence, Histoire et art phar-
maceutique, www.ordre.pharmacien.fr, accessed July 22, 2008.
33. David, Harvest of the Cold Months, 111–128; Alfred Fierro, Histoire et diction-
naire de Paris (Paris: Éditions Robert Laffont, S.A., 1996), 742–743; Barbara
Ketcham Wheaton, Savouring the Past: The French Kitchen and Table from 1300
to 1789 (London: Chatto & Windus, Hogarth Press, 1983), 92–93.
34. Le Procope is still located on the Rue de l’Ancienne Comédie, but the
Comédie Française is now in the first arrondissement—near the Palais
Royal.
35. Nicolas Audiger, La maison réglée (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1692). Reprinted in
Alfred Franklin, La vie privée d’autrefois (Paris: Librairie Plon, 1898), 131.
36. Elizabeth David writes, in Harvest of the Cold Months, that the date was actu-
ally 1661, since the king was not in Paris on the date Audiger cites.
37. Wheaton, Savouring the Past, 104–106.
38. At the time, a pinte was 1.005 U.S. quarts, according to Stephen Naft, Inter-
national Conversion Tables, expanded and revised by Ralph de Sola (New York:
Duell, Sloan and Pearce, 1961), 328.
39. In the days before lead poisoning was known, lead containers were com-
monly used to freeze and also to mold ice cream.
40. Naft, International Conversion Tables.
42. Ibid., 387–388.
43. David Potter, “Icy Cream,” Petits Propos Culinaires 72 (2003): 45. Published
by Prospect Books, London. The article refers to a manuscript by Lady Anne
Fanshawe, 1651–1678, folio 158.
Notes to Pages 13–23 / 217

44. Mary Eales, Mrs. Mary Eales’s Receipts (London: Prospect Books, 1985), 88–
93. Facsimile of the 1733 edition; originally published in 1718; distributed
in the United States by the University Press of Virginia.
two. crème de la cream
1. Mark Kurlansky, Salt: A World History (New York: Walker, 2002), 144.
2. Pellegrino Artusi, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, trans.
Murtha Baca and Stephen Sartarelli (Toronto: University of Toronto Press,
2004), 545.
3. François Massialot, Nouvelle instruction pour les confitures, les liqueurs, et les
fruits (Paris: Chez Claude Prudhomme, 1716), 1–8.
4. Karen Hess, Martha Washington’s Booke of Cookery (New York: Columbia Uni-
versity Press, 1981), 227.
5. Massialot, Nouvelle instruction, 1734 edition, 236.
6. Massialot, Nouvelle instruction, 1716 edition, 286.
7. John Pinkerton, Recollections of Paris, in the Years 1802–3–4–5 (London:
Longman, Hurst, Rees & Orme, 1806), 209.
8. François Menon, The Art of Modern Cookery Displayed [Les soupers de la
cour] (London: R. Davis, 1767), 576–577.
9. The office, or cold kitchen, later called the garde manger, was where salads,
pastries, ices, distilled liquors, marzipans, jellies, and other confections were
prepared. The cannelon is a mold shaped like a series of tubes or cinnamon
sticks. Cannelle is French for “cinnamon.”
10. M. Emy, L’Art de bien faire les glaces d’office (Paris: Chez le Clerc, 1768), 59, ii.
11. Ibid., 143–146.
12. Alan Davidson, The Oxford Companion to Food (Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 1999), 820–821.
13. Emy, L’Art de bien faire les glaces d’office, 191.
14. Menon, Art of Modern Cookery Displayed, 423.
15. Mr. Borella, The Court and Country Confectioner: Or, the House-Keeper’s Guide
(London: printed for G. Riley . . . J. Bell . . . J. Wheble . . . and C. Ethering-
ton, 1772), 96–97.
16. Menon, Art of Modern Cookery Displayed, 575–576.
17. “The Court Dessert in Eighteenth Century France,” 2003, Historic Food:
The Website of Food Historian Ivan Day, http://www.historicfood.com, ac-
cessed July 23, 2008.
18. Menon, Art of Modern Cookery Displayed, 409–410.

19. Patrick Brydone, A Tour Through Sicily & Malta, In a series of letters to William
Beckford, Esq. (London: T. Cadell and W. Davies, 1806), 223–225.
20. John Moore, A View of Society and Manners in Italy (Dublin: Printed for W.
Gilbert, W. Wilson, J. Moore, W. Jones and J. Rice, 1792), 3:108–109.
three. ingenious foreigners and others
1. Filippo Baldini, De sorbetti (Bologna, Italy: Arnaldo Forni Editore, 1979);
reprint of the 1784 edition.
2. Vincenzo Corrado, Il credenziere di buon gusto (Naples: Nella Stamperia
Raimondiana, 1778; reprint, Sala Bolognese: A. Forni, 1991). Introduction
by Claudio Benporat.
3. Elizabeth David, Harvest of the Cold Months (New York: Viking Penguin,
1995), 176–179.
4. Corrado, Il credenziere di buon gusto, 13.
5. The measurements are based on the twelve-ounce pound in use at the time.
6. Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, Savouring the Past: The French Kitchen & Table from
1300–1789 (London: Chatto & Windus, Hogarth Press, 1983), 98–99.
7. Hannah Glasse, The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy (London, 1796;
reprint, Hamden, CT: Archon Books, 1971), v.
8. Hannah Glasse, The Compleat Confectioner (Dublin: printed by John Exshaw,
1762), 140.
9. Ibid., 91.
10. Elizabeth Raffald, The Experienced English Housekeeper (1769; reprint, Lewes,
U.K.: Southover Press, 1997), 126.
11. Mr. Borella, The Court and Country Confectioner: Or, the House-Keeper’s Guide
(London: printed for G. Riley . . . J. Bell . . . J. Wheble . . . and C. Ethering-
ton, 1772), i–3.
12. Ibid., 88–89.
13. Ibid., 90–95.
14. Ibid., 87.
15. Ivan Day, “Which Compleat Confectioner?” Petits Propos Culinaire 59
(1998): 44–53. Published by Prospect Books, London.
16. G. A. Jarrin, The Italian Confectioner (London: John Harding, 1823), vii.
17. Laura Mason, “William Alexis Jarrin: An Italian Confectioner in London,”
Gastronomica (Spring 2001): 50–64; “Georgian Ices,” 2003, Historic Food:
The Website of Food Historian Ivan Day, http://www.historicfood.com, ac-

18. Ben Weinreb and Christopher Hibbert, eds., The London Encyclopedia (Lon-
don: Macmillan, 1983), 346–347.
19. Rees Howell Gronow, The Reminiscences and Recollections of Captain Gronow:
1810–1860 (London: John C. Nimmo, 1892), 2:283–287.
20. George Augustus Sala, Twice Round the Clock; or the Hours of the Day and
Night in London (London: Houlston and Wright, 1859), 317.
21. Pamela Haines, Tea at Gunter’s (London: Heinemann, 1974).
22. William Gunter, Gunter’s Confectioner’s Oracle (London: Alfred Miller,
1830), 68.
23. Frederick Nutt, The Complete Confectioner, 4th ed. (1789; reprint, London:
Richard Scott, 1807), introductory page labeled “Advertisement.”
24. Mason, “William Alexis Jarrin,” 50–64.
25. Jarrin, Italian Confectioner, viii.
26. Ibid., vii–viii.
27. William Jeanes, The Modern Confectioner (London: John Camden Hotten,
1861), iii–v.
28. Jarrin, Italian Confectioner, 123.
29. Jeanes, Modern Confectioner, 85.
31. Jeanes, Modern Confectioner, 87–88, emphasis in the original.
32. A gill is a unit of measurement equal to one-quarter of a pint.
33. Nutt, Complete Confectioner, 153.
34. Jeanes, Modern Confectioner, 108.
36. Jeanes, Modern Confectioner, 94–95.
38. Sarah Garland, The Complete Book of Herbs & Spices (London: Frances Lin-
coln, 1989), 100–101.
39. Barbara K. Wheaton, Victorian Ices & Ice Cream (New York: Metropolitan
Museum of Art, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976), xvii.
40. Alice Arndt, Seasoning Savvy (New York: Haworth Herbal Press, 1999), 243.
41. Ivan Day, “A Natural History of the Ice Pudding,” Petits Propos Culinaire 74
(2003): 24–38.
43. Theodore Francis Garrett, ed., The Encyclopædia of Practical Cookery (Lon-
don: Upcott Gill, [1890?]), 166.
44. Gronow, Reminiscences and Recollections, 287.

45. Jules Janin, The American in Paris (London: Longman, Brown, Green, and
Longmans, 1843), 169.
46. Theodore Child, “Characteristic Parisian Cafés,” Harper’s New Monthly
Magazine 78, no. 467 (April 1889): 687–703.
47. Honoré de Balzac, A Harlot High and Low [Splendeurs et misères des cour-
tisanes], translated and with an introduction by Rayner Heppenstall
(Harmondsworth, U.K.: Penguin Books, 1970), italics in the original. In A
Harlot High and Low, plombière is translated as “sundae.” When the French
original was published, in 1839, there was no such thing as a sundae. Al-
though there is no official birth date, the sundae is believed to have been in-
troduced in the early 1890s.
48. Henry G. Harris and S. P. Borella, All about Ices, Jellies, and Creams (London:
Kegan Paul, 2002), 40. Reprint of the 1926 edition.
49. Stoddard Dewey, “The End of Tortoni’s,” Atlantic Monthly 73, no. 440 (June
1894).
four. the land of ice cream
1. Anne Cooper Funderburg, Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla: A History of
American Ice Cream (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University
Popular Press, 1995), 3.
2. “Ice Cream Recipe,” n.d., Food and Cooking, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello,
www.monticello.org, accessed July 23, 2008.
3. Mary Randolph, The Virginia House-Wife (Columbia: University of South
Carolina Press, 1984), 144. Facsimile of the 1824 edition.
4. Ibid., 176.
5. Ibid., 178–179.
6. Jean Anthelme Brillat-Savarin, The Physiology of Taste (San Francisco: North
Point Press, 1986), 377.
7. Abram C. Dayton, Last Days of Knickerbocker Life in New York (New York:
George W. Harlan, 1882), 116–117.
8. Lately Thomas, Delmonico’s: A Century of Splendor (Boston: Houghton Mif-
flin, 1967), 8–9.
9. “Eleanor Parkinson Biography” and introduction to The Complete Confec-
tioner, Pastry-Cook, and Baker, February 2005, Feeding America: The Historic
American Cookbook Project, Michigan State University Library, http://digital
.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/project.html, accessed July 23, 2008.
The Michigan State University Library and the Michigan State University

Museum have partnered to created an online collection of some of the most
influential and important American cookbooks from the late eighteenth to
the early twentieth centuries.
10. Eleanor Parkinson, The Complete Confectioner, Pastry-Cook, and Baker (1884;
reprint, Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott & Co., 1864), 69–70.
11. Ibid., 73.
12. Chas. H. Haswell, Reminiscences of an Octogenarian of the City of New York
(1816 to 1860) (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1896), 60.
13. George G. Foster, New York by Gas-Light and Other Urban Sketches, edited and
with an introduction by Stuart M. Blumin (1850; reprint, Berkeley: Univer-
sity of California Press, 1990), 138.
14. Dayton, Last Days of Knickerbocker Life, 140.
15. John Lambert, Travels through Canada, and the United States of North America
in the Years 1806, 1807, 1808 (London: Baldwin, Cradock, and Joy, 1816), ex-
cerpted in Kenneth T. Jackson and David S. Dunbar, eds., Empire City: New
York through the Centuries (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 111.
16. Thomas A. Janvier, In Old New York (New York: Harper & Brothers, 1894),
261–262.
17. Dayton, Last Days of Knickerbocker Life, 125.
18. Marvin McAllister, White People Do Not Know How to Behave at Entertainments
Designed for Ladies and Gentlemen of Colour: William Brown’s African and
American Theater (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003).
19. “A History of Ice Cream in Philadelphia,” 2008, Chilly Philly Ice Cream,
www.chillyphilly.com, accessed July 23, 2008.
20. Heath Schenker, “Pleasure Gardens, Theme Parks, and the Picturesque,” in
Theme Park Landscapes: Antecedents and Variations, ed. Terence Young and
Robert Riley (Washington, DC: Dumbarton Oaks Research Library and Col-
lection, 2002), 80.
21. New York Herald, March 24, 1856, quoted in Schenker, “Pleasure Gardens,
Theme Parks, and the Picturesque,” 80.
22. Ibid., 88.
23. Ibid., 69.
24. Ibid., 84.
25. Foster, New York by Gas-Light, 133.
26. Ibid., 138.
27. George G. Foster, New York in Slices: By an Experienced Carver: Being the Origi-
nal Slices Published in the N.Y. Tribune (New York: W. H. Graham, 1849), 72.

