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Ice cream is a delicious, popular treat served around the world, but it hasn't been around forever. The creation of ice cream can be traced over centuries and across different empires. What finally brought ice cream to the masses wasn't its great taste. It was changes in technology which allowed it to ultimately become the dessert we know and love today. Learn more about the history and development of ice cream on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. This episode is sponsored by Mint Mobile. Everybody knows someone who insists on doing things the hard way. There's a friend who keeps paying for a subscription they forgot they had, or the one refusing to update their phone just because it still works. Min Mobile exists purely to fix that problem. You get the same coverage, same speed, just without the inflated price tag. That's why I recommend Mint Mobile. For a limited time, get 50% off 3, 6 or 12 month plans of unlimited Premium Wireless. 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I was able to contact a live customer service agent via chat. They confirmed the issue and had a new bag sent to me immediately. The entire process took about a minute. No hoops to jump through and no waiting. Quint's works directly with top factories and cuts out the middleman. So you're not paying for brand markup, just quality clothing. And they also happen to have amazing customer service. Refresh your wardrobe with quince. Go to quints.com daily for free shipping on your order and 365 day returns. Now available in Canada too. That's Q U-I-N-E.com daily free shipping and 365 day returns quints.com daily. Everyone loves ice cream. And if you think you don't like ice cream, you're probably suffering from some sort of memory implant or something else because everyone loves ice cream. While we all know what ice cream is, most people would have a hard time explaining exactly what it is or how it's made. So what exactly is ice cream? Ice cream is usually made from cream or milk and flavored with a sweetener such as sugar, cocoa or vanilla, or with fruit. It's made by cooling the concoction to below the freezing point of water and stirring. By completing these steps, a smooth, quasi solid foam is created at lower temperatures. This foam hardens at warmer temperatures. It has lower viscosity and can revert to a liquid. The scientific basis for this is colloidal emulsion, or a combination of two or more liquids in which one liquid is dispersed as tiny droplets in another. This combination is stabilized by another agent used to make the ice cream. Ice cream can be served in any number of ways. It can be placed in dishes and served with utensils. It can be eaten as finger food and edible cones, or it can even be part of other desserts such as floats and milkshakes. Other popular desserts are similar to ice cream but are not quite the same. The best known example of this is the Italian version, gelato. Gelato differs from ice cream because it's a frozen custard. The main difference between custard and ice cream is how they're made. The custard recipe involves adding small amounts of egg yolk and air into the base, giving the treat a smoother texture. Despite this difference, it's often mistaken for ice cream. Another similar concoction is frozen yogurt or froyo. The main difference is that frozen yogurt uses yogurt as the product space. So where exactly did ice cream come from? The origin of ice cream can be traced back further than you might think. There's no specific date or inventor for ice cream, but there have been many variations of iced or frozen drinks and snacks that can help us understand how it may have developed over time. Ice beverages and desserts have existed for centuries, with origins dating back to 4000 BC in Mesopotamia. During this time, nobles built ice houses along the Euphrates river to help battle the brutal summer heat. The ice came from snow, and ice collected during the winter from nearby mountains, rivers, or highland areas and was transported to the ice houses for storage. Another historic example of using snow and ice to cool beverages occurred in Athens during the 5th century BC when snow was sold on the streets to cool wine. In China, camphor laced water buffalo milk was iced to create a popular sweet drink. And in ancient Rome, iced beverages were often served to the emperor along with added sweeteners like honey. The best example of a proto ice cream can be found in 16th century India where the Mughal emperor sent horse riders into mountain ranges to collect ice for the capital. Once the ice was delivered, it was used to make a dish called kulfi. The treat was made with condensed frozen milk in molds and it's often described as traditional Indian ice cream. There are a few differences between kulfi and ice cream today. The most significant difference is that kulfi is not churned during its creation. This makes the dish denser than ice cream. Because of this key difference, kulfi is often considered a frozen dessert in its own right. Meanwhile, over in Europe, they were having their own ice cream. Related discoveries Europeans wrote about a cooling effect caused when ice mixed with salt. The effect was later used to make dishes such as sorbet and ice cream, and much later it would be better understood as the endothermic effect. The introduction of ice cream to Europe is often attributed to Marco Polo, but some people argue that the credit should actually be given to Moorish traders. Polo is credited with bringing sorbet style desserts to Italy after his time in China. It's believed that he had learned of the dish on his travels and brought it home with him. After arrival in Italy, the popular new dish then spread across Europe to its elites. According to popular ice cream legend, sorbet was introduced to France by an Italian, Catherine de Medici, after marrying the French Duke of Orleans in 1533. She is said to have brought Italian chefs to her new home with her. And this is supposedly how sorbet was brought to France. And the story has been pretty much proven to be completely false. During the Medici period in France, there was no documentation of any Italian chefs present. Additionally, ice cream has been proven to exist in France before Catherine de Medici's birth. So it's pretty safe to conclude that the story was false. In England, the first known record of an ice cream related dish being consumed dates to roughly a century later