Never ask a woman who is eating ice cream straight from the carton how she’s doing.~
The topic of ice cream has come up a number of times in the past week. Of course, two of my grands were in town, and that might account for conversational bents. Before you start thinking this whole post is going to be a sweet treat like the cotton candy post, let me assure you it is not. Please read on.
Origins
Where it started depends on who you ask and how you define ice cream. So it’s like talking about insurance. It depends.
Seriously, according to The Ice Cream Alliance, this treat may well have been enjoyed for the first time during the Tang Dynasty (as early as the 7th century). Frosty concoctions had been whipped up before then, but those recipes did not include any kind of milk. The Chinese had a variety of options to provide dairy: milk from cows, buffaloes, or goats.
The inventor would have added some flavorings, such as camphor, oddly enough. Then they heated the milk using flour. What the heck? I tried, but couldn’t find any articles that explained this. If YOU understand, please let me know.
Once the ingredients were mixed, they were poured into metal tubes, then chilled in an icy pool.
The Arabs seemed to have a better recipe. In the early 17th century they created what we call sherbet. They used fruit, maybe cherries or pomegranates, for flavoring. That sounds much more appetizing than camphor. But with camphor you could clear your sinuses while you have dessert. There’s that.
Good ideas spread and this one traveled to Europe where it was manipulated further. More on that in a minute or so, depending on fast you read.
Difference in Gelato and Ice Cream
Some years back we visited Italy, and the gelaterias were as thick as Waffle Houses in Atlanta. My husband, Andy, and my stepson, Greg, were all over it. It didn’t appeal to me so much and now I know why. Here are some of the differences, based on what I gleaned from NPR’s The Salt:
- Gelato has
- A denser texture
- Fat content less than 10%
- Less cream (proportionate to milk) than ice cream
- A creamier texture than ice cream
- Ice cream
- Sometimes includes egg yolks
- Contains more air
- Contains more sugar
- Can have up to 25% fat
Sigh. How can ice cream have more butter fat, but gelato is denser? It’s so confusing. Also, the comment about the egg yolks – I’m glad they qualified the comment with “sometimes” because if you add eggs, it’s custard, right? I’ve made ice cream a number of times and I’ve never added eggs. I’m sure my mother didn’t, either, because back 50 years ago almost nobody ate uncooked eggs in anything. And if you’re going to cook the eggs first, just make boiled custard and have done with it.
Let’s get back to origins and Europe. We have the Italians to thank for creating the first sorbet that included milk (so not really sorbet), and he wrote down the recipe. A Spanish Viceroy in the late 17th century “needed” a good dessert that no one else in his circle was enjoying, I suppose. Antonio Laini was tasked with the job and he gets the credit for the “first official ice cream” according to Medium.
Variations
Ok. Not variations, necessarily, but terms people sometimes use interchangeably when they shouldn’t. Here’s some clarification, thanks to Baskin Robbins and a few others:
- Sorbet doesn’t contain dairy and often tastes more acidic than ice cream. As mentioned above, it was one of the first frozen desserts invented.
- Sherbet, pronounced SHER-bet, is between ice cream and sorbet with regard to dairy. It does include dairy not not as much as the 10% milkfat ice cream has. As a side note, why did I always think it was spelled, and pronounced, SHER-bert?
- Frozen yogurt, according to Healthline, differs from ice cream as the type of dairy used is cultured milk rather than cream.
- Frozen custard always includes egg yolks, according to Southern Living. It has less air than ice cream, so more calories, and cholesterol because of the eggs. But they add protein, so there’s that.
- Snow cream is basically snow and milk and vanilla flavoring. I feel a little sad for people who haven’t enjoyed this earth to table experience. 😉
Of course, there’s one more frozen dessert to talk about, not an interchangeable term, but something off-center. Dippin’ Dots, the company, began in a garage in New Grand Chain, Illinois in 1988, but the idea for the process began in Lexington, KY. According to The Wolf of Franchises, Curt Jones was a microbiologist researching methods to develop nutrient-packed cow feed. He landed on a process using very cold temperatures, around negative 350º.
Sometime later when he was making homemade ice cream, he began to connect the dots, no pun intended. He wondered what would happen if he dropped dabs of ice cream into liquid nitrogen for flash-freezing. Voila! One last fun fact: Dippin’ Dots aren’t in the grocery stores because they don’t keep the freezers there aren’t cold enough for storage.
One more painful detail
One possible side effect of enjoying a spoonful of frozen milk and sugar and flavoring is a headache. According to WebMD, brain freeze, aka an ice cream headache, occurs when you induce a sudden temperature drop in your palate. Its technical name is sphenopalatine ganglion neuralgia, in case you want to wow someone who thinks you don’t know any technical terms. Normally, the pain only lasts 30 seconds (seems like longer to me), but it can be serious for some. For those who suffer from migraines, an ice cream headache can spark another a migraine.
For anyone who creates their own eye-shutting, hand to the forehead pain by gulping that first bite or two of anything frozen, the cure is to increase the temp inside your mouth. Sip a little tepid water and/or put your tongue on the roof of your mouth. You caused it; you can cure it.
All that’s left for me to do is head off to Ted Drewe’s (if only I was in St. Louis) or Culver’s or Steak ‘n Shake. I’ll bet that is one thing on my to-do list that I get to mark as DONE. You?
I love Culvers!!
I do, too! I also like their burgers, but that would be a story for another day. 😉
You can make ice cream? !! Next game night? 😁
Would love to make some ice cream, but I haven’t had the equipment for that in about 20 years. Maybe I’ll check to see if Ace has one. I don’t want the electric kind. Need to go full manual. Stay tuned.
I am one of the few who really does not care for ice cream, sherbet etc.
I like savory treats better, but a little ice cream now and then hits the spot.