New Zealand Consumes More Ice Cream Per Capita Than Any Other Country, The US Is 2nd

National Ice Cream Day is observed each year on the 3rd Sunday in July and is a part of National Ice Cream Month.  This day is a fun celebration enjoyed with a bowl, cup or cone filled with your favorite flavor of ice cream.

Thousands of years ago, people in the Persian Empire would put snow in a bowl, pour grape-juice concentrate over it and eat it as a treat.  They did this when the weather was hot and used the snow saved in the cool-keeping underground chambers known as “yakhchal,” or taken from the snowfall that remained at the top of the mountains by the summer capital.

It is believed that ice cream was first introduced into the United States by Quaker colonists who brought their ice cream recipes with them.  Their ice cream was sold at shops in New York and other cities during the colonial era.

1. Ice cream’s origins are known to reach back at least the 4th century B.C., although no specific date of origin nor inventor has been indisputably credited with its discovery.  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.
2. Ben Franklin, George Washington and Thomas Jefferson enjoyed ice cream.
3. 1813 -First Lady Dolley Madison served ice cream at the Inaugural Ball.
4. 1832 – African American confectioner, Augustus Jackson, created multiple ice cream recipes as well as a superior technique to manufacture ice cream.
5. 1843 – Philadelphian, Nancy Johnson, received the first U.S. patent for a small-scale hand-cranked ice cream freezer.
6. 1920 – Harry Burt puts the first ice cream trucks on the streets.
7. Thomas Jefferson’s recipe for Old Fashioned Vanilla Ice Cream is believed to be the oldest recipe for ice cream in the USA.
8. In 1984, President Ronald Reagan proclaimed July as National Ice Cream Month and established National Ice Cream Day as the third Sunday in the month of July.
9. New Zealand consumes more ice cream per capita than any other country, with an average of 7.5 gallons per person per year.
10. The US is second, with an average of 5.5 gallons per person per year. That’s 44 pints!
11. Worldwide, around 15 billion liters (3.3 billion gallons) of ice cream are consumed every year, enough to fill 5,000 Olympic swimming pools.
12. Ever noticed that when your pint melts and then re-freezes it ends up a different texture? That’s because ice cream has tiny, microscopic air bubbles in it that keep it soft and fluffy. When it melts, the molecular structure breaks down, and the air escapes. So when you re-freeze it and then go to grab a scoop, it’s not as soft
13. Ever gotten an ice cream headache from eating your Phish Food a little too quickly? This is what’s really going on: when something really cold touches the roof of your mouth, the blood vessels that run between your mouth and your brain tense up, trapping blood in your brain. The pressure from that extra blood causes the brain pain. If it’s particularly bad, try pressing your tongue against the roof of your mouth — this warms the roof up enough that the vessels will unclench.
14. The world record for the largest ice cream cone ever made was achieved in 2015 in Norway with a cone over 10 feet high!
15. Ever wonder why Ben & Jerry’s is so fond of chunky flavors? Blame it on Ben. He has anosmia, which means he has no sense of smell and almost no sense of taste. So, what does he enjoy about ice cream? The creamy, chunky texture! Over the years it caught on, and now our fans love those funky chunks.
16. According to NASA, ice cream is one of the three foods astronauts miss the most when they go on space missions. The other two? Pizza and soda.
17. One of the first places to serve ice cream to the general public in Europe was Café Procope in France, which started serving it in the late 18th century. The ice cream was made from a combination of milk, cream, butter, and eggs.
18. Hawaiian Punch was Originally an Ice Cream Topping.
19. Ice cream testers use gold spoons to be able to taste the product 100% without a slight percentage of ‘after-taste’ from typical spoons. John Harrison, the official taste-tester for Dreyer’s Ice Cream, has his tongue insured for $1 million.
20. The most ice cream scoops balanced on a cone is 121 and was achieved by Dimitri Panciera (Italy) inForno di Zoldo, Italy, on 20 September 2015.

Sources:

National Day Calendar

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