One
of the iconic “summer foods of the South” observes its 175-year anniversary in
2018. Can you say ice cream?
We’re
talkin’ homemade ice cream, as prepared in an old-fashioned, hand-cranked ice
cream churn that was patented in 1843 by Nancy M. Johnson of Philadelphia.
Serve
us up some big bowls of vanilla, chocolate, peach, strawberry,
blueberry-lemon…or you-name-it…Southern ice cream. Swallow and wallow. Dagnabbit,
that’s good stuff!
“There
are some foods that have a powerful connection to summer, and ice cream is one
of them,” said Virginia Willis of Augusta Ga., who is a chef and cookbook
author. She was a recent guest blogger for the Southern Foodways Alliance at
the University of Mississippi in Oxford.
“Ice
cream has a magical quality,” Willis wrote. “One lick…instantly brings back
memories of childhood, listening to the rhythmic surge of the ice cream maker
while impatiently waiting on the screened-in porch for an adult to pronounce
that it was ready.”
Truly,
not much is known about inventor Nancy Johnson, but here’s how her churn
worked: An inner canister containing the ice cream ingredients was placed
inside a larger bucket. Ice and rock salt were placed between the two vessels.
(The salt lowers the temperature of the ice.)
Ingeniously,
Nancy Johnson used a crank on the outside of the big bucket that was connected
by meshed gears to a paddle inside. The hand crank moved the paddle that continuously
scraped the frozen milk or cream from the walls of the inner can. Consistent
stirring resulted in smoother ice cream with a consistent texture.
Willis
commented: “There’s nothing like the old-fashioned, metal chamber-style ice
cream maker that uses coarse ice. If you need inspiration (to do it yourself),
take a peek at the ingredient list on some of those ‘home-style’ ice creams in
your grocer’s freezer. They read more like a chemistry manual than an
ingredient list.”
Ten
years after Nancy Johnson’s patent, a company was born in 1853 in Laconia,
N.H., by Thomas Sands. He named it the White Mountain Freezer Company, and it
would become the world’s premier manufacturer of ice cream churns. White
Mountain uses New England white pine to create its handcrafted buckets and has
been for generations.
Company
literature says: “White Mountain has been about making sweet family memories
with ice cream made by hand. We keep our standards high because we know that
White Mountain Ice Cream Makers become part of a family tradition passed from
one generation to the next.
“At
the heart of the White Mountain machine is a uniquely designed, twin-blade ‘dasher’
(the term describes the inner plunger-paddle device). One set of blades turns
clockwise while another set turns counter-clockwise. That motion action
continuously folds the ingredient mixture from the outer walls back onto
itself, creating the smoothest and creamiest ice cream.”
White
Mountain celebrated its centennial anniversary in 1953 by introducing an
electric, motor powered unit that revolutionized homemade ice cream making by
eliminating the need for elbow grease.
In
1881, the editors of Puck, a humor magazine published in New York City,
commented on the societal effects of ice cream: “Summer would not be summer
without ice-cream. Ice-cream is the favorite currency of love.”
Don
Kardong, an American author and marathon runner, comments that if there were no
ice cream, the world would be full of “darkness and chaos.”
Both
of these comments can be found in “The Quote Garden,” a product of quotation
anthologist Terri Guillemets of Phoenix, Ariz. She started collecting
quotations at age 13 and has made it her career to “spread quotatious joy.”
She
also has a knack for writing her own quotations, and she has a love of ice
cream. Two of Guillemets’ sayings are:
“Me
and ice cream. Best friends forever.”
“I
don’t cry over spilt milk, but a fallen scoop of ice cream is enough to ruin my
whole day.”
No comments:
Post a Comment