1. Legend has it that Emperor Nero was the creator of sorbet around 62 A.D. He supposedly had slave runners collect snow in buckets and bring it to his banquet hall where it was mixed with honey, nuts and wine. Bet it melted quickly when Rome burned.
2. King Charles of England loved “frozen snow” so much that he offered the royal ice cream maker a lifetime pension to keep the recipe secret, believing that the sweet treat was something only fit for royalty.
3. The hand-cranked ice cream churn was invented in 1846 by American Nancy Johnson.
4. Turkish ice cream is taffy-like in consistency and a main ingredient is the groung root of a a wild orchid.
5. In Japan, the third most popular flavor of ice cream is matcha (powdered green tea).
6. In the USA, Portland, St. Louis and Seattle lead the country in per capita ice cream consumption.
7. The first U.S. ice cream parlor opened in 1776 in New York City.
8. More ice cream is sold on Sunday than any other day of the week.
9. Anecdotal history credits an ice cream vendor at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis as the inventor of the ice cream cone. Reportedly, he didn’t have enough dishes to keep up with demand, so he teamed up with a waffle vendor who rolled his product into “cornucopias.”
10. The first commercial ice cream plant opened was established in Baltimore, Maryland, in 1851 by Jacob Fussell.
Some of the material included here came from MakeIceCream.com.