Ice cream is a summer classic that helps us beat the heat. It’s always delicious, with flavours ranging from lemon slushes to true delicacies made with frozen churned milk and mixed with other ingredients, forming countless different flavours. But where does ice cream come from?

The history of ice cream

Apparently, the Chinese were the first to mix ice with fruit and honey. The Romans also did this, which we know because Emperor Nero used to have snow from the Alps brought to him. Alexander the Great used to bury amphorae with fruit and honey in the snow to make refreshing desserts, and in The Arabian Nights, the Caliphs of Baghdad mixed snow with fruit juices and called them “sharbets”. Marco Polo would introduce them to Europe in the 13th century. In fact, in Spain, popsicles are popularly known as “polos”, owing their name to him! In any case, though, they were difficult to prepare and not many people would make them: they melted quickly and they were only available to those who could carry ice from the mountain tops and store it in underground ice wells.

Milk-based ice creams, similar to those of today, came about in the 16th century. A French cook in the English court mixed fruit juices with milk, a combination that pleased the king so much that he was rewarded. However, the French cook was made to promise not to reveal his recipe.

Yet it was the Italian Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli and his café in Paris that would popularise ice cream, in vanilla and chocolate. They served it in 1686 at what is considered to be the first ice-cream parlour in history!

In the 18th century, ice cream recipes began to appear in cookery books and in 1913 the first ice-cream machine was invented: a large cylinder with blades, which was kept cold by a powerful refrigeration system.

Now that you know all this… wouldn’t it be great to have a plain, custard-flavoured or chocolate ice cream from MYCORNER, with a crunchy biscuit cone filled with Nutella and toppings? Or how about a frozen yoghurt from La Yogurteria by Danone? Mmmmm, yummy!