SC - Ice Cream and Martha Washington

[Philip & Susan Troy]

> Date: Wed, 31 Dec 1997 10:39:21 -0600
> From: L Herr-Gelatt and J R Gelatt <liontamr at ptd.net>
> Subject: SC - Ice Cream in Period (not)

> Ice cream makes its first truly historical appearance (is given leterary
> mention)at the table of Mrs. Martha Washington (NOT the woman who
> owned/added to the M.W. Cookbook , but the 1st American President's Wife).
> It seems her inclusion of icecream was a big novelty, and one she imported
> from Europe, being a new invention. This, naturally, happened after the
> American Revolution, which took place OOP for us.

Could be wrong, but it was my understanding that the Martha Washington
who owned/added to the MW Boke of Cookerye _was_ the 1st American
President's wife. The book didn't pass down from generation to
generation of Washingtons, but along a family of some other name which I
forget at the moment. Of course, it did pass along several generations,
and some of the recipes in it are quite old, and some perhaps even
period (16th-17th centuries, although which ones, it's hard to say). MW
also passed it on to subsequent generations, so some of the entries in
it are probably nineteenth century.

Apart from the odd mentions of sherbet in Islamic sources, which refer
to fruit purees and/or juices sweetened with honey and cooled by
evaporation (ever see those unglazed terracotta wine cooler
thingummies?), but nowhere near close to freezing, I'm aware that the
Romans did various things with ice imported from the Alps and similar
places. Again, freezing food with ice requires an endothermic reaction,
the technology for which was, I believe, unknown in period. A given mass
of ice, at 0 degrees C., plus a given mass of food, at some temperature
above that, cannot equal an aggregate mass at a temperature of 0 degrees
C. or below. For that, you have to do the thing with the salt. So,
basically, the Romans and other folks, like Roger Bacon, IIRC, knew that
food could be refrigerated with snow and/or ice, but I don't think they
could have done much freezing without the help of Ol' Man Winter
hisself.

My guess (and it's only a guess) is that you won't find recognizable ice
cream until 16th or 17th century Italy.

Adamantius, who also once served melon sorbet at a Middle Eastern feast,
in July. We brought it in the night before, and discovered, to our
horror, that it had mysteriously grown very cold, and somewhat solid.
Perfectly good sherbet, though, for all that. A shame to waste it.
Everyone was vastly disappointed, as you can tell ;  )
============================================================================

To be removed from the SCA-Cooks mailing list, please send a message to
Majordomo at Ansteorra.ORG with the message body of "unsubscribe SCA-Cooks".

============================================================================