Can I have a taste of your ice cream

Can I have a taste of your ice cream

The occasional heatwaves we have been experiencing recently have made it more common to see children and adults outside. The sight of children with ice cream on their faces is becoming more common outside the museum.

While ice cream and sorbets have become a staple of summer, it might surprise you to learn that semi-frozen desserts were enjoyed in some parts of Europe more than 300 years ago.

The 16 th century saw the revival of the Roman tradition of using snow to chill wine and food. Despite the widespread belief that ice is bad for your health, Italian chefs developed recipes for semi-frozen desserts during the 17 th century. The interest in using ice for new dishes quickly spread from Italy to France. This was a time when ice preparation was a complex task, especially for extravagant events at Louis XIV.

Two types of ice desserts were popular: glace rare (made from frozen fruit pulp), and fromage glace (made using cream). In Paris, the first ice cream shop was opened in 1670. Soon after that, a recipe for flavoured Ices was published in French by Nicholas Lemery in 1674’s “Recueil des curiositez rares Et Nouvelles de Plus Admirables Effets de La Nature”. The Parisian style of ‘Ices’ was quickly adopted by the rest Europe.

The wealthy were able to keep anything or make it cold during summer in this time period. The process of creating a year-round supply of ice required the use an ice-house. Ice cream was a seasonal delicacy that required natural ice.

The winter snow and ice would then be collected, and stored underground in ice houses for later use. These buildings were designed in a variety of ways. Some were underground chambers that were close to natural sources like rivers or lakes. Others were built with different types of insulation. The ice wasn’t clean so it was not consumed. Instead, it was used to cool food or drinks by being applied to their containers.

Another purpose of ice was cooling the water for use in wine glass coolers. These coolers were used to cool wine glasses and rinse them off after a meal. These coolers would have been filled up with iced waters and the glass could be placed in the cooler each time it was empty to be ‘refreshed.’ The new Europe Galleries will feature the wine glass cooler (below).

There were at least two cookbooks that included instructions on making ice cream in a home environment by 1692. To improve the freezing properties of the ice, salt or saltpetre would be added to a large container. The mixture would be placed in a large container , which is a watertight container. To speed up the freezing process, the mixture should be turned periodically and moved around intermittently. Mrs. Mary Eales’s Receipts was published in London in 1718.