28. Foster, New York by Gas-Light, 139.
29. “Ice House,” n.d., Food and Cooking, Thomas Jefferson’s Monticello, www
.monticello.org, accessed July 23, 2008.
30. William Jeanes, The Modern Confectioner: A Practical Guide (London: John
Camden Hotten, 1861), 90–92.
31. Joseph C. Jones Jr., America’s Icemen (Humble, TX: Jobeco Books, 1984), 15–
20.
32. Gavin Weightman, The Frozen-Water Trade: A True Story (New York: Hyperion,
2003), 39.
33. Ibid., 40.
34. Ibid., 142.
35. Richard O. Cummings, The American Ice Harvests: A Historical Study in Tech-
nology, 1800–1918 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1949), 67–68.
36. Jennie G. Everson, Tidewater Ice of the Kennebec River (Freeport, ME: Bond
Wheelwright, for the Maine State Museum by the Co., 1970), 107.
37. Chauncey M. Depew, One Hundred Years of American Commerce (New York: D.O.
Haynes, 1895), 467–468.
38. Elizabeth David, Harvest of the Cold Months (New York: Viking, 1995), 278.
39. Robert Maclay, “The Ice Industry,” in One Hundred Years of American Com-
merce, ed. Chauncey M. Depew (New York: D. O. Haynes, 1895), 469.
40. Mary Lincoln, “Ice and Ices,” New England Kitchen 1, no. 4 (August 1894):
238–242.
41. Jones, America’s Icemen, 159.
42. Elizabeth Ellicott Lea, Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young
Housekeepers (Baltimore, MD: Cushings and Bailey, 1869), 126.
43. Eliza Leslie, Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats (Boston:
Munroe and Francis, 1832), 85.
44. Catharine Esther Beecher, Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book: Designed
as a Supplement to Her Treatise on Domestic Economy (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1850), 219–220.
45. Sidney W. Mintz, Sweetness and Power: The Place of Sugar in Modern History
(New York: Viking, 1985), 67.
46. Ibid., 144.
47. Wendy A. Woloson, Refined Tastes: Sugar, Confectionery, and Consumers in
Nineteenth-Century America (Baltimore, MD: Johns Hopkins University
Press, 2002), 5.

48. Mintz, Sweetness and Power, 143.
49. Woloson, Refined Tastes, 31.
50. American Kitchen Magazine (March 1898): xiv.
51. William Woys Weaver, “Ice Cream,” in Encyclopedia of Food and Culture, ed.
Solomon H. Katz (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 2003), 239.
52. Thomas Masters, The Ice Book (London: Simpkin, Marshall, 1844), xi.
53. Ibid., 161.
54. Ibid., 172.
Kegan Paul, 2002), 2. Reprint of the 1926 edition.
56. Ralph Selitzer, The Dairy Industry in America (New York: Dairy & Ice Cream
Field and Books for Industry, 1976), 101.
57. Ibid., 103.
58. Funderburg, Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla, 55.
59. H. C. G. Matthew and Brian Harrison, eds., Oxford Dictionary of National Bi-
ography (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 641–643.
60. P. Michael, Ices and Soda Fountain Drinks (London: Maclaren & Sons
[1925?]), 42.
61. Pellegrino Artusi, Science in the Kitchen and the Art of Eating Well, trans. Murtha
Baca and Stephen Sartarelli (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2004), 545.
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2003), 259.
63. Selitzer, Dairy Industry in America, 99.
five. screaming for ice cream
1. An Observer, City Cries, or, a Peep at Scenes in Town (Philadelphia: George S.
Appleton, 1850), 65–66.
2. Peter Quennell, editor, Mayhew’s London: Being Selections from ‘London Labour
and the London Poor,’ by Henry Mayhew (1851; reprint, London: Pilot, 1949),
136.
3. Ibid., 219.
4. Michael A. Musmanno, The Story of the Italians in America (New York: Dou-
bleday, 1965), 103, 101.
5. Thomas Bailey Aldrich, Unguarded Gates and Other Poems (Boston: Houghton,
Mifflin, 1895), 13–17.
6. Erik Amfitheatrof, The Children of Columbus: An Informal History of the Italians
in the New World (Boston: Little, Brown, 1973), 170.

7. Harvey Levenstein, Revolution at the Table (New York: Oxford University
Press, 1988), 157.
8. Kenneth T. Jackson and David S. Dunbar, eds., Empire City: New York through
the Centuries (New York: Columbia University Press, 2002), 433.
9. Terri Colpi, The Italian Factor: The Italian Community in Great Britain (Edin-
burgh: Mainstream, 1991), 36.
10. Ibid., 34.
11. Grace M. Mayer, Once upon a City (New York: Macmillan, 1958), 382.
12. Junius Henri Browne, The Great Metropolis: A Mirror of New York (Hartford,
CT: American Publishing, 1869), 99.
[1925?]), 99.
14. Ibid., 100.
15. Autumn Stanley, Mothers and Daughters of Invention (New Brunswick, NJ:
Rutgers University Press, 1995), 50–52.
16. Mary Sherman, “Manufacturing of Foods in the Tenements,” 1906, Tenant Net:
Tenants’ and Renters’ Rights, New York City, www.tenant.net/community/les,
accessed July 23, 2008.
Field and Books for Industry, 1976), 244–245.
18. Mayer, Once upon a City, 79.
19. James W. Parkinson, “Letter from Paris,” Confectioners’ Journal 4, no. 40 (May
1878): 19. Published by Journal Publishing Company, Philadelphia.
20. Frederick T. Vine, Ices: Plain and Decorated (London: Offices of the British
Baker and Confectioner, and Hotel Guide and Caterers’ Journal [1900?]), 6.
21. Andrew W. Tuer, Old London Street Cries (London: Field & Tuer, Leadenhall
Press, 1885), 59–60.
22. Michael, Ices and Soda Fountain Drinks, 48.
23. Ibid., 48–49.
24. Soda Fountain, the Trade Magazine, comp., Dispenser’s Formulary, 4th ed. (New
York: Soda Fountain Publications, 1925), 171.
27. Ibid., 43.
28. Val Miller, Thirty-six Years an Ice Cream Maker (Davenport, IA: n.p., 1907),
51–54.

30. American Kitchen Magazine (March 1901): xxxiv.
32. “Ice Cream Sandwiches: All Wall Street Buying Them Nowadays to the Profit
of the Inventor,” New York Sun, August 19, 1900, p. 7.
33. Ibid.
34. Barbara Haber, From Hardtack to Home Fries (New York: Free Press, 2002),
62–68.
35. Charles Herman Senn, Ices, and How to Make Them (London: Universal Cook-
ery and Food Association, 1900), 69.
36. Soda Fountain, the Trade Magazine, comp., Dispenser’s Formulary, 148.
37. James W. Parkinson, “Ice Cream and Ice Cream Machinery, Ancient and
Modern,” Confectioners’ Journal 2, no. 15 (March 1876): 11.
38. John J. Riley, A History of the American Soft Drink Industry, Bottled Carbonated
Beverages, 1805–1957 (New York: Arno, 1972), 5–6.
39. Harvey Wickes Felter, MD, and John Uri Lloyd, Phr.M., PhD, King’s American
Dispensatory (Cincinnati: Ohio Valley Company, 1898).
40. Riley, History of the American Soft Drink Industry, 49.
41. Ibid., 49.
42. Ibid., 50.
43. Ibid., 54.
44. See, for example, Anne Cooper Funderburg, Sundae Best: A History of Soda
Fountains (Bowling Green, OH: Bowling Green State University Popular
Press, 2002), 19; Riley, History of the American Soft Drink Industry, 3–21.
45. Funderburg, Sundae Best, 35–37.
46. James W. Tufts, “Soda-Fountains,” in One Hundred Years of American Com-
merce, 1795–1895, ed. Chauncey M. Depew (New York: D. O. Hayes, 1895),
472.
47. James Dabney McCabe, The Illustrated History of the Centennial Exhibition
(Philadelphia: National, 1876), 309–310.
48. Riley, History of the American Soft Drink Industry, 8–9.
49. Ibid., 9.
50. Ibid.
51. Ibid., 10.
52. E. F. White, The Spatula Soda Water Guide (Boston: Spatula Publishing,
1905), 115.
53. Ibid., 58.
54. Riley, History of the American Soft Drink Industry, 114.

56. White, Spatula Soda Water Guide, 70.
57. Mayer, Once upon a City, 395.
59. Michael Turback, A Month of Sundaes (New York: Red Rock Press, 2002),
30–32.
60. White, Spatula Soda Water Guide, 71.
61. Ibid.
62. Mayer, Once upon a City, 396–397.
six. women’s work
1. “Masser’s Self-Acting Patent Ice-Cream Freezer and Beater,” Godey’s Lady’s
Book (Philadelphia) 41 (August 1850): 124.
2. Marjorie Kreidberg, Food on the Frontier: Minnesota Cooking from 1850 to
1900, with Selected Recipes (St. Paul: Minnesota Historical Society Press,
1975), 147.
3. Jennie G. Everson, Tidewater Ice of the Kennebec River (Freeport, ME: Bond
Wheelwright, for the Maine State Museum, 1970), 124.
4. “Sarah Tyson Rorer Biography,” February 2005, Feeding America: The Historic
American Cookbook Project, Michigan State University Library, http://digital
.lib.msu.edu/projects/cookbooks/html/project.html, accessed July 23, 2008.
5. Laura Shapiro, Perfection Salad: Women and Cooking at the Turn of the Century
(New York: Modern Library, 2001), 4–7.
6. Catharine Esther Beecher, Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book: Designed
as a Supplement to Her Treatise on Domestic Economy (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1850), 166–167.
7. Agnes B. Marshall, Fancy Ices (London: Marshall’s School of Cookery and
Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1894), 117.
8. Maria Parloa, Miss Parloa’s New Cookbook: A Guide to Marketing and Cooking
(New York: C.T. Dillingham, 1882), 66–81.
9. Sarah Tyson Rorer, Mrs. Rorer’s Philadelphia Cook Book (Philadelphia: Arnold,
1886), 546–548.
10. Mrs. D. A. Lincoln, Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book (Boston: Roberts Broth-
ers, 1884), 361.
11. Janice Bluestein Longone, “Mary J. Lincoln,” in Culinary Biographies, ed.
Alice Arndt (Houston, TX: Yes Press, 2006), 243–245.

