Miscellaneous Facts
Toppings:
The favourite topping is still chocolate syrup.
The biggest ice cream sundae ever made was 12 feet high and made with 4,667 gallons of ice cream and 7,000 pounds of toppings in Anaheim, Calif., during 1985.
Vanilla:
80 percent of the world's Vanilla Bean used for ice cream is grown in Madagascar.
Novelties:
Ice cream novelties such as ice cream on sticks and ice cream bars were introduced in the 1920's.
Adults consume nearly one-half of all ice cream novelties.
What causes that intense pain when you eat ice cream too fast?
On a hot, stifling day, there's nothing better than an ice cream cone. As it drips down your hand, you might find yourself licking faster in a futile attempt to salvage the falling ice cream. Then, like a ton of cold bricks, it hits you -- brain freeze! What's going on when this happens? Why does it feel like your eyes are going to pop out of your head? We poked around the Internet and discovered the causes of ice cream headaches.
First we found an article published from the British Medical Journal. According to Dr. Joseph Hulihan of Temple University, about a third of people suffer from "ice cream headaches." The condition is caused by extremely cold foods or beverages that touch the roof of the mouth and set in motion a chain of events. When the nerves that travel to the brain are stimulated, the blood vessels in the front of the head expand and contract like they do during a migraine headache. Even though this sensation typically lasts only 10 to 20 seconds, the pain is mind-numbing.
We next visited a "News for Kids" web page. The page corroborated our earlier finding, adding that "brain freeze" has nothing to do with your brain, it's just the reaction of the blood vessels in your noggin. In addition, we learned a couple of ways to avoid the pain:
* Slow down. Eat cold foods slowly.
* Warm the cold food in the front part of your mouth before swallowing.
* If it's too late and you can feel the pain creeping into your head, hold your tongue against the roof of your mouth to warm the palate. This may help ease the pain a bit.
One thing is for sure: Britain's love their ice cream and don't seem to mind the pain that comes with the pleasure.
Ice Cream Cones
This story is a perfect example of serendipity, and a single chance encounter leading to worldwide repercussions. It’s also rather sweet.
Before 1904, ice cream was served on dishes. It wasn’t until the World’s Fair of that year, held in St Louis, Missouri, that two seemingly unrelated foodstuffs became inexorably linked together.
At this particularly sweltering 1904 World’s Fair, a stall selling ice cream was doing such good business that they were quickly running out of dishes. The neighboring stall wasn’t doing so well, selling Zalabia – a kind of wafer thin waffle from Persia – and the stall owner came up with the idea of rolling them into cone shapes and popping the ice cream on top. Thus the ice cream cone was born – and it doesn’t look like dying out any time soon
Ice Cream
The History of ice Cream
It has often been said that the Chinese invented ice cream and that marco polo brought the idea to Europe in the thirteenth century. This is more myth than historical fact backed by evidence but it can be sated with some confidence that ice cream was invented in China in the first milenium. The process of freezing liquids by immersing them in a mixture of ice and salt, which react together to lower the temperature of the mixture below freezing point, was also invented in the distant past - it was first documented in the thirteenth century. This is how ice cream had to be made until the invention of the freezer in the twentieth century. A vessel containing ice and salt surrounds a container containing the ice cream mixture. The temperature in the ice and salt mix drops, freezing the container's contents. To ensure it freezes evenly, it is generally stirred or rotated.
Picture of Stop Me and Buy One trycycleSince the method of producing ice cream depended on a supply of ice, it was of limited use without that precious commodity. Ice could be gathered from ponds and lakes, in winter, and the storage of ice in ice wells and ice houses goes back several centuries. By packing ice into an insulated underground chamber with adequate drainage ice could be stored for months, sometimes years. Ice remained a luxury and dependant on nature to produce it, and cumbersome methods to harvest it.
Ice cream made with a milk mixture was first recorded in Europe in Italy.. In England, the first recorded serving of this rare luxury was in 1672, to King Charles II, whose table at a banquet was served a delight denied to those sitting at more humble tables. The first English cookery book to give a recipe was Mrs Mary Eales Receipts of 1718. The recipe did not include a process for making the ice smooth and it must hve been coarse with ice crystals. Ice being rare, ice cream was a luxury for the well off in all countries and had to be made and served immediately, there being no way to store it for any great time.
The second half of the nineteenth century was the period in which ice cream became a treat for ordinary people. Italy continued to lead Europe in ice creamery and immigrants to the UK from thee brought with them a tradition and expertise which led to the popular name "Hokey Pokey" which is thought to derive from a corruption of the Italian for "try a little". In other countries too, especially the United States, ice cream gained popularity. The commercial harvesting of ice in cold climates and its transport to population centres was a growth area from the earl nineteenth century. This ice trade made large volumes of ice available at a realistic price and it became possible for ice cream sellers to offer a taste of ice cream to the ordinary person. Ice was sold on glasses which were wiped clean and re-used. These glass "licks" remained in use in London until they were made illegal in 1926 for reasons of public health. Ice cream edible cones were first documented by Mrs Agnes Marshall in her book Fancy Ices of 1894.
The first ice cream bicycles in London were used by Walls in London in about 1923. Cecil Rodd of Walls came up with the slogan "Stop Me and Buy One" after his experiments with doorstep selling in London. In 1924 they expanded the business, setting up new manufacturing facilities and ordering 50 new tricycles. Sales in 1924 were £13,719, in 1927 £444,000. During the war years (1939-45) manufacture of ice cream was severely curtailed, and the tricycles requisitioned for use at military installations. In October 1947 Walls sold 3,300 tricycles and invested in freezers for shops.
How ice cream tickles your brain
Eating ice cream really does make you happy. Scientists have found that a spoonful of the cold stuff lights up the same pleasure centre in the brain as winning money or listening to your favourite music.
Neuroscientists at the Institute of Psychiatry in London scanned the brains of people eating vanilla ice cream. They found an immediate effect on parts of the brain known to activate when people enjoy themselves; these include the orbitofrontal cortex, the "processing" area at the front of the brain.
The research was carried out by Unilever, using ice cream made by Walls, which it owns. Don Darling of Unilever said: "This is the first time that we've been able to show that ice cream makes you happy. Just one spoonful lights up the happy zones of the brain in clinical trials."
The scientists used a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine to watch blood flowing to activated brain areas when people swallowed ice cream.
Developed to investigate the effects of brain damage and disease, the scanners are being increasingly turned to non-medical uses.
Ice Cream Smoothies Birthday Club Milkshakes Confectionery