National Vanilla Ice Cream Day on July 23rd tips its hat at the second most popular flavor in America. Take a bow, vanilla. I scream, you scream, we all scream for…VANILLA ICE CREAM!! Of course, the day is part of National Ice Cream Month and not too far behind National Ice Cream Day.
- Since Americans love vanilla ice cream so much, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that vanilla is the most common flavoring in North America for ice cream. In fact, many people consider vanilla ice cream to be the default flavor.
- Many may be familiar with Thomas Jefferson’s vanilla ice cream recipe. The third president of the United States may have discovered vanilla flavor while visiting France. While he didn’t wouldn’t have been the first to savor the delicious taste of vanilla ice cream, Jefferson enjoyed jotting down recipes. The same applied to ice cream. He also produced a handwritten copy of a vanilla ice cream recipe in the 1780s. Only ten copies remain. In fact, the Library of Congress houses one copy that has a cookie recipe on the flip side.
- Today, the ice cream parlor at Mt. Rushmore in South Dakota serves the same recipe so that anyone can have a taste.
- Vanilla is the only edible fruit of the orchid family, the largest family of flowering plants in the world.
- It’s a tropical orchid, and there are more than 150 varieties of vanilla, though only two types – Bourbon and Tahitian — are used commercially.
- The Olmeca people on the Gulf Coast of Mexico were perhaps the first to use vanilla as a flavoring in beverages.
- The origins of ice cream can be traced back to at least the 4th century B.C. Early references include the Roman emperor Nero (A.D. 37-68) who ordered ice to be brought from the mountains and combined with fruit toppings, and King Tang (A.D. 618-97) of Shang, China who had a method of creating ice and milk concoctions.
- Ice cream was likely brought from China back to Europe.
- Ice cream became available to the general population in France in 1660.
- Ice cream was introduced to America in the 1700’s, but mostly enjoyed by those of status and wealth.
- Americans celebrated the victory of WWII with ice cream. In 1946, they ate more than 20 quarts of ice cream per person.
- It takes 12 lbs. of milk to make just one gallon of ice cream.
- An average dairy cow can produce enough milk in her lifetime to make a little over 9,000 gallons of ice cream.
- The first commercial ice cream plant was established in Baltimore in 1851 by Jacob Fussell.
- The U.S. enjoys an average of 48 pints of ice cream per person, per year, more than any other country.
- Italo Marchiony sold his homemade ice cream from a pushcart on Wall Street. He reduced his overhead caused by customers breaking or wandering off with his serving glasses by baking edible waffle cups with sloping sides and a flat bottom. He patented his idea in 1903.
- It takes an average of 50 licks to polish off a single-scoop ice cream cone.
- “French vanilla” is not a type of vanilla bean (like Tahitian or Madagascar varieties), it’s an ice cream-making method.
- The base of French vanilla ice cream contains egg yolks, and traditionally, the base of plain vanilla ice cream does not
- Top-selling ice cream flavors are: vanilla, with 33 percent of the market, and chocolate, with 19 percent.
- California produces the most ice cream in America.
- Hawaii has a fruit known as the ice cream bean or the monkey tamarind that actually tastes like vanilla ice cream!
- 19% of Americans say they eat ice cream in bed. 3% eat ice cream in the bathtub.
- The world’s first soft-serve ice cream machine was in an Olympia, Washington Dairy Queen.
- In Canada, more ice cream is sold in the winter months than in the summer.
- Hawaiian Punch was originally an ice cream topping
- Eskimo Ice Cream (Akutaq) is made by using a concoction of reindeer fat, seal oil, freshly fallen snow or water, fresh berries and sometimes ground fish. Air is whipped by hand until it cools into foam. Akutaq can also be made with moose, or polar bear meat or fat.
- Ben and Jerry’s has a real physical graveyard in Vermont for retired ice cream flavors.
- Did you know that a 125 mL (1/2 cup) serving of regular vanilla ice cream can be a source of nutrients such as calcium and vitamin A?
- Sorbet is like ice cream but contains no milk.
- Former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher was part of the team that first invented the method of making soft serve ice cream
- Ice cream novelties such as ice cream on sticks and ice cream bars were introduced in the 1920s.
- The first ice cream parlor in America was founded in 1776 (The same year our declaration was made).
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