In the world they consume on average 15.4 billion liters of ice cream every year. The history of ice cream is very ancient. We know that already in the Greek-Roman age there were foods based on snow flavored with fruit syrup and other aromas. Similar preparations spread in various ancient and medieval civilizations. However, only in the sixteenth century it was discovered (or at least, since then it was used on a large scale) the production of artificial icewhich made food refrigeration and the production of ice cream easier. Even more sensitive changes occurred between the nineteenth and twentieth centuries: Industrial ice cream makers, cones, packaged ice creams. Through these innovations and thanks to the more general evolution of society, ice cream has acquired the great popularity it enjoys today.
How much ice cream is consumed in the world and in which countries it is more widespread
We all know what ice cream is: a food based on milk or water, with the addition of sugar and aromas of various kinds, which has semi -content consistency, obtained through a freezing process.
Globally, 15.4 billion liters of ice cream are consumed every year. The food is widespread all over the world, but it is consumed to a greater extent in western countries. More specifically, the states in which the pro-bench consumption is greater, according to the data of World Population Review, are as follows:
- New Zealand: 28.4 liters each
- United States: 20.8
- Australia 18
- Finland 14.2
- Sweden 12
Italy is ranked in ninth placewith an average annual consumption of 8 liters of ice cream each year. But since when is the ice cream exists?
The progenitors of ice cream: from the ancient world to the modern age
The origins of ice cream can be trace already in the ancient worldbut the food was very different from the current one. In the Greek and Roman world it was used to eat flavored snow with honey, fruit, milk and other products. Not existing industrial refrigeration machinery, to produce these primitive ice creams it was used snow collected on the mountains and preserved in special local, in which it melted more slowly.
The sorbets were also consumed in Persia (current Iran), where around the fifth century AD. C. were began to produce foods with aromas and snow called sharbat, from which our word derives sorbet.
Even in China there were such preparations, attested for the first time during the Tang dynasty (years 618-907). From Persia, moreover, the sorbets spread among the Arabic peopleswhich in the ninth century, when they conquered the Sicily“exported” them on the island, giving rise to the tradition of granita.
Modern ice cream
The modern history of ice cream began in the 16th century, when it was discovered (or, at least, the process of creating the creation of artificial ice through the use of salt. In this way the preparation of the ice cream became simpler, but the product remained a food of eliteconsumed only by the exponents of the aristocracy. The ice cream was widespread at the courts of various European countries, but the most appreciated productions were those of the Italian peninsula, in particular those of Naples and Sicily.
A legend has it that an Italian brought ice cream to France: Caterina de ‘Mediciwife of King Henry II from 1547 to 1559 and then regent until 1563, who would have introduced ice cream to the French court, bringing with him an Italian ice cream maker. However, there are no reliable sources on the matter. The story of Francesco Procopio de knifea cook originally from Aci Trezza (Catania), who moved to Paris and in 1686 he founded a ice cream shop: the Café Procope, still existing and considered the oldest coffee in Paris (although today he is transformed into a restaurant).
Outside Europe, inMoghul Empire (located in the current northern India), in the 17th century the Kulfia sort of frozen cream, which was originally flavored with pistachio and saffron, to which other flavors were added.
Gradually the consumption of ice creams spread to a greater extent, while remaining limited to wealthy families. In 1775 the first book dedicated to ice cream was published in Naples, the treatise of the sorbetti of the doctor Filippo Baldiniwhich was not a recipe book but a physical-chemical essay in which the author, contrasting the most common scientific theories at the time, argued that ice creams are advantageous for health.
The industrial age: ice cream from the nineteenth century to today
In the nineteenth century, thanks to the industrial revolution and the economic and social evolution, the ice cream met great changes. From a technological point of view, the most important innovation was the invention of crank ice cream makerpatented in 1843 by the American, Nancy Johnson. The invention opened the way to industrial production of ice creamwho affirmed himself in the following decades.
In the same period another innovation destined for great luck also arrived: the conethat is, an edible waffle to be filled with ice cream. We do not know exactly who first had the idea of putting ice cream in the cones, but it is certain that the first description appeared in 1888 in Book of Cookry (cookbook) of the English chef Agnes B. Marshall.
In the twentieth century other important changes took place, including the affirmation of packaged ice creams. More specifically, the first stacked ice creams were introduced in the 1920s in the United States. In Italy, the first was the Penguinproduced by the Petino ice cream shop in Turin since 1939. It was followed by the Creminomade by the Algida starting from 1946 and the Mottarelloborn in 1951. A few years later, in 1959, Algida began to produce the Croissantthat is, a pre -packaged cone ice cream, still very popular today.
More generally, after the Second World War, the modernization of society and the spread of well -being meant that ice cream would meet a real boom. Tastes have increased dramatically and ice cream has become a food within everyone’s reachdefinitively overcome the phase in which it was an elite product.