12. Mary Lincoln, “Ice and Ices,” New England Kitchen 1, no. 4 (August 1894):
238–242.
13. Parloa, Miss Parloa’s New Cookbook, 69.
14. Aunt Babette, “Aunt Babette’s” Cook Book (Cincinnati, OH: Block Publishing
and Print Company, 1889), 365.
15. Sarah Rorer, Good Cooking (Philadelphia: Curtis; New York: Doubleday &
McClure, 1898), 88.
16. Estelle Woods Wilcox, Buckeye Cookery and Practical Housekeeping: Compiled
from Original Recipes (Minneapolis, MN: Buckeye, 1877), 147.
17. Ibid., 398–399.
18. Aunt Babette, “Aunt Babette’s” Cook Book, 365.
19. Marion Harland [Mary Virginia Terhune], Common Sense in the Household: A
Manual of Practical Housewifery (New York: Scribner, Armstrong, 1873), 443–
446.
20. Cornelius Weygandt, Philadelphia Folks: Ways and Institutions in and about the
Quaker City (New York: D. Appleton–Century Company, 1938), 18–20.
21. Ibid., 23.
22. Susan MacDuff Wood, “Eliza Leslie,” in Culinary Biographies, ed. Alice Arndt
(Houston, TX: Yes Press, 2006), 239–240.
23. Eliza Leslie, Seventy-Five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, and Sweetmeats (1828;
reprint, Boston: Munroe and Francis, 1832), 37–39.
24. Florence Fabricant, “James Beard’s American Favorites,” Food & Wine (July
1981): 25–28.
25. At that time, confectioners and cooks often flavored ice creams and
custards with fruit stones and leaves. However, they do contain a small
amount of cyanide. As a result, the practice is not recommended today,
particularly if the dessert is going to be served to children, the ill, or the
elderly.
26. Eliza Leslie, The Lady’s Receipt-Book; a Useful Companion for Large or Small
Families (Philadelphia: Carey and Hart, 1847), 160.
28. Leslie, Seventy-Five Receipts, 39; Lincoln, Boston Cook Book, 363.
29. Elizabeth Fries Ellet, Practical Housekeeper: A Cyclopaedia of Domestic Econ-
omy (New York: Stringer and Townsend, 1857), 490.
30. Wilcox, Buckeye Cookery, 151.
31. Lincoln, Boston Cook Book, 363.
32. Rorer, Good Cooking, 87–88.

33. Sarah Tyson Rorer, Ice Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings, Together with Re-
freshments for All Social Affairs (Philadelphia: Arnold, 1913; reprint, Whitefish,
MT: Kessinger, n.d.), 2.
34. Ibid., 2.
36. Mrs. D. A. Lincoln, Frozen Dainties (Nashua, NH: White Mountain Freezer
Company, 1889; reprint, Bedford, MA: Applewood Books, 2001), 5–8.
37. Barbara Ketcham Wheaton, Victorian Ices & Ice Cream (New York: Metropoli-
tan Museum of Art, Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1976), 6–7. Original recipes
from Agnes B. Marshall, The Book of Ices (London: Marshall’s School of
Cookery and Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent & Co., 1885).
38. Ibid., 13. Castor sugar was finely ground sugar. An ad for her “Pure Harmless
Vegetable Colours for Colouring Ices, Creams, Jellies, Etc.” appeared on page
63 of Marshall’s The Book of Ices. A tammy was a fine strainer.
39. Alice Ross, “Fannie Merritt Farmer,” in Culinary Biographies, ed. Alice Arndt
(Houston, TX: Yes Press, 2006), 159–160.
40. Fannie Merritt Farmer, The Boston Cooking-School Cook Book (Boston: Little,
Brown, 1896), 370.
41. Rorer, Philadelphia Cook Book, 451.
42. Elizabeth Ellicott Lea, Domestic Cookery, Useful Receipts, and Hints to Young
Housekeepers (Baltimore, MD: Cushings and Bailey, 1869), 108–109.
44. Lincoln, Boston Cook Book, 362.
45. Beecher, Miss Beecher’s Domestic Receipt Book, 167.
47. Juliet Corson, Miss Corson’s Practical American Cookery and Household
Management (New York: Dodd, Mead, 1886), 527.
48. Sarah Tyson Rorer, Dainty Dishes for All the Year Round (Philadelphia: North
Brothers Mfg., 1905), 23.
49. Rorer, Ice Creams, 14–16.
50. Marion Fontaine Cabell Tyree, Housekeeping in Old Virginia (Richmond, VA:
J.W. Randolph & English, 1878), 439–440.
51. Lincoln, Frozen Dainties, 22–23.
52. Rorer, Ice Creams, 25.
Kegan Paul, 2002), 39. Reprint of the 1926 edition published in London by
Maclaren & Sons.

54. Lincoln, Frozen Dainties, 20–21.
56. Farmer, Boston Cooking-School Cook Book, 376.
57. Mary Elizabeth Wilson Sherwood, Manners and Social Usages (New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1887), 275.
58. Kreidberg, Food on the Frontier, 187.
59. Mary F. Henderson, Practical Cooking and Dinner Giving (New York: Harper &
Brothers, 1876), 306.
60. Kathryn Grover, ed., Dining in America, 1850–1900 (Amherst: University of
Massachusetts Press, 1987), 64–69.
61. Lincoln, “Ice and Ices,” 242.
62. Robin Weir et al., Mrs. Marshall: The Greatest Victorian Ice Cream Maker (Ot-
ley, U.K.: Smith Settle, 1998), 54.
63. Parloa, Miss Parloa’s New Cookbook, 294.
65. Charles Ranhofer, The Epicurean (New York: Charles Ranhofer, 1894),
1007.
66. Lincoln, Frozen Dainties, 23.
68. Lincoln, Frozen Dainties, 23.
70. Rorer, Dainty Dishes, 48.
71. Henderson, Practical Cooking, 308–310.
72. Rorer, Dainty Dishes, 43.
73. Rorer, Ice Creams, 41–48.
74. Marshall, Fancy Ices, 13.
75. Mark Twain and Charles Dudley Warner, The Gilded Age: A Tale of To-day
(Hartford, CT: American Publishing, 1874).
76. Una Pope-Hennessy, ed., The Aristocratic Journey: Being the Outspoken Letters
of Mrs. Basil Hall Written during a Fourteen Months’ Sojourn in America, 1827–
1828 (New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons, 1931), 182.
77. Sherwood, Manners and Social Usage, 361.
78. D. Albert Soeffing, “A Nineteenth-Century American Silver Flatware Serv-
ice,” Antiques (September 1999): 327–328.
79. Alfred L. Cralle, Ice Cream Mold and Disher, patented February 2, 1897, U.S.
Patent No. 576,395.

80. Charles Ross Parke, Dreams to Dust: A Diary of the California Gold Rush,
1849–1850, ed. James E. Davis (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press,
1989), 46–47.
81. Susan Williams, Savory Suppers and Fashionable Feasts: Dining in Victorian
America (New York: Pantheon, 1985), 182.
82. Weygandt, Philadelphia Folks, 20.
83. Sandra L. Oliver, Saltwater Foodways (Mystic, CT: Mystic Seaport Museum,
1995), 316–318.
seven. modern times
1. Robert W. Rydell, John E. Findling, and Kimberly D. Pelle, Fair America
(Washington, DC: Smithsonian Institution Press, 2000), 52–57.
2. Pamela J. Vaccaro, Beyond the Ice Cream Cone (St. Louis, MO: Enid Press,
2004), 92–98.
3. Jenifer Harvey Lang, ed., Larousse gastronomique (New York: Crown, 1990),
750–751 and 1143–1145.
4. François Massialot, Nouvelle instruction pour les confitures, les liqueurs, et les
fruits (Amsterdam: Aux Depens de la Compagnie, 1734), 151.
5. Charles Elmé Francatelli, The Royal Confectioner: English and Foreign (London:
Chapman and Hall, 1866), 181.
6. Lang, Larousse gastronomique, 750.
7. Robert J. Weir, “An 1807 Ice Cream Cone: Discovery and Evidence,” Food His-
tory News 16, no. 2 (2004): 1–6.
8. Francatelli, Royal Confectioner, 181.
9. “Wafer Making,” 2003, Historic Food: The Website of Food Historian Ivan
Day, http://www.historicfood.com, accessed July 23, 2008.
10. Charles Elmé Francatelli, Francatelli’s Modern Cook (Philadelphia: T. B. Peter-
son & Brothers, 1846), 468.
11. Ibid., 469–470.
12. Agnes B. Marshall, Fancy Ices (London: Marshall’s School of Cookery and
Simpkin, Marshall, Hamilton, Kent, 1894), 135.
13. Ibid., 116–117.
14. Antonio Valvona, Apparatus for Baking Biscuit-Cups for Ice-Cream, patented
June 3, 1902, U.S. Patent No. 701,776, June 3, 1902.
15. I. Marchiony, Mold, patented December 15, 1903, U.S. Patent No. 746,971,
December 15, 1903.

16. William Marchiony, “You Scream, I Scream, We All Scream for Ice Cream,”
National Ice Cream Retailers Association Newsletter, NICRA Bulletin (August
1984): 3.
17. Vaccaro, Beyond the Ice Cream Cone, 123–127; and Jack Marlowe, “Zalabia
and the First Ice-Cream Cone,” Saudi Aramco World (July–August 2003):
2–5.
19. Al Reynolds, “IAICV Memories: The History of Ice Cream,” 1998. Interna-
tional Association of Ice Cream Vendors, Philadelphia, www.iaicv.org, ac-
21. Ibid., 285.
22. Ibid., 106.
23. Ice Cream Review (December 1921): 83. Published by Olsen Publishing, Mil-
waukee, WI.
25. H. E. Van Norman, “Manufacture of Ice-Cream and Other Frozen Prod-
ucts,” in Cyclopedia of American Agriculture, ed. Liberty Hyde Bailey (New
York: Macmillan, 1910), 195–198.
27. Ibid., 238–239.
28. Van Norman, “Manufacture of Ice-Cream,” 195.
29. “Gelatine Aids Digestion,” Confectioners’ and Bakers’ Gazette (June 1913): 22.
Published by H. B. Winton, New York.
30. Selitzer, Dairy Industry in America, 260–261.
31. Ibid., 284–285.
32. Warner-Jenkinson Manufacturing Company, Ice Cream, Carbonated Bever-
ages (St. Louis, MO: Warner-Jenkinson Mfg., 1924), 1–2.
33. Ibid., 5.
34. Ibid., 18–37.
[1925?]), 67–68, emphasis in the original.
36. Van Norman, “Manufacture of Ice-Cream,” 196.
38. Ibid., 258–259.
39. Ice Cream Review (December 1917): 2.

40. Ice Cream Review (February 1919): 35; (September 1919): 18.
41. T. Percy Lewis and A. G. Bromley, The Victorian Book of Cakes (New York:
Portland House, 1991), 142.
42. Ice Cream Review (May 1921): 99.
43. Ice Cream Review (September 1919): 18.
44. Lewis and Bromley, Victorian Book of Cakes, 20.
45. Ibid., 74.
47. E. F. White, The Spatula Soda Water Guide (Boston: Spatula Publishing,
1905), 133.
48. Junket rennet tablets and Junket ice cream mix are still sold. The latter is
available in strawberry, Dutch chocolate, or vanilla flavors. The company
Web site is www.junketdesserts.com.
49. “Jell-O: America’s Most Famous Dessert,” n.d., Duke University Libraries
Digital Collections, http://library.duke.edu/digitalcollections/eaa.ck0050,
accessed July 22, 2008; Carolyn Wyman, Jell-O: A Biography (New York: Har-
court, 2001), 16.
50. Arthur D. Burke, Practical Ice Cream Making and Practical Mix Tables (Milwau-
kee, WI: Olsen, 1933), 60–97.
51. Ibid., 104–105.
52. Reynolds, “IAICV Memories.”
54. Ibid., 249–250.
55. Ibid., 248.
56. Ibid., 248–249.
57. William Bliss Stoddard, “How a Big Spokane Dairy Has Solved the Winter
Ice Cream Problem,” Ice Cream Review (August 1920): 78.
58. E. C. Beynon, “A Big Ice Cream Season,” Confectioners’ and Bakers’ Gazette
(May 1913): 24–25.
59. Ice Cream Review (December 1921): 145.
60. Ice Cream Review (February 1922): 179.
61. Ibid., 127.
62. Ice Cream Review (April 1922): 141.
64. “Cold Pie,” Time, March 28, 1927.
65. Maurita Baldock, “Eskimo Pie Corporation Records, 1921–1926, #553,”
1998, Smithsonian National Museum of American History, Archives Center.

