What is the history of ice cream?

0:00 Welcome to Histories Not Boring by kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn. Today we have a massive shout out to some amazing listeners. A big hello to MJ and Finn in Kelowna, Hadley and Grady in New Hampshire, Ewan and Harris in Cheshire, and five-year-old Loreley in North Carolina.

0:22 We also want to shout out six-year-old Sutton in Georgia, 9-year-old Arlo in Galway, Ireland, 8-year-old Hazel and 11-year-old Bailey in Thailand, 6-year-old Bowen in Houston, Texas, and 6-year-old Elena in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

0:41 MJ in Kelowna actually requested today's topic, which is perfect because we are talking about everyone's favourite frozen treat.

0:50 If you haven't already, tap follow wherever you're listening so you never miss an episode.

0:56 Thin, what would you do if I told you that 2000 years ago an emperor wanted a freezing cold dessert so badly that he made people sprint up a mountain to fetch actual snow? Wait, what?

1:11 Run up a mountain for snow.

1:14 Yep. Long before freezers existed, people went to absolute extremes for an icy treat. Today, we're uncovering the delicious, mind-blowing history of ice cream and gelato. So wait, how do you make ice cream without a freezer? Wouldn't it just instantly melt? That was exactly the problem. Imagine life in the year 54 AD during the Roman Empire.

1:39 There was no electricity, no ice machines, and definitely no ice cream trucks playing loud music.

1:46 Just a lot of very hot, very sweaty Romans walking around in togas.

1:52 Exactly. And Roman Emperor Nero Claudius Caesar desperately wanted something cold. So he ordered teams of fast runners to sprint up into the Apennine Mountains, which were up to 50 miles away. Fifty miles? That's like running two marathons just for a snack. They had to relay the snow back down the mountain, passing it from runner to runner, before the blazing hot Italian sun could melt it.

2:18 And when it finally reached Nero's palace, his chefs didn't have chocolate sauce or rainbow sprinkles. What did they put on it then?

2:26 Olive oil?

2:28 Ugh, ew, no! They poured sweet honey, nectar, nuts, and crushed fruit juices over the snow. It was much more like an ancient snow cone than the creamy ice cream we know today.

2:41 I bet those runners were pretty mad they couldn't stay and eat any of it.

2:45 Oh, for sure. But even before Nero, in the 300s BC, the famous Greek conqueror Alexander the Great loved eating mounds of packed snow flavoured with honey while he was marching with his huge army of 40,000 soldiers.

3:01 Imagine being a fierce warrior and demanding a honey snow cone in the middle of a battle.

3:05 But the Romans and Greeks weren't the only ones experimenting with freezing treats. Over in China, during the Tang dynasty, around the year 618 AD, they started using milk. Ooh, now we're talking? That sounds more like real ice cream. It gets pretty weird, Finn. Way before that, King Tang of Shang had a massive palace kitchen with a staff of 2,271 people, and 94 of them were specifically designated as icemen.

3:37 Wait, 94 people whose only job was to deal with ice? That is a lot of snowballs.

3:44 Their job was to gather and store ice. By the Tang Dynasty, chefs took buffalo milk, fermented it so it was thick, mixed it with roasted rice flour, and then flavoured it with something called camphor. Campphor? Is that a type of sweet fruit? Nope. It's actually a strong-smelling oil extracted from an evergreen tree.

4:05 Today, we use camphor in those chest rubs you put on when you have a bad cold.

4:10 Wait, you're telling me they made cough drop flavoured ice cream? That sounds so gross.

4:17 They thought it was absolutely delicious. They would pack this mixture into metal tubes and bury it in ice and salt to freeze it. So where else in the world were people eating snow? In ancient Persia, which is modern-day Iran, they figured out how to keep ice frozen year-round in the blazing hot desert.

4:37 They built giant dome-shaped buildings called yakchals. Ice in the desert? How did it not turn into a giant puddle? These domes were massive, sometimes up to 60 feet tall, and the walls were built using a special mortar called Sirouge.

4:53 What was Sarrouge made of? Let me guess. Mud and rocks.

4:58 Actually, it was a totally waterproof mixture of sand, clay, ash, egg whites, and goat hair.

5:05 Ugh, goat hair and egg whites? That is a crazy recipe for a building.

5:10 It worked perfectly. They use the preserved ice to make a drink called Sharbat, a delicious mix of chilled fruit syrups and snow. That's actually where we get the English word sherbet.

5:22 Okay, so we have mountain snow cones and cough drop milk. But when do we get to the really good, creamy stuff? And I hope nobody put goat hair in the ice cream.

