In A Cone, In A Cup Or On A Stick: Ice Cream

What's summer without ice cream? Unimaginable! In China, natural ice and snow were turned into sorbet-like desserts five thousand years ago. In antiquity, Hippocrates and Alexander the Great enjoyed water ice. In Renaissance Italy, granita (a mixture of fruit puree and frozen water) was a speciality. Milk ice has probably been around for over a thousand years in China, where saltpetre was used for cooling. With colonialism and the exploitation of the colonies, chocolate and sugar were added to ice cream. Ice cream became popular in European coffee houses. ‘Hokey pokey men’ sold ice cream in the 19th century in Great Britain in paper cups that cost a penny and were called ‘penny licks’. Italian ice cream parlours have probably been around in Germany since the 1920s.