For Ice Cream Lovers...

When the Italian duchess Catherine de' Medici married the duc d’Orléans in 1533, she is said to have brought with her Italian chefs who had recipes for flavoured ices or sorbets, and introduced them in France. One hundred years later, Charles I of England was supposedly so impressed by the "frozen snow", he offered his own ice cream maker a lifetime pension in return for keeping the formula secret, so ice cream could be a royal prerogative. Ice cream was introduced to the United States by Quaker colonists who brought their ice cream recipes with them. Confectioners sold ice cream at their shops in New York and other cities during the colonial era. Benjamin Franklin, George Washington, and Thomas Jefferson were known to have regularly eaten and served ice cream. Ice cream became popular throughout the world in the second half of the 20th century after cheap refrigeration became common. There was an explosion of ice cream stores and of flavours and types.

Reliable evidence proves that ice cream cones were served in the 19th century, and their popularity increased greatly during the St. Louis World's Fair in 1904. According to legend, an ice cream seller had run out of the cardboard dishes used to put ice cream scoops in. Next door was a waffle booth, unsuccessful due to intense heat; the waffle maker offered to make cones by rolling up his waffles and the new product sold well and was widely copied.



Australia’s consumption of ice-cream is estimated at 18 litres per head, third only to New Zealand and the USA. In January this year, Choice magazine recruited 60 people to test 32 varieties of vanilla ice cream. Vanilla is not as straightforward as you'd think. 


So even though its winter, ice cream is still delightful at this time of year!
Freeze slowly, Pete