__ .HISTORY OF ICE CREAM.
Ice
Cream - History The history of ice cream goes back a long way - possibly to
around 200BC in China - but certainly to the point where much of its early
history is no more than folklore. Many stories abound of famous people enjoying
early forms of ice cream - from the Roman Emperor Nero who is said to have had
snow brought down from the mountains to freeze his favorite drinks, to Marco
Polo the medieval explorer (1254-1324) who returned from the Far East with a
type of ice cream sorbet recipe, to King Charles
I of England whose cook developed a frozen cream recipe. The first step towards
giving us the kind of ice cream we enjoy today was made by Nancy Johnson (USA)
who invented the hand-crank freezer (1846). Ice cream first became a real treat
for 'ordinary people' from about 1850 onwards; in the UK it was the love of ice
cream amongst Italian immigrants that sparked a new level of interest in the
food