From 1884 Mrs. Lincoln:

Ice cream and ice cream like foods have a very long history and people have been enjoying them for centuries. The Ancient Chinese, Greeks, Romans and Arabs all had their own recipe for what could be considered the precursors of ice cream and sherbets.

The first true ice cream was made of frozen milk and was a food of the rich and privileged. It was difficult to obtain because it required ice to be brought from mountains.

Ice cream was brought to America through the influence of the English who had enjoyed it for decades before the American colonial period.

(An erroneous legend says Dolly Madison introduced ice cream to America at a White House reception during Madison's administration.)

Before the end of the 18th century, entrepreneurs in Philadelphia and NYC were establishing public ice cream parlors. By the early 1900s ice cream and soda parlors had become very popular.

Geared mechanisms were applied to home ice cream makers (like that pictured at left) after the Civil War, making the work of creating ice cream much easier. The first instance of this ingenuity is thought to be in 1846.

During this period there were 50 different examples of ice cream makers invented.

Perhaps the most familiar is the bucket model in which is placed a narrow tin canister with a dasher and tight lid. Chipped ice and salt were layered around the canister and the canister was manually turned with a handle.

Pictured (left) is the canister with lid. The handle is attached to a paddle inside the canister, which churns the contents. The churning and temperature of the melting ice cause the contents to thicken.

(Some of the information for this description was used from Alice Ross's article "Aren't we lucky").

Also See: Centrifugal Ice Cream Freezer

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