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66. Funderburg, Chocolate, Strawberry, and Vanilla, 129–130.
68. Ibid., 266–267.
69. Jefferson M. Moak, “The Frozen Sucker War: Good Humor v. Popsicle,”
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70. F.W. Rueckheim, “Confectionery—Then and Now,” Confectioners’ and Bakers’
Gazette (March 10, 1913): 19.
71. Ice Cream Review (August 20, 1920): 1.
73. Siegfried Giedion, Mechanization Takes Command (New York: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1948), 602; Sylvia Lovegren, “Refrigerators,” in The Oxford Encyclo-
pedia of Food and Drink in America, ed. Andrew F. Smith (New York: Oxford
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74. Lovegren, “Refrigerators,” 351.
76. Ibid., 276.
77. “Company History,” 1995, Hugh Moore Dixie Cup Company Collection,
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78. A. Emil Hiss, The Standard Manual of Soda and Other Beverages: A Treatise
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79. Sarah Tyson Rorer, Dainty Dishes for All the Year Round (Philadelphia: North
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80. Joseph Oliver Dahl, Soda Fountain and Luncheonette Management (New York:
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81. Soda Fountain, the Trade Magazine, comp., Dispenser’s Formulary, 4th ed. (New
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83. Ibid., 269–270.

eight. ice cream for breakfast
1. Howard Johnson’s Presents Old Time Ice Cream Soda Fountain Recipes, or How to
Make a Soda Fountain Pay (New York: Winter House, 1971), 16–18.
3. Wendell Sherwood Arbuckle, Ice Cream (Westport, CT: Avi, 1966), 6–7.
5. Ibid., 291.
6. A 50-Year History of the Ice Cream Industry, 1905–1955 (New York: Trade Paper
Division, Reuben H. Donnelley Corporation, 1955), 128.
8. Malcolm Parks, “An Open Letter to My Manufacturer,” Ice Cream Trade Jour-
nal 33 (August 1937): 30. Published by the Trade Papers Division of the
Reuben H. Donnelley Corporation, New York.
10. “Some Suggestions on Methods of Meeting Mechanical Household Refrig-
eration Competition,” Ice Cream Review (May 1933): 32. Published by Olsen
Publishing, Milwaukee, WI.
11. Alice Bradley, Electric Refrigerator Menus and Recipes: Recipes prepared especially
for the General Electric Refrigerator (Cleveland, OH: General Electric, 1927), 40.
12. Ibid., 37.
13. Ibid., 93.
14. Ibid., 94.
15. P. H. Tracy, “Questions and Answers,” Ice Cream Trade Journal (November
1937): 33.
16. A 50-Year History, 129.
18. Arthur D. Burke, Practical Ice Cream Making and Practical Mix Tables (Milwau-
kee: Olsen, 1933), 203–206.
19. Joseph Oliver Dahl, Soda Fountain and Luncheonette Management (New York:
Harper & Brothers, 1933), 10–12.
20. Ice Cream Review (November 1932): 19.
21. Ice Cream Trade Journal (July 1937): 9.
22. Howard Johnson’s Presents, 19.
23. “Walker’s Insures Its Business with Quality,” Ice Cream Trade Journal (July
1937): 22.

24. Brian Butko, Klondikes, Chipped Ham & Skyscraper Cones: The Story of Isaly’s
(Mechanicsburg, PA: Stackpole Books, 2001), 1.
26. Ibid., 292.
27. Philip Langdon, Orange Roofs, Golden Arches: The Architecture of American
Chain Restaurants (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1986), 43.
28. Ibid., 64.
29. Ibid., 50.
30. Ibid., 69.
31. Marcy Norton, “Dairy Queen History Curls through Area,” 1998, Progress
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32. “I’ll Take Vanilla,” Time (May 11, 1942), Time Archive, 1923 to the Present,
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34. Ibid., 338.
35. Ibid., 337.
36. Arbuckle, Ice Cream, 6–7.
37. “Victory Sundaes,” Ice Cream Review (March 1942): 24–25.
39. “Patterns,” Time (June 15, 1942), Time Archive, 1923 to the Present, www
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290.
41. Warner-Jenkinson Manufacturing Company, Ice Cream, Carbonated Bever-
ages (St. Louis: Warner-Jenkinson Mfg., 1924), 34.
42. “About Dreyer’s: Dreyer’s Historic Headlines,” n.d., Dreyer’s Grand Ice
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43. Robertson, MacLeod, and Preston, What Do We Eat Now? 297.
44. Arbuckle, Ice Cream, 6–7.
45. Robert T. Marshall, H. Douglas Goff, and Richard W. Hartel, Ice Cream (New
York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 2003), 8.
46. A 50-Year History, 143.
47. Ibid., 144.
48. Ruth Graves Wakefield, Toll House Tried and True Recipes (New York: M. Bar-
rows, 1948), 216.

49. William I. Kaufman, Quick and Easy Desserts (New York: Pyramid Publica-
tions, 1965).
50. Wakefield, Toll House Tried and True Recipes, 217.
51. Peg Bracken, The I Hate to Cook Book (Greenwich, CT: Fawcett Publications,
1960), 97.
52. Will Anderson, Lost Diners and Roadside Restaurants of New England and
New York (Bath, ME: Anderson & Sons’ Publishing, 1987), 92.
53. “Real Scoop,” Time (April 7, 1958), Time Archive, 1923 to the Present, www
54. James Beard, “Cooking with James Beard, Ice Cream,” Gourmet (July 1970):
50.
55. “A Bang-Up Finish: Peach Bombe,” McCall’s (August 1970): 57.
56. Carolyn Anderson, The Complete Book of Homemade Ice Cream, Milk Sherbet &
Sherbet (New York: Saturday Review Press, 1972), 23.
57. “Herrell’s in the Media,” quoting Entrepreneur Magazine (March 1987), Her-
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58. John Skow, “They All Scream for It,” Time (August 10, 1981), Time Archive,
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epilogue
1. Robert T. Marshall, H. Douglas Goff, and Richard W. Hartel, Ice Cream (New
York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum, 2003), 7.
2. G. O. Heck, “The Future of the Ice Cream Business,” Ice Cream Field & Trade
Journal (June 1967): 70–77.
3. Chris Ryan, “An Old Favorite Gets New Attention,” Fresh Cup Specialty Coffee
& Tea Trade Magazine (July 2005), www.freshcup.com, accessed July 2008.

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index
absinthe, 72, 74 aristocracy, French: household organi-

