We All Scream for Ice Cream!

    My absolute  favorite treat to have is ice cream.  I can eat it all year round-summer or winter and I could eat it every day.  Ice cream is one of America's favorite treats and you can get practically get it anywhere.  It's sold at the grocery store, at restaurants, amusement parks, the movies, and there are even shops dedicated to selling ice cream as their main product.  The only hard part about ice cream is which flavor to choose because there are hundreds! from vanilla to cookies and cream (my favorite) to chocolate.  And then once you decide the flavor you have to decide if you want any toppings.  although it can be a tough decision once its made you get to enjoy one of the best treats ever made.  But, when was ice cream created and by whom?  Well, here are a few facts about the history of ice cream.
    Ice cream is thought to date all the way back to B.C times when Nero was emperor of Rome.  It is said that he would have his slaves retrieve snow from the mountains and mix honey, nectar, and fruit pulp into it for him to eat.  King Tang the ruler of Shang, China was another important historical figure who was known to mix things in with ice and milk to eat.  Another theory is that Marco Polo may have brought some of these recipes from Asia back to Europe with him. 
   Once ice cream reached America a lot of famous people served this treat at important events or parties. George Washington and Thomas Jefferson   served it to guests in the 1700's.  Maryland's Governor Bladen also was noted for serving ice cream to his guests. And Dolly Madison served ice cream at the inaugural ball in 1812.
    The first American Ice cream parlor was opened in 1776 and it was actually the colonists who came up with the name ice cream.  Ice cream comes from the word Iced cream which was a drink similar to iced tea.
   A man named Italio Marchiony is credited for  the waffle bowl, which was patented in 1903.  He started using these edible bowls to prevent customers from walking away with his dishes.  Another story of how the ice cream cone started happened at the world's fair in Saint Louis, Missouri in 1904.  An ice cream vendor apparently ran out of dishes and so he teamed up with a waffle vendor at the fair who rolled the waffles into cones for the ice cream to be served in.
    The ice cream float was developed by a man named Robert M. Green who served a drink that included carbonated water, flavored syrup, and cream.  One day he ran out of cream and substituted it with ice cream hoping that know one would notice the difference.  Well, customers did notice and it became a huge hit and his sales increased greatly.
    In 1843 the first Ice cream hand-cranked churn was created by Nancy Johnson who ended up selling her patent.  Jacob Fussell created the first ice cream plant in 1851 in Baltimore.
   Now what about those popular ice cream flavors, when did they come to be?
Cookies and cream ice cream was created in 1983 and became number five on the list of best-selling ice cream flavors and holds the name of being the fastest growing new flavor of ice cream in the history of the product.  Surprisingly, chocolate chip cookie dough ice cream wasn't invented until 1991!
Ice cream has really come a long way and continues to be a very popular treat for people everywhere!

Information from:
http://www.makeicecream.com/hisoficecrea.html
http://inventors.about.com/od/foodrelatedinventions/a/ice_cream.htm

Picture from:
http://www.collegesurfing.com/blog/2009/07/22/carnival-of-college-admissions-32-blog-flavors-and-counting/