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Entertainment Topics
Summer Celebrations 1: Family Fun on Little-Known Holidays
June 8 — First Commercial Ice Cream
Ah, the creamy sweetness of a spoonful of ice cream. The delicious
chill, the smooth glide down the throat — it’s just the thing
for a hot summer night. What would summer be without ice cream? It’s
the perfect match.
In fact, the whole of July is set aside as
National Ice Cream Month. But we’ll celebrate it this day, the anniversary
of the first commercially made and advertised ice cream in America. In
1786, a Mr. Hall of Chatham Street in New York City put an ad in the
newspaper to tell customers that he was now in the business of selling
ice cream.
Not that ice cream was a new thing. Here are some highlights
of ice-cream history:
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No business like snow business: Emperor Nero in Rome has runners bring down high mountain snow to flavor with fruit juices
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But could they make a freezer pop?: The Chinese, also inventors
of fireworks, create a treat much like today’s sherbet. Marco
Polo brings the recipe back to Europe.
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He had to table this idea: William Bladen, governor of Maryland,
becomes the first person in America known to have served ice cream.
He likes it “with the Strawberries and Milk.”
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No wonder he needed wooden teeth: In one summer alone, George Washington runs up a $200 tab buying ice cream in New York City.
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Writing the Declaration of Independence took less time: Thomas Jefferson makes his own recipe for ice cream, which includes 18 steps.
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That’s what it’s all about: By 1900, street vendors
of ice cream are called “hokey-pokey men.”
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Don’t waffle, who did it? Two different men invent the ice-cream cone around 1903. Who
gets credit?
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Hey, let’s not get personal, bud: By the 1920s, soda fountains
in drug stores are wildly popular, selling carbonated ice-cream drinks
served by “soda jerks.”
Soda jerks created their own language for the orders they’d call out.
See if you can match the food
with the wacky name they gave it.
Which leads
to today’s activity for your family. Like many imagination exercises,
this starts with a “what if” question. What if Mr. Hall
had not been a New York businessman? What if instead of stopping
in the big city, he went out into the wilderness to perfect his recipes?
What if his first ad was for Mountain Man Ice Cream?
Think of the strange names he would have for ice cream and toppings!
On second thought, let me think of some. Use my Mountain
Man Ice-Cream Menu (pdf) to get your kids to place orders for an ice-cream sundae adventure.
They may have no idea what they’re getting. That’s the fun
of it! Here’s the translation, so you know what they’re ordering.
Have a few minutes on a hot summer night? Then dish up some family
fun!
— Bruce Van Patter
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