African Americans, pleasure gardens zation of, 19, 34
for, 83 Armed Forces, U.S.: ice cream con-
alcohol: in ice cream, 44, 187; in ices, 3, sumption in, 194–95
44–45, 66–67, 215n3 artichokes, in ice cream, 39
Aldrich, Thomas Bailey: “Unguarded Artusi, Pellegrino: La scienza in cucina,
Gates,” 105 27, 101
Alembert, Jean Le Rond d’, 11 Associated Confectioners of New York,
Alexander the Great, storage of ice, 2 price-fixing by, 99
All about Ices, Jellies, and Creams (Harris Athenaeus, on underground
and Borella), 98 refrigeration, 2
Allen, Woody, xi Audiger, Nicolas, x; career of, 17–18;
ambergris, 39, 42; in mousses, 34 flavored drinks of, 19; freezing
American Kitchen Magazine, 95, 117, technique of, 19–20; gifts to Louis
118 XIV, 18, 217n35; ice cream of, 21,
America’s Cook Book (1940), 199 30; ice pyramids of, 21–22; ices of,
ammonia: in ice cream freezers, 162, 18; lemonade recipe of, 20;
176; in ice making, 92; in refrig- liqueurs of, 17, 18, 19; La maison
eration systems, 176 réglée, 17, 19
Ancient and Honorable Artillery automobiles: eating in, 191; in postwar
Company, banquet of, 154 era, 199–200
Anderson, Carolyn: The Complete Book
of Homemade Ice Cream, 206 Babette, Aunt: “Aunt Babette’s” Cook
Anheuser-Busch (brewery), production Book, 134, 135, 145; Nesselrode
of ice cream, 161 pudding of, 147; presentation
Anthimus, on cold drinks, 5 suggestions of, 150
antiquity: ice storage in, 2; wafer cones baby boom, postwar, 200
in, 156 Baer, A. C., 165
Arctic Ice Cream Company, 176 baked Alaskas, 149–50, 202
261
Baldini, Filippo: De sorbetti, 50, 51–52; brewing, ice for, 90
on health benefits, 51 Briggs, Richard: The English Art of
Balzac, Honoré de: Splendeurs et misères Cookery, 77
des courtisanes, 72, 221n47 Brillat-Savarin, Jean Anthelme: The
Barberini, Cardinal Antonio, 10 Physiology of Taste, 79
Basic Seven Foods Chart, ice cream in, Bromo Caffeine, 124
193 Buckeye Cookery, 137, 141; frozen
Baskin, Burton, 205 puddings in, 146; ice preparation in,
Baskin-Robbins company, 204–5 135; molded ice cream in, 149
bastani-e gol-o bolbol (Iranian ice Burke, Arthur D.: Practical Ice Cream
cream), 216n19 Making, 169–70, 188
Beard, James, 139, 205 Burt, Harry, 174
Beecher, Catharine: on ice cream butter churners, 97
freezers, 132; Miss Beecher’s Domestic butterfat, in ice cream, 166, 167, 170,
Receipt Book, 93, 133; Philadelphia ice 195, 203, 206
cream of, 144
beet sugar, 94 cafés, Parisian, 16, 17. See also Le
Ben & Jerry’s, 206 Procope; Tortoni’s Café
Bent Spoon (ice cream shop), 213 candying, Massialot on, 28
Berner, Ed, 127 cannelon (mold), 218n9
bicarbonate of soda, 122 Capatti, Alberto: Italian Cuisine, x, 101
biscuits: American, 146; de Savoy, 76; Carbonated Drinks (trade magazine),
Rorer’s, 146; Tortoni’s, 72–74 126
Bladen, Thomas, 75 carbonated waters, medicinal, 121. See
Bobo, William, 83 also soda waters
bombs, English, 54, 70, 71 Carbone, Gabrielle, 213
bootleggers, ice cream, 182–83 Carême, Marie Antoine, 63
Borella, Mr.: borrowing by, 59; The Caribbean, sugar cultivation in, 94
Court and Country Confectioner, 43, Carillo Salcedo, Don Stefano, 9
57; flavorings of, 58; ice creams of, Carré, Ferdinand, 91–92
57–58; muscadine ice of, 68, 69 Carson, Jack, 175
Boston Cooking School, 134, 142 Carvel, Tom, 192, 200
Bracken, Peg: I Hate to Cook Book, 203 Catherine de Medici, x
Bradley, Alice: chocolate ice cream caves (ice storage), 38, 115; portable, 154
recipe, 184; Electric Refrigerator Cavour, Count Camillo Benso di, 69
Menus and Recipes, 183–84 celebrations, American: ice cream in,
Brancone, Cherubino, 52 153–54
brewers, American: manufacturing of Centennial Exposition (Philadelphia,
ice cream, 161 1876), 123
262 / Index
Champagne water ices, 67 Coltelli, Francesco Procopio dei, 16–17
Chardin, Jean, 7 Comédie Française, 17, 217n31
Charles I (king of England), xi cones, wafer: in antiquity, 156; Italian,
Charles II (king of England), xi 159
Charles II (king of Spain), 1 Coney Island, ice cream at, 160, 161
“cheeses,” frozen, 30–32 confectioners, American, 79–80; ice
cherries: candied, 127; Emy’s use of, 40– bricks of, 116; influence on home
41; sour, 15, 216n19; on sundaes, 179 cooks, 149; of Philadelphia, 83, 101
China, ices in, ix–x confectioners, English, 55–61; in
chocolate: in French ice cream, 39, 41– America, 59, 79; bombe of, 54;
42; in ices, 42; in seventeenth cookbooks of, 61; on street peddlers,
century, 14, 41; in Spanish drinks, 14 111–12; study on continent, 60
chopine (measurement), 21 confectioners, European: in America,
Christmas, ice cream at, 154, 172 211; American influence on, 101; in
cinnamon: in homemade ice cream, England, 59, 211
142; in ices, 15; popularity in Italy, 54 confectioners, French, 18, 26–45; effect
Ciocca, Giuseppe: Il pasticciere e of French Revolution on, 59;
confettiere moderno, 101 influence on Italians, 52
Civil War: ice shipping during, 89, 91; confectioners, Italian, 52–55; French
industrialization following, 131 influence on, 52; Neapolitan, 1
clam frappé, 143 Confectioners’ and Bakers’ Gazette: ice
Coca-Cola, 124 cream parties in, 172; molded ice
Coe, Sophie and Michael: The True cream in, 178; on nineteenth-century
History of Chocolate, 14 confectioners, 175
coffee: in French ices, 42–43; in ice Confectioners’ Journal, 80, 120; advice to
cream, 41–42, 43, 67; Middle newcomers, 102; on ice cream bricks,
Eastern, 217n31; Persian, 16; in 117; ice cream freezers in, 98; im-
seventeenth-century France, 15–16, portance of, 121; on Philadelphia
41; Voltaire’s use of, 61 confectioners, 101
coffee shops, 209 Continental Divide, ice cream making
Cohen, Ben, 206 at, 153
Cold Fusion Gelato (Newport, RI), 213 Conversations on Chemistry, on soda
Cold Stone Creamery, 210 water, 123–24
college sodas, 128 cookbooks: American, 77, 221n9;
Collet, Captain, 79 community, 131; eighteenth-century,
Collot, Monsieur, 83 26, 55; frugality in, 131; plagiarism
colorings: for homemade ice cream, in, 59; of postwar era, 201–2; for
143–44; for ices, 46; saffron, 46 women, 55–56, 130–31; of World
Colpi, Terri, 107 War II, 196–97, 198, 199
Index / 263
cookbooks, English: by confectioners, David, Elizabeth, 199, 217n36
61; use in U.S., 77 Day, Ivan, 70
cookies, in ice cream, 41, 66, 146 Dayton, Abram C.: Last Days of
cooking: scientific approach to, 130; Knickerbocker Life in New York, 82–83
standard measurements in, 132–33; DeGouy, Louis: Ice Cream and Ice Cream
of sugar, 27–29, 35 Desserts, 199
cooks, Italian, 10; characteristics of, 11 Della Porta, Giambattista, 4; Natural
Corrado, Vincenzo: butter ice cream Magick, 3
recipe, 53–54, 219n5; on flavors, 53; Il Delmonico’s (NY), 79–80; baked
credenziere di buon gusto, 52–55; Il Alaskas of, 149–50
cuoco galante, 52; spume of, 54–55; demi-setier (measurement), 21
use of cinnamon, 54 Department of Agriculture, U.S.: on ice
Corson, Juliet: “French Ice-Cream” of, cream formulas, 168
145; Miss Corson’s Practical American Dewey, Stoddard, 74
Cookery, 144 Dictionnaire portatif de cuisine, d’office, et
counter freezers, 186 de distillation (1767), 30; chocolate in,
Cowan, Glen P., 176 42
Cralle, Alfred L., 152–53 Diderot, Denis, 11, 17
Crane Ice Cream Company Dispensatory of the United States of
(Philadelphia), 160 America, syrups in, 124
cream: shipping of, 165; souring of, 40; Dispenser’s Formulary: hokeypokey
substitutes for, 140–41 recipe, 114–15; ice cream sandwich
cream desserts: English, 23–25; recipe, 119
imitating cabbage, 8; ingredients in, Dixie Circus (radio show), 177–78
8–9; Italian, 8; medieval, 7–8; Dixie cups, 177–78, 196
Spanish, 8. See also whipped cream domestic science, 130–31
credenzieri (stewards), duties of, 52 Doumar, Abe, 160
cuisine, French: pre-eminence of, 26 Dows, Gustavus D., 123
custard pies, thrown, 9 Dreyer, William, 197
custards: medieval, 7–8; Nesselrode, drive-ins, 200
70; in pies, 9; soft frozen, 193; Durand, Elias, 122
Spanish, 8
Cutler, Thomas D., 161 Eales, Mary: Mrs. Mary Eales’s Receipts,
cyanide, in flavorings, 228n25 23–24
eggs: freshness of, 27; purifying
Dahl, Joseph O.: Soda Fountain and properties of, 28
Luncheonette Management, 178, 188 eighteenth century: custards of, 9;
dairy bars, 186 drink recipes of, 7; English ice cream
Dairy Queen, 193, 200 of, 24, 55–61; French ice creams of,
264 / Index
33–38, 40–41, 43; ice storage in, 26– Evelyn, John: on cold drinks, 5
27, 38; Italian ices of, 50–55; molded Everson, Jennie, 91, 130
ice cream in, 45; seasonal ice cream
in, 170–71; sugar prices in, 93; Fabbri (company), 210
vocabulary for ices, 30 Fanshawe, Lady Anne, cookbook of,
elderflower, in ices, 68–69 23–25
emulsifiers, synthetic, 204 Farmer, Fannie Merritt, 142–43; The
Emy, Monsieur, 26, 213; L’Art de bien Boston Cooking-School Cook Book,
faire les glaces d’office, 33–34, 50; on 143; frozen pudding recipe, 147; on
colorings, 46; flavorings of, 34, 35, 37, iced desserts, 6; on Philadelphia ice
38–39; freezing techniques of, 35; cream, 144; on sherbet, 145
frozen biscuits of, 146; on “frozen fifteenth century, ice storage in, 2
cheese,” 32–33; ice creams of, 33–38, Flandrin, Jean Louis, 5
40–41, 43–44; ices of, 30, 34–35, flavorings: artificial, 168, 203;
39–40; ingredients of, 35; mousses Borella’s, 58; Corrado’s, 53; effect of
of, 34; officier position of, 34; on freezing on, 19–20; Emy’s, 34, 35, 37,
overindulgence, 50; perfectionism of, 38–39; ethnically diverse, 211, 212–
34; sarbotieres of, 30; use of chocolate, 13; experimentation in, 213–14; from
41–42; use of coffee, 41, 42–43; use of fruit stones, 228n25; for home-
preserves, 44; use of vanilla, 38, 42 made ice cream, 138; from leaves,
Encyclopédie, Diderot’s: potatoes in, 11 228n25; for soda waters, 123–24,
England: confectioners of, 55–61; 125
cream desserts of, 23–25; European Flying Saucers (ice cream sandwiches),
confectioners in, 59, 211; ice cream 192
industry in, 100–1; ice cream Food Administration, U.S.:
peddlers in, 104, 105, 109; icehouses classification of ice cream, 168
in, 3; ice shipment to, 89–90, 97; Food and Drug Administration, U.S.:
Italian immigrants in, 106–8; regulation of ice cream, 204
padrone system in, 107–8; sugar food contamination, in U.S., 108–11
consumption in, 94. See also ice foods: cold, 5; convenience, 201, 202;
cream, English frozen, 200–1; in humoral theory, 5
Entrepreneur Magazine, on Foster, George, 85–86
superpremium ice cream, 206 Fourth of July, ice cream consumption
Epperson, Frank, 175 during, xii, 153–54
Epsicles, 175 Fox, Minnie C.: The Blue Grass Cook
Errico, Matt, 213 Book, 146
Eskimo Pie, 172–73; production of, Francatelli, Charles Elmé: Francatelli’s
177 Modern Cook, 158; The Royal
“essences,” for making ices, 7, 65 Confectioner, 156–57; on wafers, 158
Index / 265
France: coffee use in, 15–16; con- gelato, 30, 54; American, 101;
fectioners of, 18, 26–45; cost of salt homemade, 207; industriale, 210
in, 27; culinary leadership in, 26; General Mills, 208
sugar supplies of, 94. See also ice Gilded Age, table services of, 152
cream, French Gilliers, Joseph: chef d’office position, 34;
freezers, stand-alone, 200 ice cream eggs of, 47; molded ice
freezing: effect on flavor, 19–20; at creams of, 32; use of coffee, 43
International Exhibition of 1862, glaciers, porcelain, 150
91; in lead containers, 217n39. See Glasse, Hannah, 62; The Art of Cookery
also ice cream freezers Made Plain and Easy, 55, 56; The
freezing boxes, French, 38 Compleat Confectioner, 55–56, 58; use
freezing techniques, 24; Audiger on, of works in U.S., 77
19–20; discovery of, 2; Emy on, 35; Godey’s Lady’s Book, ice cream making
innovations in, 162–63, 210; Italian, in, 129, 154
3, 4; La Varenne’s, 22; liquid nitrogen Good Housekeeping Cook Book, 196–97;
in, 142, 211; nineteenth-century, 64; ice cream recipes in, 199
Raffald on, 57; Randolph’s, 78; Good Housekeeping magazine, 130–31
utensils for, 35 Good Humor Ice Cream Company,
French Revolution, effect on confec- 174–75, 189
tionery, 59 The Good Humor Man (film), 175
Frigidaire refrigerators, 176 Graham, Sylvester, 118–19
Frostor (ice cream powder), grapes: Emy’s use of, 40; in water ices,
168–69 68
frozen desserts: business of, 208; Great Depression, 187–90;
snows, 8; using home refrigerators, consumption of ice cream during,
185, 199 xii, 181, 182–83; homemade ice cream
Frugoli, Antonio, 4 during, 183–84, 185; recovery from,
fruit: frozen, 4; preserved, 44, 58; 196; roadside stands during, 190
salads, 185; syrups, 124 Greece, ancient: refrigeration in, 2
Funderburg, Anne Cooper: Sundae Best, Green, Robert M., 125–26
125 Greenfield, Jerry, 206
Fussell, Jacob, 99, 100 Greensward Plan (landscaping), 84
Gronow, Captain Rees Howell, 60, 71
gabelle (salt tax), 27 Guerin, Francis, 79
Garland, Judy, 190 Gumpert’s Ice Cream Improver, 168
gas rationing, wartime, 200 Gunter, James, 60
Gatti, Carlo, 100–1, 158 Gunter, Robert, 60, 71
gaufres (wafers), 157, 158 Gunter, William: Gunter’s Confectioner’s
gelatin, in ice cream, 115, 164 Oracle, 61–62; ice cream of, 62
266 / Index
Gunter’s Tea Shop (London), 60–61; households, aristocratic: officiers of, 19,
service to carriages, 191 34
housekeeping, scientific approach to,
Häagen-Dazs Company, 205, 206; 130
dulce de leche flavor of, 211 Howard Johnson’s restaurants, 180–81,
Haines, Pamela: Tea at Gunter’s, 61 185; ice cream cones of, 189; orange
Hall, Mrs. Basil, 152 roofs of, 191, 192; in postwar era,
Hallauer, George, 127 200; twenty-eight flavors of, 191
Hamwi, Ernest, 159 humors, doctrine of, 4–5
Harland, Marion: Common Sense in the
Household, 135–37; freezing tech- ice: bricks, 114–17; serving pieces made
nique of, 136–37 of, 151–52
Hayward, Art, 203 ice, artificial: distrust of, 97; oil in, 92;
health benefits of ice cream, 50–52, for Southern states, 91–92. See also
188 ice-making plants
Heinz, Edward, 120 ice, natural: availability in U.S., 75, 79,
