First Ice Cream Flavors
Vanilla may be today's most popular ice cream flavor, but it was not the first. Ice cream evolved from the icy fruit syrups found in China during the 7th century, with flavors like vanilla and chocolate entering the picture more than 1,000 years later. Today, ice cream can be enjoyed anywhere in the world, though its doubtful that you could find many of the first ice cream flavors in your grocery-store freezer. Does this Spark an idea?
Other People Are Reading
-
In the Beginning
-
There is little evidence to suggest that the earliest ice creams contained any flavorings beyond the natural taste of milk. The earliest recipe for ice cream dates back from to the Tang Dynasty -- A.D. 618 to A.D. 817 -- in China, and contained cow's milk, along with milk from horses, goats and water buffalo. While the finished product consisted mostly of ice chips, this is regarded as the earliest "flavor" of ice cream.
Fruits
-
Much like the flavored ices and sorbets that date back to ancient China, the first true ice creams were flavored with fruits like strawberries and apricots. A diary entry from William Black, an early colonist in Virginia, tells of an cream flavored with strawberries that was served at the governor of Maryland's home in 1744. A recipe from "The Experienced English Housewife" written by Elizabeth Raffalds in 1769 contains apricots, but notes that any other fruit on had might be used.
-
Chocolate or Vanilla?
-
The first published recipe for vanilla ice cream comes from "The Virginia Housewife," an American cookbook written by Mary Randolph in 1824. Chocolate ice cream made an appearance in Elizabeth Raffald's cookbook as well, beating vanilla in age by more than 50 years. In 1887, Mary F. Henderson provided the first published recipe for Neapolitan ice cream, combining three separate layers of strawberry, vanilla and chocolate into one block of ice cream.
Vegetables
-
Some of the earliest recipes for ice cream indicate that vegetables and other idiosyncratic ingredients were tested by enterprising chefs. Pureed asparagus, bread crumbs, cheese and ground duck or goose liver -- pate de foie gras -- all found their way into early ice creams. These flavors did not catch on in popularity, though they have provided inspiration for today's gastronomic pioneers. Ice cream expert David Leibovitz published a recipe for candied bacon ice cream in 2008, and many ice cream shops around the country have begun producing specialized flavors in-house.
-
References
- Photo Credit Jupiterimages/Brand X Pictures/Getty Images
