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We All Scream for Ice Cream!

© Virginia Marin

Ice cream was not a common eighteenth-century dessert on the European continent and probably not more than a handful of Americans had ever tasted this sweet, icy concoction...

...But ice cream was popular in France where it was served up in giant heaps, regardless of the weather and, as the story goes, Lafayette introduced George Washington to this icy delicacy.

It is told that Washington bought the first recorded ice-cream freezer in America. The story is supported by his ledger for May 1784, which shows an expenditure of almost two pounds for a cream machine for ice. He also possessed two pewter ice cream pots at Mt. Vernon.

Thomas Jefferson, too, enjoyed ice cream and left several recipes for the dessert--though he guarded carefully his secret recipe for French ice cream. Jefferson had tasted vanilla ice cream in France and was most disappointed when he returned to America to find the vanilla bean was virtually unheard of. In 1791 he requested William Short, the American charge de affairs, in Paris to send him fifty pods of vanilla so that he could introduce this new flavor to his friends. The following recipe is adapted from those used at Monticello but whether it is his secret recipe or not is unknown:

4 cups light cream
1 2-inch piece of vanilla bean (equal to 2 teaspoons vanilla extract)
6 egg yolks
1 cup sugar
Put the vanilla bean in the cream and scald the cream. Remove the bean and reserve. Beat the egg yolks until thick and lemon colored. Add sugar. Slowly add hot cream to this mixture, stirring constantly. Add vanilla seeds from the bean. Cook in top of double boiler over barely simmering water until the custard coats the spoon, about 10 minutes. (At this point add vanilla extract if beans are unavailable). Pour the mixture into an ice-cream freezer and turn until frozen. Remove paddle from ice cream, replace top, and let the ice cream sit in the ice covered with a canvas or heavy towel until ready to serve in about 30 to 60 minutes.

To serve according to Thomas Jefferson's instructions, remove paddle, and "put it in moulds, jostling it well down on the knee, then put the mould into the same bucket of ice, leave it there to the moment of serving it. To withdraw it, immerse the mound in warm water, tossing it well until it will come out and turn it into a plate." The recipe makes 2 quarts of ice cream.

The copyright of the article We All Scream for Ice Cream! in Folklore is owned by Larry Low. Permission to republish We All Scream for Ice Cream! in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.