Henderson, Mary F.: Practical Cooking 86; for brewing, 90. See also ice
and Dinner Giving, 148, 150 harvesting; ice storage
Hendlers Ice Cream Company, 188 iceboxes, eighteenth-century, 38
Hennerich, George, 196 icebreakers, mechanical, 135
Henry III (king of France), x ice cream: chocolate, 39, 41–42, 184;
Henry, Thomas, 123 chocolate-covered, 172–73; chocolate
Herbert, Thomas, 6; on coffee, 16 curry, 213; creation myths of, ix–xi;
Herrell, Steve, 206, 210, 213; dulce de leche, 211; eighteenth-
experiments of, 214 century, 24, 25, 33–38, 40–41, 43, 45,
Hippocras (wine), 157 55–61, 170–71; flash-frozen, 211; in
Hippocrates, 4, 5 fruit shells, 150; glossaries of, 144;
hocus-pocus, 111 health benefits of, 50–52, 188;
Hokeypokey (song and dance), Indian, 212; Iranian, 216n19; junket,
112–13 169, 233n48; medical opinion on,
hokeypokeys, 111–17, 211; cost of, 114; xi–xii, 24; Mexican-style, 212; with
etymology of, 111; ingredients of, 113, orange flower water, 21, 23, 30, 33, 56,
114, 116; paper coverings of, 117; 66; painted, 46, 175; peach, ix, 78,
pejorative associations of, 111, 112 139; pistachio, 58, 120; precursors of,
holidays, American: ice cream at, 153– 6; scientists’ contribution to, xii,
54, 172, 187 210; seasonal, 44, 170–75, 213;
home economics, 131 shipping of, 162, 210; substitutions
Horton, James, 100 in, 140–41, 167–68, 197; tableware
houacaca (spice mixture), 39 for, 152; on transatlantic steamships,
Index / 267
ice cream (continued) 206, 208; taste tests of, 170; as war-
100; in twenty-first century, 208–14; time essential, 168; during World
Voltaire on, 17; wholesale operations War II, 194–99, 203. See also ice
in, 98–102; during World War II, cream, homemade; ice cream
193–99 industry, American
ice cream, American: alcohol in, 187; ice cream, commercial, xii, 98; additives
availability of, 129; in Basic Seven in, 204; advances in, 177; corpora-
Foods Chart, 193; bootlegged, 182– tions, xiii, 208, 209; cost of ingredi-
83; for breakfast, 187–88; butterfat ents in, 170; formulas for, 165, 166,
content of, 166, 167, 170, 195, 203, 170; mechanized packing of, 177;
206; in celebrations, 153–54, 172; mixtures for, 169, 186–87, 194–95,
celebrity consumption of, 190; 209–10; overrun in, 163, 203; paper
chocolate-covered, 172–73; in containers for, 177; quality of, 102;
colonial era, 75–76; cream contents refrigerated shipping of, 203; at soda
of, 165; in early U.S., 77–83; federal fountains, 188–89; from supermar-
standards for, 164–65, 166, 168, kets, 201, 202–3, 209. See also ice
204; fillers in, 164, 167; flavors of, 81; cream industry
formulas for, 165; gourmet, 206–7; ice cream, English: Borella’s, 57–58;
during Great Depression, xii, 181, brown bread in, 41, 66; coffee, 67;
182–83, 187–90; home delivery of, cookies in, 66; eighteenth-century,
187; Jefferson’s recipes for, 75–76; 24, 55–61; Gunter’s, 62; homemade,
kosher, 192; local ingredients in, 141–42; hygiene measures for, 109;
213; low-fat/low-calorie, 209; nineteenth-century, 61–71; nuts in,
marshmallow, 197–98; mix-ins for, 66; with preserves, 65; seventeenth-
210; molded, 175, 178; national century, xi, 23; at tea, 188; tea in, 67;
distribution of, 162; of 1920s, 176– with vegetable fat, 202; during
79; novelties, 189–90, 194; peach, World War I, 168; during World War
78; per capita consumption of, II, 193
160–61, 179, 181, 190, 200, 208; ice cream, French: alcohol in, 44–45;
Philadelphia-style, 80, 140, 141, 164; almond, 41; artichoke, 39; Audiger’s,
in postwar era, 199–207; powders 21; chocolate, 39, 41–42; compromises
for, 168–69, 209–10; presentation in, 43–45; cookies in, 41; Emy’s, 33–38,
of, 148–53; quality of, 103, 203–5; 40–41, 43–44; “frozen cheese,” 30–
railway shipment of, 162; retail price 33; Massialot’s, 26, 30–32; Menon’s,
of, 189; at roadside stands, 185–86, 32–33, 41; nuts in, 40–41; painted, 46;
190–91; Rocky Road, 197; saloons preserves in, 44; seasonal, 44; serving
for, 85–86; seasonal, 170–75; soft- glasses for, 47; tea in, 43; truffles in,
serve, 141, 192–93, 200; states’ 39; uncooked, 44; vocabulary of, 30,
regulation of, 165; superpremium, 31–32
268 / Index
ice cream, homemade, xii, 129–54; ice cream freezers: ammonia in, 162,
cinnamon, 142; colorings for, 143– 176; with built-in churns, 86;
44; cookies in, 146; cost of, 140; circulating brine, 162–63, 189;
difficulties of, 135–36; eggless, 141; continuous-process, 163; crank-
English, 141–42; Farmer’s, 143; with turned, ix, 64, 96, 97, 133, 135, 205;
filled centers, 149; flavors of, 138; dashers of, 95, 96, 97, 134; electric,
freezing techniques, 3, 132, 133–34, 161; homemade, 132, 133–34; im-
136–38, 177, 200; during Great provements in, xii, 95–98; patent,
Depression, 183–84, 185; of late 98, 129, 133, 134; of postwar era, 205;
twentieth century, 207; mixes for, professional, 98; at roadside stands,
199; molded, 148–49; “New York,” 186; steam-driven, 85–86, 98, 161.
145; nostalgia for, 205; peach, 139; in See also freezing
postwar era, 201, 202; preparing ice ice cream industry: future of, 213;
for, 135, 136, 137; recipes for, 130, global, 208
138–43; serving suggestions for, ice cream industry, American, xi, 98–
148–53; substitutions in, 140–41; 100, 101–2; competition for, 183–87;
sundaes, 178; of twenty-first century, effect of ice cream cones on, 160–61;
214; using electric refrigerators, 183– effect of mechanical refrigeration on,
84, 185, 199, 201, 202; utensils for, 162, 164, 181; following Prohibition,
132–34; during World War II, 197 181, 187; hygiene in, 108–9; ice
ice cream, Italian: decline in, 101–2; supply for, 161; lack of growth in,
Neapolitan, 141; Parmesan cheese, 209; mergers in, 182; in postwar era,
59; powders for, 210. See also ice 203–5; production rates in, 170, 179;
cream peddlers, Italian recovery from Great Depression,
ice cream, molded, 175; for Christmas, 196; salt supply for, 161; seasonality
172; in eighteenth century, 45; in, 170–75; trade publications of,
French, 32; homemade, 129, 148–49; 120–21, 186–87; wholesalers in, 204;
knives for, 152 in winter, 171–72, 188; during World
ice cream bricks: chocolate-covered, 173; War II, 195–96, 203. See also ice
multiflavored, 162, 172; recipes for, cream, commercial; ice cream plants
115; “Yuletide,” 172 ice cream industry, British, 100–1;
ice cream cones: dipped, 179; effect on formulas for, 167
ice cream business, 160–61; five- Ice Cream Journal, on bootleggers, 182
cent, 189; Marshall on, 142, 158–59; ice cream making: artisanal, 212–14;
origins of, 155, 157–58, 159–60; at college courses in, 101; at Con-
Saint Louis World’s Fair, 155, 156, tinental Divide, 153; difficulties of,
159–60, 179 26–27, 135–36; home utensils for,
ice cream drumsticks, 179 132–34; hygiene in, 110; in Italy, x;
Ice Cream Field & Trade Journal, 209 preparing ice for, 135, 136, 137; as
Index / 269
ice cream making (continued) standards, 165; Five Cent Bricks
science, 210. See also freezing recipe, 115; on frozen salads, 185
techniques; ice cream, homemade; ice cream trucks, ix, 174–75, 189
ice cream plants iced drinks: eighteenth-century, 7;
Ice Cream Merchandising Institute, 196 prejudice against, 5
ice cream peddlers, Italian, 104–8; in ice harvesting, 86–93; cessation of, 93;
England, 104, 105, 109; during Great extent of, 90, 92; in Maine, 91; tools
Depression, 182; hygiene of, 110–11, for, 89, 90
182; ice cream sandwiches of, 117, 118; icehouses: aboveground, 3; American,
licensing of, 110; Neapolitan ices of, 78, 86–87, 88, 91, 137; commercial,
113, 114; nicknames for, 111; penny 91; communal, 87; effectiveness of,
licks of, 108–9, 113; profits of, 110–11 89; Jeanes on, 87. See also ice
ice cream plants: automated, 203; storage
capacity of, 163; conveyer systems in, ice-making plants, 92
177; hardening rooms in, 163; ice pyramids, 4; Audiger’s, 21–22
refrigeration systems of, 176. See also ices: Chinese, ix–x; between dinner
ice cream industry courses, 151, 207; eighteenth-
Ice Cream Review, 187; on chocolate- century, 25; “essences” for, 7, 65;
coated ice cream, 173; Eskimo Pie in, health benefits of, 50–52; Marco
172; on formulas, 165; on home- Polo’s knowledge of, ix–x; medical
made ice cream, 183; on shipping, opinion on, xi–xii, 4–5; precursors
162; on sugar contents, 168; on of, 6; punch water, 66–67; stabiliz-
winter sales, 171; during World War ers for, 168; standards for, 169; stir-
II, 196 ring of, 14; sugar/liquid ratio in, 13.
ice cream sandwiches, 117–19, 211; See also sherbets; sorbets; sorbetti,
invention of, 117, 118; popularity of, Italian
118; round, 192; wafers covering, 118 ices, English: alcohol in, 66–67;
ice cream socials, 154 bombs, 54, 70, 71; with elderflower,
ice cream sodas: invention of, 125–26; 68–69; molded, 67; muscadine, 68–
recipes for, 126; at soda fountains, 69; with preserves, 58
126–27. See also soda waters ices, French: alcohol in, 44–45; as
ice cream sundaes, 127–28; coupes, centerpieces, 21–22; chocolate, 42;
202–3; homemade, 178; of 1920s, coffee, 42–43; colorings for, 45–46;
178; origin of, 221n47; at soda edible containers for, 47; Emy’s, 30,
fountains, 127; specialty, 188, 196; 34–35; Massialot’s, 29–30; painted,
toppings for, 128; during World War 45–46; Parisian, 17, 18; pineapple,
II, 196 39; seasonal, 35, 44; strawberry, 40;
Ice Cream Trade Journal, 163–64; on trompe l’oeil presentation of, 47–49,
counter freezers, 186; on federal 50, 207; vocabulary of, 30
270 / Index
ices, Italian: as centerpieces, 15; ices, Italian; immigrants, Italian;
chocolate, 14–15; cinnamon, 15; Naples
consistency of, 13; of eighteenth
century, 50–55; with fruit, 4; jams, sugar in, 28
Neapolitan, 1, 113, 114; paeans to, 50– Janin, Jules, 72
51; vocabulary of, 30 Janvier, Thomas A.: In Old New York, 82
ices, molded: English, 67; presentation Jarrin, William, 59; bomba ice of, 70;
of, 46–47 confectionery business of, 62–63;
ice sculptures: French, x, 21–22; Italian, death of, 63; freezing techniques of,
15 64, 65; grape water ices of, 68; The
ice shipping, 87–90, 162; during Civil Italian Confectioner, 61, 62–63;
War, 89, 91; to India, 89, 91; inno- punch water ices of, 66; on wafers,
vations in, 88; to London, 89–90, 158
97; for medicinal purposes, 90; Jeanes, William: freezing techniques
from Norway, 100; to West Indies, of, 64, 65; frozen pudding of,
88 69–71; on Jarrin, 63–64; The Modern
ice-spoons, 152 Confectioner, 61, 62, 63, 87, 120;
ice storage: in antiquity, 2; depots for, plombière of, 70; punch water ices of,
90–91; in eighteenth century, 26–27, 66–67
38; underground, 2–3; in U.S., 86– Jefferson, Thomas: ice cream recipes of,
87. See also icehouses 75–76; icehouse of, 86–87
immigrants, following Civil War, 131 Jell-O Company, ice cream powders of,
immigrants, Italian: children, 107, 111; 169
to England, 106–8; ice cream shops jelly, pokeberry, 143
of, 116; living conditions of, 109; J. M. Horton Ice Cream Company, 100
under padrone system, 105–6; Johnson, Howard Deering, 180–81,
prejudice against, 105, 111; working 189; restaurant franchise of, 185,
conditions of, 107. See also ice cream 191–92
peddlers, Italian Johnson, Nancy M., xii; artificial freezer
Immigration Act (U.S., 1924), 105 of, 95–96, 134
India, ice shipments to, 89, 91 The Joy of Cooking, ice cream recipes in,
International Association of Ice Cream 201
Manufacturers, 194 Junket ice cream, 169, 233n48
International Exhibition (London,
1862), ice making at, 91 Keller, Thomas, 207
Italian Immigration Bureau (New Kelvinator refrigerators, 176
York), 105–6 khulfee (Indian ice cream), 212
Italy: confectioners of, 1, 52–55; cost of Kindervater, G. G., 181
salt in, 27. See also ice cream, Italian; King’s American Dispensatory, 121
Index / 271
kitchen utensils, mass-produced, 132–33 London: Gunter’s Tea Shop, 60–61,
Kleen Kup (paper cup), 189 191; ice cream hygiene in, 109; ice
Klondike bars, 189 cream peddlers of, 104, 105. See also
knives, for molded ice cream, 152 ice cream, English
Kopfer, Torrance, 213 Longworth’s American Almanac, soda
fountains in, 122
Ladies Home Journal, 130 Louisiana Purchase Exposition. See
landscapes, picturesque, 84 Saint Louis World’s Fair
Latini, Antonio: in Barberini house-
hold, 10; chocolate ices of, 14–15; MacLeod, Sarah, 197
cinnamon ice of, 15; early life of, 10; Maine, ice harvest in, 91
lemon sorbet recipe, 12–13, 15; milk mallobet, strawberry, 198
sorbet recipe of, 13–14; modern Maolis (pleasure garden, Nahant, MA),
methods of, 11; readers of, 13; Lo 90
scalco alla moderna, 9, 10–11, 17; Marchiony, Italo, 159
sorbetti of, 12–13, 15, 20; use of New Marchiony, William, 159
World foods, 12 Marco Polo, knowledge of ices, ix–x
La Varenne, Pierre de: neiges of, 22; Le Marie Antoinette (queen of France), 95
nouveau confiturier, 22; Le vrai Marshall, Agnes B.: The Book of Ices, 68,
cuisinier françois, 22 141–42; cinnamon ice cream recipe,
Lea, Elizabeth Ellicott: Domestic 142; ice cream cones of, 142, 158–59;
Cookery, 93, 143 ice serving pieces of, 152; innova-
lemonades, 7; Audiger’s, 20 tions of, 142; on liquid nitrogen
Leslie, Eliza, 93; Directions for Cookery, freezing, 211; on presentation of ices,
138; The Lady’s Receipt-Book, 139; 151
Seventy-five Receipts for Pastry, Cakes, marshmallows, in ice cream, 197–98
and Sweetmeats, 138–39 Martinique, ice shipping to, 88
Lincoln, Mary: on fillers, 164; Frozen Masser’s Self-Acting Patent Ice-Cream
Dainties, 134, 141, 150; on frozen Freezer, 129
puddings, 146; on ice cream molds, Massialot, François: on candying, 28; on
149; ice cream recipes of, 141, 144; cooking sugar, 27–29; Le cuisinier roïal
Mrs. Lincoln’s Boston Cook Book, 133, et bourgeois, 26; “English cheese”
140, 144; The Peerless Cook-Book, 134; recipe, 31, 32; ice cream of, 26, 30–32;
on sherbet, 145 ices of, 29–30; Nouvelle instruction pour
Lippincott, Charles, 123 les confitures, 26, 27, 156; on quality
