Of Sugar and Snow: A History of Ice Cream Making

California Studies in Food and Culture #25

by Geraldine M. Quinzio

Was ice cream invented in Philadelphia? How about by the Emperor Nero, when he poured honey over snow? Did Marco Polo first taste it in China and bring recipes back? In this first book to tell ice cream's full story, Jeri Quinzio traces the beloved confection from its earliest appearances in sixteenth-century Europe to the small towns of America and debunks some colorful myths along the way. She explains how ice cream is made, describes its social role, and connects historical events to its business and consumption. A diverting yet serious work of history, Of Sugar and Snow provides a fascinating array of recipes, from a seventeenth-century Italian lemon sorbet to a twentieth-century American strawberry mallobet, and traces how this once elite status symbol became today's universally available and wildly popular treat.

Genres: Food, History, Nonfiction, Food Writing, Reference, Food History, Cooking

280 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2009

Reviews

[Kylie Briggs · Rating 2 out of 5]

Turns out the history of ice cream just isn't that interesting. I would like to try some of the recipes included in the book but it's not a priority for me.

[Eustacia Tan · Rating 4 out of 5]

One day, while browsing the library with my mom and bro, I ran across this book. It's supposed to be a history of ice-cream, so of course I borrowed it. I would have borrowed it even if it were a 1000 page monster. But it wasn't, and I was able to bring it with me on a trip. In fact, I actually finished this book on the train, and my conclusion - ice cream lovers, this is for you.

It's basically a very quick history of ice-cream, but with tons of recipes. I don't know how feasible they are, but I suppose if you already have the habit of collecting antique stuff, it would appeal to you. I quite liked reading it, but I doubt I'd make any of the recipes.

Also, Butter Ice-Cream was also a thing, AND THE BOOK INCLUDES THE RECIPE. If anyone tries it, let me know how it tastes (and if your arteries clog immediately).

But basically, ice-cream was seen as this really expensive treat, since it was hard to get ice. And the ice-industry used to be people getting natural ice (like the opening of Frozen), and then storing them the whole year round in cellars of some sort. And some people used to believe ice-cream was bad, but ice-cream is ice-cream so people ate them anyway. Now imagine this haphazard summary, but in a much more coherent form, and properly charted across the ages, and you have this book.

Personally, I wouldn't have minded, in fact would have preferred it, if the book spent more time on the various fascinating people involved in the creation of ice-cream (Any history scholars want to write that as a non-fiction series?). It felt like the first few hundred years went by so fast, and that most of the history focused on the American history of ice-ream. That was a bit weird for me, since I would think that the ice-cream in Europe would have continued evolving as America's ice-cream evolved. Maybe with their own varieties or something. Especially considering where ice-cream came from.

Overall, this short and sweet book is a succinct introduction to the delicious cold treat we all like to scream for. I would have preferred to read a more detailed history, but I guess there are other ice-cream history books written for this purpose. This seems to be more for the beginner ice-cream historian (like me), to whet their appetite for more.

This review was first posted at Inside the mind of a Bibliophile

[Robert Murphy · Rating 3 out of 5]

I love books like this because I love learning about how things are used over the course of time or how they come to be and change etc. Check out A Splintered History of Wood: Belt-Sander Races, Blind Woodworkers, and Baseball Bats for great example.

This book was good and has a lot of information. I had moments where I was like "Oh cool that's how Dairy Queen was started!" but for some reason I felt like overall that I was never going to make it through the book, which is my only real complaint. I enjoyed the content but just felt like I was NEVER going to get to the end................

[Snail in Danger (Sid) Nicolaides · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the first several chapters of this. It was a wonderfully interesting food history that drew from a diverse array of sources. But once it got to the 20th century, it started to become less interesting. Probably because it was more about large companies and less about individual cooks, entrepreneurs, and housewives.

[Audrey · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fun microhistory on the evolution of ice cream and its industry. Can be quite technical at times, but is pretty interesting throughout. Chapters can be read out of order if you're only interested in a specific era.

[Lynne · Rating 3 out of 5]

I lost interest part way through but after taking a break I enjoyed the last section on ice cream production during WWII.

[Abraham Ray · Rating 5 out of 5]

nice book for the history & the making of ice cream!

[Hilde Helseth]

'A book with “pop”, “sugar” or “challenge” in the title'