Ice Cream: The Delicious History

Marilyn Powell has written a cultural history of ice cream that starts way back, and she pushes at the definition of "ice cream" to include all sorts of wet or cold and sweet things that you or I would not have in the house. Did you know that before the invention of home refrigeration, ice cream was a dish only kings could afford to eat, kings and peasants in icy countries? The Crusaders brought ice cream back to England and France from the Moorish and Islamic countries they attempted to conquer, and thus it has Arabic roots: we get the word sherbet from the Arabic, and it is probably Italy that thought first to add milk or dairy to the sugared ice treats folks were enjoying until then, not knowing any better. Even in Beowulf, the carousing soldiers quaff not only mead, but the delicious proto-ice cream a grateful king left out in the snow. Ms. Powell lives in Canada (Toronto to be precise), so her cultural history is very Canadian-centric. She goes back to a local mansion and pores through the household bills, noting that the high society people who lived in this fabulous Spadina House, Alfred and Mary Austin, once ordered enough ice cream for 310 guests in the summer of 1900. She also notes that Canadian literary treasure Timothy Findley recalled his mother, in the Depression, making "snow bread," out of freshly fallen snow. Powell's chapters are studded with recipes all of which sound professional enough, if not exactly tasty. She is also familiar with the Quebec custom of throwing hot maple syrup into fresh snow, and then it hardens into a taffylike substance she relates dimly to the "taste for cold" which she argues has shaped Western civilization for millennia. We see how changing consumer needs, hedged in by modern technology, developed one innovation after another: the ice cream cone, the Eskimo pie, the banana split, right down to today's artifical hemp and soy milk-and-sugar substitute "frozen dessert." Ms. Powell writes the sort of book about ice cream that Virginia Woolf might have written--it's discursive, it's recursive, her style laps back and forth between past and present as if trying on party dresses, there is a continual appeal to friends and neighbors for associative anecdotes. It's appealing, but don't dip your toe in unless you can stand a lot of indecision about which way to go next.

SALT: The Spice that CHANGED THE WORLD, COD: The Fish that CHANGED THE WORLD, BETA: The Video Format that CHANGED THE WORLD... I was a little tired of these histories of "things" that attach such gravitas and world-altering qualities to the subject in question. Thankfully Ice Cream has no such pretensions. It is what it is: a delicious history of ice cream. Powell digs into the fact and fiction surrounding ice cream's history, and we're often delighted to find that the myths and legends are every bit as fascinating--and sometimes more telling--than the actual facts. The author has a light and personal narrative style that makes this a quick, fun read, which fits the subject matter well. It may not CHANGE THE WORLD, but it will certainly make you hungry. Perfect for throwing into the ole beach bag or as a gift, but to be fair to the receiver, make sure you include a pint of the good stuff to go with it.