liqueurs: Audiger’s, 17, 18, 19; Noyau, ingredients, 27, 28; raspberry water ice
70; orange, 81 of, 29–30; wafer recipe of, 156
liquid nitrogen, in ice cream freezing, Masters, Thomas: The Ice Book, 96–97
142, 211 Mattus, Reuben and Rose, 205
272 / Index
May, Robert: The Accomplisht Cook, 8–9 molasses, 94
Mayhew, Henry, 104 molds: cannelon, 218n9; for homemade
McCabe, James Dabney: The Illustrated ice cream, 148–49; lead, 69, 217n39;
History of the Centennial Exhibition, mass-produced, 178; removable
123 centerpieces in, 149. See also ice
McCall’s magazine, ice cream freezers cream, molded
in, 205 molinillo (wooden beater), 14
McCreary, Mrs. Governor J. B., 146 Montaigne, Michel de: on cold drinks,
McCullough, Alex, 192–93 5
McCullough, J. F., 192–93 Montanari, Massimo, x, 101
measurements, 217n38, 219n5; chopine, monzu, 26
21; demi-setier, 21; standard, 132–33; Moore, John, 48–49
for sugar, 65 Morier, James, 6
Mel-O-Rols, 190 mousses: chocolate, 14, 21; Emy’s, 34;
Menon, François, 55; ice creams of, 32– flavors for, 34
33, 41; on painted ices, 45; Les soupers Mouy, M., 70
de la cour, 32 muscadine, in ices, 68–69
meringue, 157; browned, 146, 150; egg-
shaped, 47, 150; in mousses, 73; as Naples: food specialties of, 11; sorbetti of,
stabilizer, 8 1, 2, 12, 53
Michael, P.: on gelatin, 115; Ices and Napoleon III (king of France), 69
Soda Fountain Drinks, 109, 167; on National Dairy Council, 194
Italian ice cream, 116; on Neapolitan nature, imitation of, 45
ices, 114 nectarines, Emy’s use of, 40
Michigan State University, American Negri, Domenic, 60, 62
cookbooks of, 221n9 neiges, La Varenne’s, 22
Middle Ages, custards of, 7–8 Nelson, Christian K., 173–74
Middle East: coffees of, 217n31; sherbets Nero (emperor of Rome), ix
of, 6–7, 19, 216n19 Nesselrode, Karl Vasilyevich, 70
milk: safety of, 108, 109–10; shipping Nestlé (corporation), xiii, 208
of, 165; in sorbetti, 13–14, 52; types of, New England Kitchen (magazine), 92,
52. See also butterfat 134
Miller, Amy, 212–13, 214 New World, food products of, 1–2, 9,
Miller, Val: Thirty-six Years an Ice Cream 11–12, 24
Maker, 115–16, 173 New York: food safety in, 110–11; ice
mixtures, ice cream: commercial, 186– cream saloons of, 85; Italian
87, 209–10; patent, 169; during Immigration Bureau, 105; pleasure
World War II, 194–95, 199 gardens of, 81–85
Mojonnier Brothers Company, 177 Ninkotu (emperor of Japan), 2
Index / 273
Nizer Cabinet Company, 176 Parkinson, Eleanor: Brahma ice recipe,
Noble, Sherb, 192 81; confectionery shop of, 80; on
Norway, ice shipments from, 100 Philadelphia ice cream, 144; sugar
Nutt, Frederick: The Complete use of, 81
Confectioner, 59, 61, 62; freezing Parkinson, George, 80, 120
techniques of, 64; grape water ice of, Parkinson, James, 120; on ice cream
68; ingredients of, 65; punch water peddlers, 111–12
ices of, 66; royal ice cream recipe of, Parloa, Maria: filled ice cream of, 149;
66–67 Miss Parloa’s New Cookbook, 133
parties, featuring ice cream, 154, 172
officiers: of aristocratic households, 19, Pascal (coffee seller), 16–17
34; employers of, 43, 45 pasteurization, 108
olive oil, in homemade ice cream, Patent Steam Ice-Cream, 85–86
140–41 Pennington, Mary Engle, 109–10
Olmstead, Frederick Law, 84 Pennsylvania State University, teaching
Oltz, Harry, 193 of ice cream making, 101
orange-flower water, 4, 22, 81; in ice penny-licks, 113, 159, 211; ingredients of,
cream, 21, 23, 30, 33, 56, 66; in 114; as unsanitary, 108–9
snows, 8; in wafers, 157 Persia, sherbets of, 6
oranges, Emy’s use of, 40 Pettini, Amadeo, 101–2
organ grinders, Italian, 106 Pharmacopoeia of the United States, 121
oublies (cone wafers), 156 Philadelphia: ice cream peddlers of,
overruns, in ice cream production, 163, 103–4; milk safety in, 109–10
203 Philadelphia Cooking School, 130
oyster cream, frozen, 78 Philadelphia ice cream, 80, 141, 164;
cost of, 140; ingredients of, 144–45
packaging, mechanized, 177 picnics, ice cream at, 154
padrone system, 105–6; in England, pineapple: in ices, 39; in sorbetti, 51
107–8, 109; hokeypokey men in, pine nuts, in ices, 15
116 Platt, Chester, 127
Palace Garden (NY), 84 pleasure gardens, American: adjuncts
Palapa Azul (company), 212 to taverns, 81; for African Americans,
paludeh-ye shirazi (Iranian sorbet), 83; of New York, 81–85; public
216n19 perception of, 84; Tudor’s, 90; for
Pangburn Candy and Ice Cream working-class whites, 83–84
Company, 179 plombières, 69–70, 221n47; Tortoni’s,
parades, by ice cream companies, 171 69, 72
Parke, Charles Ross, 153 Poitiers, Diane de, x
Parker, I. C., 179 pollination, artificial, 38
274 / Index
pomegranates, Emy’s use of, 40 rationing, wartime, 196–97, 200
Popsicles, 175, 189; for adults, 212 Read, George: Confectioner, 80, 120
potatoes, introduction to Europe, 11 refrigeration, mechanical, 92;
powders: for ice cream, 168–69, 209– ammonia-based, 176; effect on ice
10; for sherbets, 7 cream industry, 162, 164, 181
presentation: of American ice creams, refrigeration, underground, 2–3
148–53; of molded ices, 46–47; refrigeration cabinets, electric, 176
trickery in, 47–49 refrigerators, home: consumer
preserves: in ice cream, 44, 65; in ices, 58 publications for, 100, 183, 185; cost
Preston, Frances, 197 of, 176–77; freezer compartments in,
Le Procope (café, Paris), 18, 61, 217n34; 177, 200; frozen desserts using, 185,
intellectuals at, 17 199; ice cream making in, 183–84,
Prohibition, U.S.: ice cream 185, 201, 202, 205
consumption during, xii, 128, 161; Reitano, Stephanie and John, 212, 213
repeal of, 181, 187 rennet tablets, 169, 233n48
proteins, ice-structuring, 209 Restoration, English: ice cream in, xi
puddings, frozen, 66, 69–71; home- Reynolds Metal Company, 174
made, 146–47; Milanaise, 187; roadside stands, ice cream at, 185–86,
Nesselrode, 70, 146–47 190–91
punches: iced, 66–67; Roman, 147–48 Robbins, Irvine, 205
punch water ices, 66–67 Robertson, Helen, 197
Pure Food and Drug Act (U.S., 1906), Rooney, Mickey, 190
109, 164 Rorer, Sarah Tyson, 130–31, 178; Biscuit
pure food movement, 109 Tortoni of, 146; cucumber sorbet of,
151; Dainty Dishes for All the Year
Quick and Easy Desserts (1965), 202 Round, 178; on fillers, 164; on
freezers, 134; “French Ice Creams”
Raffald, Elizabeth: The Experienced En- of, 145; Good Cooking, 140; Ice
glish Housekeeper, 56; on freezing, 57; Creams, Water Ices, Frozen Puddings,
ice cream recipes of, 56–57; use in 140; Philadelphia Cook Book, 133, 144;
U.S., 77 presentation suggestions of, 150;
railroad cars, ice-cooled, 90 Roman punch recipe, 147–48;
railways, ice cream shipments by, 162 sundaes of, 178; World’s Fair Souvenir
Rancatore, Gus, 212, 214 Cook Book, 155–56
Randolph, Mary: clam frappé of, 143; on Rousseau, Jean-Jacques, 17
freezing, 78; peach cream of, 78; The Russell Stover Company, 172, 173–74
Virginia House-Wife, 77
Ranhofer, Charles: baked Alaskas of, saccharometers, 65
150; The Epicurean, 97 saffron, 46
Index / 275
Saint Louis World’s Fair (1904): Middle Eastern, 6–7, 19, 216n19;
exhibitions at, 155–56; ice cream powders for, 7; standards for, 169.
cones at, 155, 156, 159–60, 179 See also sorbetti, Italian
Sala, George: Twice Round the Clock, sherry cobblers, 85
60–61 Sherwood, Mary Elizabeth Wilson, 152
salads, frozen, 185 Simmons, Amelia: American Cookery, 77
saloons, ice cream, 85–86 sixteenth century: ice cream making in,
salt, 16; in American ice cream industry, x; wafers in, 157
161; cost of, 27; re-use of, 27; use in Skinner, Louise, 141
freezing, 3. See also freezing Skyscraper (ice cream cone), 189
saltpeter, 5; in freezing, 3 snows (frozen desserts), 8
sandwiches, 117. See also ice cream soda fountains, 121–26; decline of,
sandwiches 200; in department stores, 124–25;
sawdust, insulating properties of, 89 designs for, 123; in drugstores, 122–
scalci, Italian, 9; duties of, 10 23; female customers of, 124–25;
Schumaker, L. J., 160 frozen salads at, 185; hot drinks at,
Schwab’s drugstore, 190 171; ice cream at, 126–27, 178,
scoops, for ice cream, 152–53 188–89; medicinal beverages of,
scoop shops, 206, 209 124; in movies, 190; origins of, 121;
Scott, John M., 127 popularity of, 128; at Walgreens,
Seabees, Naval: freezer construction by, 190; during World War II,
195 195
Seaman, Eber C., 96 soda waters: flavorings in, 123–24, 125;
Selitzer, Ralph: The Dairy Industry in fruit syrups in, 124; medicinal
America, 110; on sugar prices, 167– properties of, 121, 124; names for,
68; on World War II, 195 122–23; vending of, 122. See also ice
Senn, Charles Herman: Ices, and How to cream sodas
Make Them, 119 Soissons, Comtesse de, 18
serving pieces, made of ice, 151–52 sorbetières (freezing pots), 64, 95, 98,
seventeenth century: chocolate use in, 133; capacity of, 97. See also ice cream
14, 41; coffee in, 15–16, 41; dietetic freezers
beliefs of, 4; dining changes during, sorbets: American terminology for, 145;
1–2, 6; English creams of, 23; ice Iranian, 216n19; Mexican-style, 212;
cream making in, xi; Italian ices of, 1; midmeal, 207
tea in, 41 sorbets, French: freezing process for,
Sévigné, Madame de: on coffee, 16 20–21; lemon, 20; snow consistency
sherbet (Australian beer), 216n18 of, 21, 22; stirring of, 21
sherbets: American definitions of, 145; sorbetti, Italian, 7; aromatic, 51; Baldini
English, 216n18; flavors of, 6–7; on, 51–52; chocolate, 51; cinnamon,
276 / Index
54; Latini’s, 12–14, 20; lemon, 12–13, tea, in ice cream, 43, 67
15; milk, 13–14, 52; molded, 55; teashops, English, 74
Neapolitan, 1, 2, 12, 53; pineapple, 51; Temperance movement, 128; ice cream
strawberry, 15; subacidi, 51. See also consumption during, 161
sherbets Thanksgiving, ice cream at, 154
Southern states, ice for, 89, 91–92 Thomas Mills and Brother (firm),
spas, European: soda water at, 122 98
spoilage, before refrigeration, 27 Thompson, Emery, 163
Sprague, Reginald, 191–92 tomatoes, introduction to Europe, 11
spume, Corrado’s, 54–55 Tontine Coffee House (NY), 122
spumone, 55 torrone candies, 53
Stallings, W. S., Jr., xi Tortoni, M., 71–72
Stefani, Bartolomeo, 8 Tortoni’s Café (Paris), 60, 71–74; biscuit
Steve’s Ice Cream (Somerville, MA), Tortoni, 72–73; closing of, 74; ices of,
206 72; patrons of, 72; plombières of, 69,
Stover, Russell, 172, 173–74 72; popularity of, 71, 72; service to
strawberries, in frozen desserts, 15, 40, carriages, 191
198 Toscanini’s Ice Cream (Cambridge,
sugar: availability of, 27; beet, 94; Ca- MA), 212
ribbean, 94; castor, 229n38; clar- trinciante, Italian, 10; duties of, 11
ifying of, 93; colored, 46; cost of, 75, trionfi (centerpieces), 15
93–95, 167–68; Emy on, 35; Havana, trompe l’oeil presentations, for ices, 47–
93; Hawaiian, 94; impurities in, 28; 49, 50, 207
in jams, 28; loaf, 28, 93–94; mea- truffles, in ice cream, 39
surement of, 20, 65; refining Tudor, Frederick, 87–90; pleasure
methods for, 94–95; storage of, 93– garden of, 90
94; substitutes for, 167–68; Tuer, Andrew: Old London Street Cries,
weighing of, 20 113
sugar cooking, 27–29; Emy on, 35; Tufts, James W., 123
stages of, 28–29 Turner, Lana, 190
sundaes. See ice cream sundaes Twain, Mark, 152
supermarkets, postwar, 200; ice cream Twinkle-Cup (paper cone), 188–89
from, 201, 202–3, 209 Tyree, Marion Fontaine Cabell:
Housekeeping in Old Virginia, 133, 145,
table services, of Gilded Age, 152 146
tammies (strainers), 229n38
Tastee-Freez, 200 Underground Railroad, 100
Taylor, Charles, 186 Unilever (corporation), xiii, 208,
Taylor, Elizabeth, 190 209
Index / 277
Union Army, ice supply for, 89 Wakefield, Ruth: Toll House Tried and
Union Ice Cream Company, annual True Recipes, 201
parade of, 171 Walgreens, soda fountain of, 190
United States: Department of Agricul- Walker, Burr: circulating brine freezer
ture, 168; English cookbooks in, 77; of, 162–63, 189
European confectioners in, 59, 211; Warner-Jenkinson Company: Ice
Food and Drug Administration, Cream, Carbonated Beverages, 165
204; food contamination in, 108–11; Washington Garden (Boston), 82
during Great Depression, 187–91; Weightman, Gavin: The Frozen-Water
ice cream socials in, 154; during Pro- Trade, 88
hibition, xii, 128, 161, 181, 187; Pure Wenham Lake ice, 89–90, 97
Food and Drug Act (1906), 109, West Indies, ice supply for, 88
164; sugar consumption in, 94; Weygandt, Cornelius, 154; Philadelphia
sugar production in, 94; War Pro- Folks, 137–38
duction Board, 194. See also ice What Do We Eat Now? (Robertson,
cream, American; ice cream industry, MacLeod, and Preston), 197, 198,
American 199
wheat, during World War I, 168
Valvona, Antonio, 159 Wheat Ice Cream Company, 163
vanilla: availability of, 38; Emy’s use of, Wheaton, Barbara K.: Victorian Ices &
42; popularity of, 214; wartime Ice Cream, 68
shortages of, 195, 197 whipped cream, 8. See also cream
Van Norman, H. E., 164 desserts
Vaux, Calvert, 84 White, E. F.: The Spatula Soda Water
Vauxhall Garden (London), 82, 84 Guide, 124, 128
Vauxhall Garden (NY), 81, 84 Wilson, Maria: muscadine ice of, 69;
Vauxhall Garden (Philadelphia), use of Borella, 58, 59
82 wine: in French ice cream, 44; frozen, 3,
Velloni, M., 71 215n3
verjus, in mousses, 34 Wollaston Beach (MA), Howard
Villafranca, Blas, 4 Johnson’s at, 180–81
Vine, Frederick T.: Ices: Plain and Woloson, Wendy: Refined Tastes, 94
Decorated, 112 World’s Fair (New York, 1939), ice
Voltaire, at Café Procope, 17, 61 cream novelties at, 189–90
World War I: sugar prices during, 167–
wafers: early, 156–57; graham, 118–19; 68; wheat during, 168
homemade, 157; nineteenth-century, World War II: consumption of ice
157 cream during, xii, 193, 194–95;
278 / Index
cookbooks of, 196–97, 198, 199; En- rationing during, 196–97, 200; soda
glish ice cream during, 202; ice fountains during, 195
cream mixes during, 194–95, 199; Wyeth, Nathaniel, 89
ice cream quality during, 203; ice
cream ships of, 194; Japanese ice zabaglione, 70; frozen and unfrozen, 54
cream consumption during, 193; zalabia (wafers), 159, 160
Index / 279