5:33 Thankfully, no. The big shift happened during the Renaissance in Italy, around the year 1559. A brilliant architect and cook named Bernardo Buontalenti was working for the powerful Medici family in Florence.

5:50 Did he have to run up a mountain too?

5:52 Luckily, no. They had much better ways to store ice by then. Bernardo whisked together milk, heavy cream, egg yolks, and sugar, and churned it slowly over a bucket of ice and salt. Wait, why did he add salt to the ice? Wouldn't that make the dessert salty? The salt actually stayed on the outside of the bowl.

6:15 Mixing salt with ice causes a chemical reaction that lowers the freezing temperature, which magically froze the cream mixture inside the bowl. Whoa, science and dessert working together. That's awesome! He created a rich, dense, creamy treat that was the very first Italian gelato. For centuries, ice cream was a huge secret kept by royalty.

6:41 There is even a popular legend that King Charles I of England paid his chef £500 a year just to keep his ice cream recipe a secret.

6:52 Haha, I would have totally spilled the beans for way less money.

6:56 But making ice cream was exhausting work until September 9, 1843, when an American woman named Nancy Johnson changed history. She invented the hand-cranked ice cream freezer in Philadelphia. A hand crank? Like turning a handle on a music box. Exactly. Her machine had a wooden bucket filled with ice and salt and an inner tin cylinder for the cream.

7:24 By turning a handle, a paddle called a dasher scraped the freezing cream off the sides, making the texture incredibly smooth.

7:33 That sounds so much easier than stirring it by hand all day.

7:37 It meant anyone could make two entire quarts of smooth ice cream in just 45 minutes.

7:44 Nancy Johnson is a hero! 45 minutes is way better than running 50 miles up a mountain.

7:50 Because of Nancy's brilliant invention, ice cream went from a super rare treat that only kings and emperors could afford to something everyone could make and enjoy.

8:01 And today, you can get it almost anywhere. But wait, I need to know more weird facts. Surely camphor wasn't the only strange flavour in history.

8:12 Oh, definitely not. When ice cream first became popular in America in the 1700s, people experimented with some truly wild flavours. They had oyster ice cream, parmesan cheese ice cream, and even asparagus ice cream. It was considered a total delicacy. Even George Washington was obsessed with ice cream.

8:40 In the summer of 1790, he spent $200 on ice cream, which is equal to about $5,000 today.

8:50 $5,000 on ice cream? I hope he didn't get brain freeze.

8:55 He even had two special pewter ice cream pots at his house in Mount Vernon. But here's another amazing fact. Do you know how the ice cream cone was invented?

9:05 Was it another brilliant architect who just wanted a crunchy snack?

9:10 Nope, it was a lucky accident. At the 1904 World's Fair in St. Louis, Missouri, over 19 million people attended. An ice cream vendor named Arnold Fornitu was selling so much ice cream that he completely ran out of paper bowls. Oh no! Total disaster! How are you supposed to hold it? Well, right next to him, a man named Ernest Hamwe was selling a Syrian treat called Zalabia, which is a crispy, waffle-like pastry.

9:41 Ernest quickly rolled his warm waffles into the shape of a cone, and Arnold dropped a scoop of ice cream on top.

9:48 And the ice cream cone was born. That has got to be the greatest teamwork in history. Alright, Finn, time for the quiz! Are you ready? Okay, I'm ready.

9:58 First question. Who was the Roman Emperor that sent runners 50 miles to fetch snow for his desserts? Next one. What unusual, strong-smelling oil did the Tang dynasty use to flavour their buffalo milk ice cream? Question three. What was the ancient Persian sweet syrup and snow drink called? Here's number four.

10:34 What did American inventor Nancy Johnson create and patent in 1843? Last question. At the 1904 World's Fair, what crispy Syrian pastry was used to invent the ice cream cone? Great job! Let's see how you did. The first answer is it was Emperor Nero. For question two, they used camphor, which we use in cold medicine today.

11:09 The answer to question three is it was called sharbat, which gave us the word sherbet. Question four, she invented the hand cranked ice cream freezer. And the final answer is it was called Zalabia, a waffle-like pastry.

11:27 I am never taking a simple scoop of vanilla for granted again. Oyster ice cream? I still can't believe it.

11:36 Next time we go for a treat, I'm going to ask them for a big double scoop of camphor and parmesan cheese.

11:43 Ugh, please don't. That sounds absolutely terrible.

11:47 If you loved this sweet episode and think oyster ice cream sounds totally gross, please leave us a five-star review. Just scroll down on your app and tap the stars.

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12:19 See you next time on History's Not Boring.

12:22 Bye everyone.