The Amazing History of Ice Cream

The hot weather has turned many of our thoughts to cooling drinks and ice cream – but we are not all having vanilla and chocolate – Heston Blumenthal is making bacon and egg ice cream and we have the recipe along with the amazing history of ice cream and who invented it….

Like those other great inventions – Democracy, The Olympic Games and much of Philosophy, the Greeks probably invented ice cream. Around 500 BC, snow was used to cool drinks in Greece and it was from those iced flavoured drinks that people got the idea to make something more substantially ice cream-like. Recipes for snow-chilled sweets are included in a 1st-century Roman recipe book.  In China during the Tang dynasty records describe a chilled dessert made with flour, water and buffalo milk. 

Closer to home, the first recorded mention of ice cream in England was in 1672 about a dish served at the Feast of St George at Windsor for Charles II. And the first recipe for ice cream in English was published in Mrs. Mary Eales's Receipts, in 1718.

One thing which always tickles me about the history of British Ice Cream is the fact that we have Walls Ice Cream and Walls Sausages. That is no coincidence. Walls needed something to sell during the winter months and so made the sausages to give people something to buy when it was too cold for ice cream.

Anyway, as promised here is the recipe for the bacon and egg ice cream recipe from the unrivalled Heston Blumenthal.