A short history of ice cream
From drinks chilled with ice through Italian ice cream makers to Eskymo and Polárka — what we know for certain about the history of ice cream.
Ice cream has a long history, but plenty of legends circulate around it too. In this article we stick to what is documented in the sources, and where stories are repeated without evidence, we say so openly. We drew mainly on the English and Czech Wikipedia, which refer to historical literature; this is therefore an overview, not a historical study.
Ice and snow as a delicacy
People were chilling drinks and sweets with ice and snow as early as antiquity. According to historical overviews, the Persians kept ice in cool stores, and sweetened drinks chilled with ice are known from Persian records. Roman texts from the 1st century AD describe sweet dishes sprinkled with snow. In Japan, shaved ice with syrup was eaten in the Heian period, and in the Mughal Empire on the Indian subcontinent a frozen milk delicacy called kulfi was created.
None of this was yet ice cream in today’s sense, though. These were chilled dishes, not frozen and churned ones.
Europe: from sorbet to the cafés of Paris
In Europe, frozen desserts took hold in the 17th century. A catalogue from Montpellier in France, dated 1665, is documented as offering frozen sorbet. In 1686 Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli opened a café in Paris that served frozen desserts; within half a century hundreds more cafés had opened in the city.
In England, ice cream is first mentioned in 1671, at a feast given by King Charles II. The first English printed recipe appeared in 1718 in the collection Mrs. Mary Eales’s Receipts.
Did you know?
The stories that Marco Polo brought ice cream to Italy, that Catherine de’ Medici introduced it to France, or that King Charles I of England paid his cook to keep the recipe secret are legends. Historians have found no evidence for them.
Machines and ice cream for everyone
As long as ice cream was made only by confectioners in select establishments, it was an expensive treat. The turning point came in the 19th century:
- 1843 – in the US, Nancy Johnson was granted a patent for a hand-cranked ice cream maker with a container set in a mixture of ice and salt.
- 1851 – Carlo Gatti opened an ice cream stall in London near Charing Cross station.
- 1888 – a book by Agnes Marshall recommended serving ice cream in a cone.
- 1904 – ice cream cones became hugely popular at the World’s Fair in St. Louis.
The principle of the hand-cranked ice cream maker – a container of mix packed in salt and ice, with a paddle that stirs the mix constantly – is the same one still used today by bucket ice cream makers with a crank. Later it was replaced by electric refrigeration and compressors, on which today’s home and professional machines are based.
Ice cream in the Czech lands
We have fairly good records of the history of ice cream in the Czech lands (according to the Czech Wikipedia):
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1826 | Magdalena Dobromila Rettigová published ice cream recipes in her cookbook – chocolate, strawberry, vanilla, lemon and sour cherry. |
| 1827 | The confectioner Philipp Paska opened a business on Ovocná Street in Prague selling “Italian-style ice cream”. |
| 1839 | The word zmrzlina (ice cream) appears in Jungmann’s dictionary. |
| 2nd half of the 19th century | Ice cream makers from the Italian valleys of Zoldo and Cadore come to the Habsburg monarchy for the summer and sell ice cream from carts. |
| 1934 | Emil Propst in Prague obtained a permit to produce “Eskimo” – ice cream coated in chocolate. |
| 1938 | Jaroslav Vašata launched the “Nanuk” ice lolly on Wenceslas Square. |
| after 1945 | Production was nationalised, and both Nanuk and Eskimo were made by the Laktos company. |
| 1949 | Prague Dairies opened a milk bar selling the “Polárka” frozen cream (a block of ice cream between two wafers). |
According to the Czech Wikipedia, by around 1930 ice cream was sold on practically every street in Prague.
In Slovakia
We haven’t yet been able to verify the history of ice cream in Slovakia in reliable sources. If you know of documented facts – for example about the first confectioners selling ice cream in Bratislava or Košice – we’ll be glad to add them.
From the stall to today’s gelato
In the 20th century ice cream split into two branches: industrial ice cream, packaged and distributed through the cold chain, and artisan ice cream, made in small batches right in the ice cream shop. Today both exist side by side. In Slovakia and Czechia this also includes the typical soft serve from stalls that many people remember from their childhood.
From the home kitchen’s point of view, the circle is complete: with today’s ice cream maker – a compressor machine, a freezer-bowl machine or a crank with ice – you can make ice cream at home much as confectioners did two hundred years ago, only with more precise knowledge of sugars, fat and safety.
Tip
If you want to try the historical method, make ice cream by hand in a container packed with salt and ice. You’ll discover why crank ice cream makers were such a novelty in the 19th century.
Sources
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