Hello everyone! How has the weather been treating you guys lately? Warm summer weather usually calls for a cold creamy treat, maybe something that comes in a cone… That’s right! This week we are talking about all things ice cream! What could be more deeply engrained in Americana than this dairy based treat?
The history of ice cream reaches as far back as the 2nd Century BC, however there is no definitive inventor and many iterations. We do know that Alexander the Great enjoyed snow covered in honey, Nero preferred his topped with fruit and juice, and Marco Polo enjoyed something similar to sherbet. Not exactly dairy but the concept had to start somewhere, right? What we know now as ice cream made numerous appearances on the table of King Charles I, and France followed suite thanks to Catherine de Medici marrying King Henry II of France. If we all know anything about Italians, it is that their gelato is like no other. Italy knows cold dairy and they aren’t afraid to use it!
It wasn’t until the mid-1600s, however, that the sensitive teeth fiend entered the public thanks to the first ever café in Paris called Café Procope. Thanks for introducing it to us little people, Café Procope! Ice cream in America sprang up around the mid-1700s, but it wasn’t very common until the 1800s. By this time, America began to manufacture ice cream thanks to technological advancements and motorized delivery services. Now that ice cream was more available, skipping a couple decades ahead to the late 19th Century, more sweet innovations emerged like our beloved ice cream soda. It also became a leading morale boost during World War II, and the popularity only rose from there.
In art, artists like Henry Hintermeister, Norman Rockwell, and Amos Sewell have incorporated ice cream into their work. Hintermeister, whose works are often compared to Norman Rockwell, has a few illustrations where ice cream is involved like A Kiss for Ice Cream depicting a young boy holding up his frozen treat far away from a girl dressed in red kissing his cheek. This illustration appeared on the cover of Country Gentleman in 1936. Likewise Norman Rockwell’s Boy with Melting Ice Cream depicting a young man holding two melting ice cream cones appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1940. Another prolific artist, Amos Sewell, also had his fair share of ice cream fun. His work, Out of Ice Cream, depalexander the greaticts crying children and an empty tub of ice cream at a birthday party. This work then appeared on the cover of The Saturday Evening Post in 1953. See? Ice cream can be elevated into fine arts too! Make sure to enjoy July, the month of Ice cream, and stay cool!
