Many of us love ice cream , but few know that there are so many legends and fables about this delicacy, some of which are confirmed, and some remain just assumptions. It is generally accepted that Marco Polo brought ice cream to Europe. During one of his travels to China, he saw ice cream being made and brought the recipe back to Italy, where it spread. But there is another version. When Catherine de Medici traveled to France to marry the Duke of Orleans , she took with her a chef who knew the secret of ice cream making. Charles I made him his own ice cream maker with a lifelong pension, on the condition that he would not reveal his secret to anyone, thus making ice cream a royal privilege. And another story: long ago, Charles I of England hosted a grand banquet for his family and friends. A variety of dishes and desserts were served. But the chef was tasked with creating something unusual and new to surprise everyone. After much toil, the royal chef concocted a clearly new dish. It was cold and reminiscent of freshly fallen snow, but creamier and sweeter than any other after-dinner dessert. The guests were delighted, as was Charles , who summoned the chef and asked him not to divulge the frozen custard recipe. The king wanted this delicacy served exclusively at the royal table and offered the chef 500 pounds a year for it. A short time later, however, poor Charles fell out of favor with his subjects and was beheaded. But by then, the secret of frozen custard was no longer a secret. A chef named De Marco had broken his promise.
Ice cream arrived in America in 1774. A caterer named Phillip Lenzi announced in New York newspapers that he had just arrived from London and would be selling various confections, including ice cream. Dolley Madison , wife of US President James Madison , served ice cream at her husband's inaugural ball in 1813.
The first improvement in ice cream production (from the manual method in a large bowl) was given to us by a New Jersey woman, Nancy Johnson , who invented the hand-cranked freezer in 1846. This device is still familiar to many. By turning the handle, it churns a vessel containing an ice cream mixture in a layer of salt and ice until it freezes. Because Nancy Johnson lacked the foresight to patent the invention, her name does not appear in the patent records. But a similar type of freezer was patented on May 30, 1848, by a Mr. Yonge , who at least had the courtesy to call it the "Johnson Patent for an Ice Cream Freezer." Commercial production began in North America in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1851 by Jacob Fussell, now known as the father of the American ice cream industry. Around 1926, the first commercially successful continuous freezer was perfected. Developed by Clarence Vogt and later produced by other manufacturers, the continuous freezer allowed for mass production of this product. The first person to sell ice cream was Thomas Webb , a Canadian confectioner from Toronto, around 1850. William Nelson produced his first commercial batch of ice cream on Gladstone Avenue in Toronto in 1893, and his company produced ice cream at that location for approximately 100 years. But what's interesting is that it turns out that even in Ancient Rus' they knew the recipe for ice cream. Only in Kievan Rus' was frozen, finely shaved milk with sugar served for dessert. Europe didn't know this recipe; it was the French who came up with the idea of creating a cold dessert based on milk and cream much later. They invented cream ice cream under Napoleon III in the town of Plaubières-le-Bém . The new milk dessert was named after this town—it was called "plombir."
The types and varieties of ice cream then expanded exponentially. Each European nation contributed its own ideas to the creation of this delicious product. Austrians added chocolate to ice cream. Italians, great lovers of mixing the most incredible ingredients, invented assorted ice creams with added fruits, nuts, liqueur, cookie pieces, and even flowers.
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