Where Did Ice Cream Come From?

As ice cream is my favorite indulgence, I’ve repeated the ice cream origin story which claims Marco Polo brought a recipe back to Italy after his travels to the Far East. I’ve heard the story from others; even an organization as reputable as the International Dairy Food Association makes that claim. It turns out it’s not true.

Despite popular wisdom, Marco Polo didn’t bring back ice cream to Italy. He didn’t bring back pasta either. In fact, there’s some debate as to whether he even made it to China.

Other popular claims about the origin of ice cream include the English discovered “cream ice” with King Charles I having his own personal ice cream maker or that the French invented the frozen dessert when the Italian Catherine de Medici became the wife of Henry II of France. As interesting as these stories are, there’s no concrete evidence that supports any of them.

So where did ice cream come from?

It’s difficult to say conclusively. The emperors of the Tang Dynasty (618 – 907 AD) in China are likely the first to eat “a frozen milk-like confection.” Fermented yogurt made from buffalo, goat, or cow’s milk was thickened with flour, flavored with camphor, and then cooled. The camphor provided the physical sensation of cold on the tongue and in the throat (like menthol) but could also be bitter and pungent (sort of like mothballs). If I ate that version of ice cream today, I might indeed scream (song reference).

Modern ice cream appeared in the 1660’s. Café Procope, the first café in Paris, introduced a recipe blending milk, cream, butter and eggs. At essentially the same time, dairy-based sweet ices appeared in Naples. However, these frozen treats were mostly limited to the rich. At the Feast of St. George in 1671 (the first documented appearance of ice cream in the UK), those diners sitting at Charles II’s table were served a single plate of ice cream while the rest of the guests were not.

The earliest verifiable mention of ice cream in the U.S. that I can find is an advertisement in the New York Gazette on May 12, 1777 which claimed ice cream “may be had almost every day.” These ads continued almost every Monday until November 1777 when the message switched to “ice cream of what sort they will please to order.”

Despite these ads, ice cream was likely still too expensive for most people. Documentation from a The Raab Collection merchant named Joseph Corre shows President George Washington spent approximately $200 during the summer of 1790 (more than $7000 in today’s dollars) for ice cream making equipment. Washington loved ice cream and frequently served it to guests.

Things finally began to change in the 1840’s. Nancy Johnson simplified the process of making ice cream with a patent for an “Artificial Freezer.” Cream was placed into a metal canister which was in turn placed inside a wooden bucket; ice and salt filled the cavity between the bucket and the canister. A hand crank churned the cream consistently, allowing it to freeze smoothly.

A Baltimore milk dealer named Jacob Fussell is often credited with creating the commercial ice cream industry, establishing the first factory to mass-produce ice cream in 1851. Fussell took advantage of industrial-scale production methods, such as shipping by train to increase demand and lower costs. Further improvements in production methods (especially electric motors) fundamentally transformed ice cream from a rare, elite treat into a readily available product.

Today, the annual production of ice cream in the U.S. is more than 6 billion pounds – that’s 25 pints of ice cream per person per year! I wonder which flavor I’ll have tonight…