the evolution of ice cream in
Washington spent approximately $200 for ice
cream during the summer.
1813 Dolley Madison serves a magnificent
strawberry ice cream dome
ice cream plant.
1874 Robert M. Green creates the ice cream
cream while selling soda fountain drinks at an exhibition in
Philadelphia and substitutes vanilla ice cream.
1892 Chester Platt places an ad in the
living in New York, is granted a patent
cream vendor runs out of glass dishes. Ernest A. Hamwi,
a nearby Syrian concessionaire selling a crisp, waffle-like
pastry, rolled one of his wafer-like waffles into the shape
of a cornucopia. The fresh-made cone cooled in a few seconds
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A 1751 cookbook called “The Art of Cookery Made Plain and Easy:
Which Far Exceeds Any Thing of the Kind Yet Published,” by Hannah
Glasse, included a recipe for ice cream. Martha Washington owned a copy of
Glasse’s cookbook and likely put the recipe to use. George
Washington purchased a “cream machine for ice”
in 1784. Records show that while president,
Washington bought an ice cream spoon, tin
molds, and “ice pots.”
We have Thomas Jefferson to thank for
bringing America’s favorite flavor to these
shores. He developed a passion for ice
cream while serving as a diplomat in Paris
in the 1780s. He brought back a recipe for
a French-style vanilla made with egg yolks,
along with 40 vanilla bean pods. The recipe
calls for “2 bottles of good cream, 6 yolks of
eggs, 1/2 lb. sugar” to be flavored with vanilla and
frozen in a sarbottiere (ice freezer). When he was president,
Jefferson had an icehouse built for the President’s House.
First Lady Dolley Madison served it often at White House social occasions,
extending the popularity of ice cream — at least among the wealthy.
At the time, ice cream remained an elite treat due to the expense of
machines and scarcity of ice.
As technology evolved, including the development of ice harvesting and
the invention of the insulated icehouse, and ingredients like sugar became
more affordable, ice cream became available to the less affluent. But it took
two other developments to make ice cream mainstream.
In 1843, Nancy M. Johnson invented an efficient hand-cranked ice
cream freezer, “a new and useful
Improvement in the Art of
Producing Artificial Ices.” An
inner cylinder containing the ice
cream mix was inserted into an
outer wooden pail with crushed
ice and rock salt, and a handle
inserted through the top of the lid
was turned to freeze the mix.
Johnson’s machine made it
possible to make ice cream at
home, but it was Jacob Fussell
who truly took the treat to the
masses when he opened the first
large-scale commercial plant in
Pennsylvania in 1851. Rather
than let his excesses of milk and
cream go sour, he contracted a
local miller, Daniel Henry, to
build an icehouse and factory that
turned them into ice cream. Mass
production cut the cost significantly.
Advances such as industrial
refrigeration, motorized vehicles,
and electric power made it easier
to produce, transport and store.
1777 The first advertisement for ice
cream appears in the “New York
Gazette” on May 12, when confectioner Philip Lenzi
announces its availability “almost every day.”
1790 Records kept by a New York
merchant show that George
at President James Madison’s second inaugural banquet.
1843 Nancy M. Johnson patents a handcranked
ice cream freezer.
1851 Baltimore milk dealer Jacob Fussell
establishes the first large-scale commercial
soda when he runs out of sweet
“Ithaca Daily Journal” for the “Cherry
Sunday” served at Platt & Colt’s
soda fountain. It was born on a Sunday, when
Rev. John M. Scott came in for his usual dish of vanilla
ice cream after services. Platt poured cherry syrup over
the top and added a candied cherry. Another story claims
the ice cream sundae was invented in Evanston, Illinois.
Carbonated drinks were prohibited on the Sabbath, so an
enterprising soda jerk substituted syrup for soda.
1903 Italo Marchiony, an Italian immigrant
for “small pastry cups with sloping sides,” the first known
American cone.
1904 The waffle cone is created at the
World’s Fair in St. Louis when an ice
and the vendor put a scoop of ice cream in it.
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