Ice Cream
Who invented the ice cream? Let’s try to make here a short story of the most loved sweet summer.
Once upon a time, to find some cool during the harsh summer days, the only solution was to refrigerate fruit, milk, and honey. A few centuries later, at the end of the ninth century, the Arabs found in Sicily the solution to sweeten the ice: sugar cane! Meanwhile in Sardinia was born the “para panda,” a mixture of sheep milk, dried fruit, and snow!
During the Middle Ages, the first fruit juices were frozen, but only in 1686, “Francesco Procopio dei Coltelli,” a Sicilian chef, managed to create the perfect blend to make Gelato! Francesco also invented the machine for preparation, and he even opened a café in Paris, Procopia cafe`, where you could find “frozen waters,” namely granites, fruit ice creams and sorbets with the most varied tastes. They were so good to attract famous intellectuals of the time including Voltaire, George Sand, Balzac, Victor Hugo, Diderot, D’Alembert, De Musset, Dr. Guillotin. Even Napoleon was a regular client, and one time he pledged his Bicorne (http://www.dictionary.com/browse/bicorn) because he didn`t have the money needed to pay the ice cream offered to his friends!
As is often the case, when it comes to inventions, everyone is ready to get the credit and so, according to other scholars, the first ice cream maker was Ruggeri of Florence who proposed a new fresh sweetness made with cream, zabaione, and fruit!
In the end, then, who invented the ice cream? In my opinion, it’s enough that he was an Italian, to make us be loved even more!
