ICE-CREAM FROM ITALY

Evening Star, Issue 21994, 2 April 1935, Page 11

ICE-CREAM FROM ITALY

FIRST MADE 500 YEARS AGO Many people imagine that ice cream originated in the United States of America, because that is the home of the soda-fountain. But the popular frozen delicacy of to-day was known in Italy 500 years ago (writes Charles Bailey, in the Melbourne ‘Argus’). Until recently the making and selling of ice cream in Britain was wholly in the hands of Italians, but lately their ntono* poly has been broken. To-day Scotland is*the only country, outside Italy, where Italians are supreme in the ice cream business.

Visiters to Paris in the seventeenth century took to England stories of the delights of the “ frozen butter ” on sale in some of the cafes there. They introduced the delicacy to England. There were no refrigerators in those days, and natural ice had to be used. It was a slow and costly business to make ‘‘ butter ice,” as it began to be called. Only rich people could afford to buy it, and it was such a rare and unusual item on a menu—private or public— that the diarists of the day used to record then eating of it. Nowadays millions of tons of ice cream are consumed every week throughout the world, and if a prize were offered to any person in a civilised country who has never tasted ice cream it would be difficult to find one.

The invention of refrigerating plant lias made possible the immense consumption of ice cream, and American enterprise has been the chief factor in bringing within reach of the poorest child what was once a rare delicacy. Much that is untrue has been written about the Italian vendors of ice cream, but there is no doubt that a number of them who used to sell it in the street from gaily decorated barrows were not very particular about the cleanliness of their utensils. But those early ice cream vendors—all of them refugees from their country—did more than anyone else to make ice cream popular in Great Britain. The enormous profits that they made eventually attracted the attention of business men and speculators With the continuous circulation of alarmist reports upon the dangers of eating it, ice cream, as a delicacy, gained popularity slowly among the middle and upper classes. The advent of fast and comfortable Atlantic steamers, with the consequent great increase in the number of British visitors to the United States, was the chief cause in opening the eyes of British people to the delights they were missing. The ice cream business in America was no “ hokey-pokey ” affair, even in the last century, and the variety of the forms in which it was served astonished people who had seen only dirty me cream barrows in back streets. When American visitors to Britain began to demand ice cream of the quality to which they were accustomed at home, even the most conservative of British hotels and caterers were compelled to iustal the requisite plant. Doctors commenced to study the matter, and when they announced that ice cream was a most nutritious food, the most nervous spinster and the most fastidious bachelor did not hesitate any longer to swallow it.

American methods of manufacture and sale are now generally used, and any new' idea in ices that appears in the United States is soon adopted over the world. British hotels and rest.au* rants are now devoting serious attention to ice cream, and the old idea that it was merely a summer dish has disappeared. Strange as it may sound, there is nearly as much ice cream eaten in winter as in summer. At banquets, dances, theatres, and ether indoor gatherings in cold weather. “ ices ” are in great demand. There are still people who maintain that the best ice cream is made from natural ice as it used to be in the days before synthetic ice was known. Many rich people in the United States insist

tipou their ice cream being manufactured from real ice blocks hewn from the great American lakes. The taste for ice cream seems to be universal. Even savages love the first bite. Many firms employ special chemists and chefs solely for the purpose of devising new ice creams, and improving old ones. Fruit and nuts are popular accompaniments of ice cream, but new ways of serving it are continually making their appearance at fashionable hotels and restaurants. There seems no end to the possibilities of ice cream in modern diet. Many people in Britain, including the Prince of Wales, are beginning to favour an iced breakfast. The concoction once regarded as a lamentable weakness of street urchins may now be seen on the best tables in the land. This triumph would surely delight the heart of the man or woman who first made ice cream centuries ago. But, alas, for his fame, the originator of ice cream is unknown.