Ice-Cream

Kids Learning

Ice-Cream

Ice-Cream

‘Ice-cream’ is an all time-favourite with one and all. Have you ever wondered where this fabulous dessert came from?

Ice-cream originated in China. The great explorer, Marco Polo was responsible for taking it to Italy nearly 700 years ago. He was on a trading expedition to China in 1271, when he happened to see some type of frozen food being sold by handcart vendors on the streets of Peking. It was in fact frozen milk, occasionally flavoured with different fruit juices. He was offered it in the form of a gift and he liked it so much that he took it back to Italy.

From there, the secret slowly went to France when Catherine de Medici married the second son of Francis I of France (1533). From France, the ice-cream making technique was carried to the shores of England, by another bride Henrietta Maria, who got married to Charles I in 1630. The next destination was USA. The first wholesale factory to be built was in Baltimore, USA in the year 1851. Business began flourishing in the 1900s with the advent of the refrigerator.

Today, ice-creams come as complete meals with fruits and cake interspersed within. The basis of any type of ice-cream is milk, cream, sugar and possibly eggs. The general constituencies are 80%-85% cream and milk products, 15% sugar, small amounts of flavouring and 0.3% stabilizer (usually gelatine). This latter ingredient ensures the smoothness of ice cream and prevents ice crystals from forming.

Ice cream is and always will be the best way to put someone in a good mood! The next time, your parents or elders tell you that ice-cream is bad for health, make sure you tell them this fact – 1/3 pint of vanilla ice-cream gives you as much of calcium, protein and Vitamin B as a regular half cup of milk and as much of Vitamin A and calories as a single cup of milk!