in the mid-1600s. It's reported during that time that Charles I was served frozen snow. He was so impressed by the dessert that he offered the royal ice cream maker a lifetime pension to keep the recipe secret and preserve the treat's royal status. As with the French story, there is little to no evidence of this. So while it might be True, it is most likely just a legend. In the Americas, there were accounts of ice cream being served as early as 1744, with the first lady of colonial Maryland reportedly serving it at a banquet. Not much is known about the development or popularity of ice cream in America until it was advertised in the New York Gazette in 1777. The ad stated that a confectioner named Philip Lenzi had ice cream available almost every day. This suggests that the product had been steadily growing in popularity across America during this period. Ice cream was considered a delicacy for the elite until the mid 18th century. Around this time, ice cream became increasingly accessible to the average person. And much of this was due to the spread of ice houses and commercial ice selling in Europe. It was around the Mediterranean that ice cream first became accessible for the average person. However, for the rest of the continent, it took a bit longer. In England, it generally wasn't accessible to the public until the mid 19th century. This was due to the efforts of a Swiss immigrant named Carlo Gotti. Gotti had set up a stand outside the Charing Cross train station in 1851. At this location, he sold ice cream scoops for one penny each. This was revolutionary for those who wanted ice cream because until his stand, you could only get the treat at an ice house which you needed to have access to. Gotti had gotten around this by building his own ice well that he had cut within the Regent's Canal. One of the most crucial people in the expansion of ice cream's popularity is the queen of ices, Agnes Marshall. Marshall is cited for popularizing ice cream recipes in England. She did this by making dessert consumption a popular middle class corset meals. She ended up writing four books each containing ice cream recipes. In addition, she gave public lectures and suggested new innovations such as using liquid nitrogen to make ice cream. Multiple 19th century innovations helped expand ice cream's popularity. One of the first innovations was the combining of ice cream with soda water. In the 1870s this created ice cream floats. The idea is typically credited with an American named Robert Greene. Another innovation was the ice cream sundae. The origins of the sundae can be traced back to the 19th century and is believed to have been developed as an alternative to ice cream floats. During the late 19th century in the United States, some communities had blue laws in place. Blue laws are state or local regulations that restrict or ban certain activities on Sundays. In some areas, blue laws prohibited the sale of soda on Sundays. To circumvent this law, it's believed that the sundae was invented. The exact origin of the ice cream sundae is unknown, as numerous towns in the United States claim to be its birthplace. As for the ice cream cone, a recipe was first mentioned in one of Agnes Marshall's cookbooks in 1888. In her cookbook, Mrs. A.B. marshall's Book of Cookery, Marshall discusses how to make a cornet. The cornet differs from the modern ice cream cone, but it shares the same function as an edible vessel for holding ice cream. The cornet was made of almond and baked in an oven, and it later became popularized after the St. Louis World's Fair of 1904. In the 20th century, ice cream became increasingly accessible because of reduced refrigeration costs, which increased its popularity. Before modern refrigeration, making ice cream was quite labor intensive. The process included cutting ice from ponds and lakes during the winter and then storing it in underground holes, ice houses or wood frame houses to keep it during the warmer months. It then had to be made by hand in a large tub filled with salt and ice. This is known as the pot freezer method. By doing this, the temperature of the ingredients is lowered through the combination of salt and crushed ice. This method was later replaced by the hand churn method which used similar resources to the pot freezer method but added a hand crank machine to mix the liquid. This resulted in a faster, smoother ice cream. Refrigeration made ice cream innovation much easier since they didn't need to go through all the steps for the ice. Two of these major innovations were the expansion of flavors and the creation of soft serve ice cream. Soft serve ice cream is made similar to regular ice cream, but it contains more air, making it cheaper to produce. The style is served slightly differently from a machine that fills cones or dishes via a spigot and controls the release of the ice cream. Around this time, technical development also occurred in the form of additives. The most notable of these are gluten stabilizing agents. This help prevent ice cream from degrading by protecting it from aging. Today, ice cream can be mass produced, making it a popular treat sold around the world. It can be purchased in cartons, at shops, or at specialty ice cream stores. As of the mid-2020s, the global ice cream market is a major food and beverage segment valued at roughly 105 to 125 billion billion annually and projected to grow to 140 to $200 billion by the 2000 and 30s depending on the report and growth assumptions. In the United States, the domestic ice cream market alone generates about 20 to 22 billion dollars per year, with continued moderate growth projected over the coming decade, ice cream has become a permanent part of the cuisine in almost every country in the world. And for good reason. Because ice cream is awesome and everybody likes it. And that is why there is a great deal of truth to the old saying, I scream, you scream. We all scream for ice cream. The Executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Austin Otkin and Cameron Kiefer. Research and writing for this episode was provided by Olivia Ashe. My big thanks go to everyone who supports the show over on Patreon. Your support helps make this podcast possible. And I also want to remind everyone about the community groups on Facebook and Discord. This is where everything happens that's outside of the show. As always, if you leave a review on any major podcast app or in the above community groups, you too can have it read on the show.