Of Sugar & Snow, A History of Ice Cream Making

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of sugar and snow

california studies in food and culture

university of california press

University of California Press

University of California Press, Ltd.

© 2009 by Jeri Quinzio

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Manufactured in the United States of America

This book is printed on Cascades Enviro 100, a 100% post

one. Early Ices and Iced Creams / 1

two. Crème de la Cream / 26

three. Ingenious Foreigners and Others / 50

four. The Land of Ice Cream / 75

six. Women’s Work / 129

seven. Modern Times / 155

eight. Ice Cream for Breakfast / 180

epilogue. Industry and Artistry / 208

illustrations follow page 144.

I am grateful to many individuals without whom, as the saying goes, this

Early Ices and Iced Creams

A royal dinner in seventeenth-century Naples was a dazzling spectacle.

2 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

Wine may freeze in Glasses.

Early Ices and Iced Creams / 3

“The Stomach Grows Chilled”

4 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

Early Ices and Iced Creams / 5

6 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

Early Ices and Iced Creams / 7

8 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

Early Ices and Iced Creams / 9

10 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

Early Ices and Iced Creams / 11

PER FARE VENTI GIARE DI SORBETTA DI LIMONE

TO MAKE TWENTY GOBLETS OF LEMON SORBET

12 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

Early Ices and Iced Creams / 13

14 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

Sugar and Snow in France

Early Ices and Iced Creams / 15

Coﬀee was introduced to the French royal court in the mid-seventeenth

16 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

Early Ices and Iced Creams / 17

18 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

Early Ices and Iced Creams / 19

20 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

A chopine was sixteen ounces, and a demi-setier or three poissons, about

Early Ices and Iced Creams / 21

22 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

TO MAKE ICY CREAM

Early Ices and Iced Creams / 23

24 / Early Ices and Iced Creams

Early Ices and Iced Creams / 25

The Art of Ice Cream

The title translates as:

Not So Plain Vanilla

The Art of Compromise

Grand Delights and Deceptions

a table covered, and every appearance of a most plentiful cold repast,