Sunday, October 6, 2013

Ice Cream: A Brief History

By Marquerite Velasquez


If you love ice cream, you are not alone. Billions of people around the world love this sweet treat, which has been around since ancient times. The early version of ice cream is quite different from what we eat today, but we do known that Chinese cooks created desserts sweetened with fruits and consisting of rice and frozen milk as far back as perhaps 200 BC. In Ancient Rome, fruit was used to sweeten frozen milk, and early Arabs combined frozen milk and sugar for a dessert, the known instance of using sugar to sweeten instead of fruit.

Ice cream, as we know it today, appeared in English and American cookbooks in the early 18th century, and the first ice cream shops in America existed during the Colonial Era. Our earliest presidents, including Washington, Jefferson and Madison all enjoyed ice cream, and Madison's wife Dolley even served it at his second inaugural ball. Despite the popularity, it was still a special and rare treat, simply because access to ice was limited for most people.

The first ice house with insulation was created around President Madison's years in office and soon ice cream and ice cream shops really started to boom. Going to the soda fountain for a treat became a highly popular activity, and people loved both ice cream and ice cream sodas. However, soda, especially mixed with ice cream and syrup, was considered a sinful indulgence during the Sabbath and some cities went so far as to ban soda on Sunday. To keep business running smoothly, a soda fountain owner just created a treat called an ice cream sundae, and the problem was solved. The name sundae was spelled differently than the day in order to show respect for this sacred day.

The popular cone was around during the 19th century, but its popularity really boomed after the 1904 Worlds' Fair, which occurred in St. Louis, Missouri. It was a hot day and the waffle vendor was having no luck selling his treat. An adjacent ice cream vendor, on the other hand, sold so much that he ran out of containers. The quick-thinking waffle chef rolled up a waffle and suggested a partnership. The crowd loved the result and the handy and tasty cone just became more and more popular over time. The ice cream soda, the sundae and the cone are just some of the earliest ice cream treats, and today there are hundreds of interesting confections to consider. Americans consume more than a billion gallons of ice cream every single year, no matter what type of form the treat takes.

Now that you've spent some time reading about ice cream, you probably want to find the best ice cream in your area and enjoy a cool ice cream treat. In Los Angeles, you will find the best ice cream options at YoKuMon, an ice cream shop in Culver City. The main attraction at YoKuMon is the ice cream sandwich, but these aren't just any ice cream sandwiches. These are culinary masterpieces that consist of gourmet ice cream pressed between two homemade cookies.

The cookies are a gourmet treat by themselves, and all of them are baked fresh right at YoKuMon. In fact, the staff bakes new batches throughout the day. There are eight cookie varieties and a dozen flavors of ice cream which you can mix and match to suit your tastes. No matter what flavors you choose, the ice cream sandwiches are just $2, so this is not only a delicious treat, it's also quite affordable. In addition to these cookie ice cream sandwiches, you can just order an ice cream cone, a cookie or perhaps opt for sorbet, shaved ice, a milk shake or perhaps a decadent waffle ice cream sandwich topped with chocolate sauce or caramel sauce.




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