We have all tasted ice cream but there was once a time when it was a rare treat. The first ice cream was thought to have originated in China. But instead of ice cream we know today, they had shaved ice covered with milk, fruits and spices so it was more of a sherbet than ice cream. Eventually Marco Polo took the recipe for the sherbet and brought it to Italy and then it spread to France, Rome, Greece, and England. When it was brought to England, Gerald Tissain, King Charles royal chef, made the modern ice cream we know and love today by adding frozen cream. When ice cream was brought to England only the wealthy could enjoy it because it required an expensive ice box to keep it from melting. In 1834 Jacob Perkins invented the refrigerator which inspired Jacob Fussel to bring ice cream to everyone by starting his own ice cream factory. Then everyone could enjoy ice cream and new flavors were on the rise.
People got very creative when inventing new ice cream flavors. The basic flavors like strawberry, vanilla and chocolate were followed by unique flavors like ube, coconut, lemon, avocado, caramel, cotton candy, bubble gum, mac n cheese, crab, and more! There are also savory flavors like parmesan, blue cheese, queso cheese, curry, and butter popcorn. The craziest flavors of ice cream are glow in the dark ice cream that glows under UV light. The glowing ice cream has a fluorescent protein that comes from jellyfish. Chameleon ice cream changes colors – from blue to pink then purple. There are carefully chosen natural colors that react to the acid found on your tongue so the colors change as you lick it. And last but not least non-melt ice cream has been invented. The ice cream is mixed with fruit fibers before freezing it so it stays frozen for 24 hours before melting. All these ice cream flavors can be found in different shops!
I have visited many great ice cream shops around the country. One of my favorite ice cream shops that I loved is Mayday. Mayday is located in St. Augustine where my mom and I got peppermint and the aviator (chocolate and Nutella ice cream blended with chunks of biscoff cookies and chopped hazelnuts). Another is Scoop Deck in Wells, Maine where they have over 50 flavors to choose from – I got cotton candy ice cream. A third favorite is Morgan’s ice cream in Fort Worth, TX where they had homemade cones and the “best strawberry ice cream you’ll ever have”. They were right!
If I invented my own flavor it would be called The Beagle and it would contain vanilla ice cream with caramel and Nutella swirls, mixed with chocolate chips and big marshmallows! What would you create?
